Common management myths (see here and here) must be replaced by sound guiding principles. In this post, I’ll describe the seventh such principle, Adopt & Institute Leadership. It is worth noting that the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation are mutually supporting, so it is important to understand all of them rather than studying them in isolation. An in-depth discussion of the full set of Principles for Transformation can be found in Chapter 3 of my recently released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools.

Principle 7: Adopt and institute leadership aimed at helping people to do a better job. Management's responsibility must shift from focusing solely on outcomes to focusing on the quality of learning experiences and services produced by the educational system.

The prevailing style of leadership in most American organizations has embedded within it barriers to long-term constancy of purpose (Principle 1) in the form of the management myths. In addition, there is often the creation of hero leaders through short-term crisis management instead of a commitment to continual improvement (Principle 5). The required transformation includes the transition of managers and supervisors to become leaders. Focus on outcome (i.e., management by numbers, numerical goals, MBO, performance appraisal, merit pay) must be abolished with leadership installed in its place. Leadership following the Deming philosophy is responsible for creating an environment where educators and students have genuine interest in their work and are supported to do it well. These are mutually reinforcing activities, meaning that if people are interested in their work and learning then they will want to do it well and will accept help to do just that. If the conditions set them up to do well, then their interest will increase, and a virtuous cycle is created. However, the opposite can and often is created where a vicious cycle occurs. The system is set up in such a way that it leads to the likelihood of people doing a bad job, interest in the work or learning plummets, which in turn causes them to do an even poorer job, which in turn lessens interest even further. The constant churn of new teachers is a good example of this vicious cycle.

The virtuous cycle is more likely to occur when transformation is guided by the System of Profound Knowledge. As systems leaders learn and apply this system, they in turn exhibit certain behaviors that lead people and organizations toward continual improvement of planning, teaching, learning, and service processes (Principle 5) on an ongoing basis. As it relates to managing people using the Deming philosophy, leadership behaviors are guided by appreciation for a system, logical theories of variation and knowledge, and understanding psychological concepts such as intrinsic motivation.

The adoption of Principle 7 can sound a bit soft and maybe even a bit scary. Typical questions from staff (and questions I asked when first learning the 14 Principles) include, “How do you motivate educators and students in the absence of numerical goals? How do you hold people accountable for their work or learning without performance appraisal? These questions are more than reasonable, until you realize what Deming meant by adopt and institute leadership. To make this clear, he circulated a document at several of his four-day seminars towards the end of his life called “Some Attributes of a Leader” that paints a clear picture.[1] I’ve reproduced this list below with some adjustments to the wording with the intention of keeping the spirit of the list in place while translating it for an education audience.

Some Attributes of a Leader

• Understands how the work of his or her department, school, or classroom fits into the overall aim of the system. The assumption is that the school board and senior administrators have done their job to clearly define and communicate the system aim, so classroom and building leaders can figure out how they and their students fit in.

• Works with preceding stages and with following stages within the systems view of the organization. Focuses on the customer, both internal and external.

• The leader tries to remove the barriers to joy in work and learning for everybody. He or she tries to optimize the education, skills, and abilities of everyone and help everyone to improve.

• Is coach and counsel, not a judge.

• Uses figures to help them to understand the people and themselves. They understand variation. They use statistical calculation to learn who, if anybody, is outside the system and in need of special help. Effective leaders understand that the question is not, “Are employees/students different?” but rather “Are they significantly different?” Statistical methods and Knowledge about Variation help leaders answer that second question and take appropriate action to improve teaching and learning processes accordingly.  Figure 1 illustrates this leadership attribute.

Figure 1. Leadership of People Using the Theory of Systems and Variation

Source: Adapted from Henry R. Neave, The Deming Dimension. (Knoxville, Tennessee: SPC Press, 1990), 335.

• Works to improve the teaching and learning processes within which employees and students work. Effective leaders continually improve these processes instead of sorting, tracking, grading, and ranking students and rating and ranking employees.

• Creates trust. Leaders are aware that the creation of trust requires them to take risks.

• Does not expect perfection; forgives a mistake.

• Listens and learns without passing judgment on those that they listen to.

A key concept implied by the attributes and illustrated in Figure 1 is Deming’s focus on variation as opposed to the traditional focus on averages. Average values can be useful, but Figure 1 makes it clear that improving a system includes both decreased variation around some optimal value as well as a better process average. A reduction in variation often also results in the improvement of the average level of performance.

As reported by Henry Neave in The Deming Dimension, when Deming was asked about what qualifications we should look for in candidates for promotion he answered, “What better than the ability to be a leader?” Of leaders he said, “Why lead? People happier, quality up, productivity up, everybody wins.”[2]

Blog Series: 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation

The four components of the System of Profound Knowledge work in concert to provide us with profound insights about how our organizations operate so that leaders can in turn work to optimize the whole of our systems. However, there is a step beyond simply avoiding the management myths. The next step is to be able to think and make decisions using the lens provided by the System of Profound Knowledge. This is where the core set of 14 Principles come into play. In this series, I’m describing the principles that will enable you to move from theory to practice with the Deming philosophy.

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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools Network, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the newly released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschoolsnetwork.org. 

Notes

1. The version of the list I used is from: Henry R. Neave, The Deming Dimension (Knoxville, Tennessee: SPC Press, 1990), 335. There is a similar list on pages 117-118 of Out of the Crisis.

2. Henry R. Neave, The Deming Dimension (Knoxville, Tennessee: SPC Press, 1990), 339.