Common management myths (see here and here) must be replaced by sound guiding principles. In this post, I’ll describe the ninth such principle, Break Down Barriers. 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 9: Break down barriers between departments and grade levels and develop strategies for increasing cooperation among groups and individuals. Administrators, business & financial managers, operations staff, support staff, students, and teachers, etc. must work as a team to foresee problems in the production and use of high-quality learning experiences.

As a starting point, it is important to be very clear on what is being produced by school systems, something that is clarified when viewing it through the model in Figure 1 below. 

Figure 1. United Schools Network: A Systems View

Stop and think about this idea. What exactly is being produced by a school system? The answer is much simpler in industry where it is easy to see the product coming off the line in the form of a car, a laptop, or a refrigerator. Your first instinct may have been to answer “students” in response to the question about what is being produced. However, if you really stop and think about it, this is not quite right. Rather, the aim in school systems is to produce high-quality learning (i.e., knowledge and skills) and not the students themselves. 

The key is to think about how we’ve organized our school systems to accomplish this aim. Most institutions, including school systems, are organized functionally for efficiency purposes, but they need to operate cross-functionally. The problems that occur because of the barriers relate to the basic idea that when you improve the performance of a part of a system taken separately, you can destroy the system. Deming gave us his Point 9 to shift the focus from barriers and competition between departments to cooperation and his Win-Win philosophy. Barriers lead to suboptimization because individual departments or grade levels focus more on achieving their goals than on improving the whole system. The bigger and more entrenched the barriers the worse the effects of this suboptimization on other departments or grade levels in the school system. 

In the systems view of schools illustrated by Figure 1, you’ll notice that there are no horizontal lines (i.e., walls), but those artificial barriers have been erected by management in almost all systems. Just as top management erected the barriers, it is their responsibility to break them down. Unfortunately, unlike physical barriers such as a wall made of brick or stone, barriers between departments and grade levels operate in the reverse. Physical barriers take time to build but can be destroyed quickly. Barriers in school systems can be erected quickly, but must be taken down with deliberate thought and patience. This is because you are replacing one system that serves a purpose with another system that serves a very different purpose. 

Barriers between departments and grade levels not only impede improvement efforts, but also can act as an impediment to innovation. When barriers are up, the emphasis is on “my departmental goals” or “my grade level’s goals” instead of on “my school’s goals”. In this type of environment, the communication and the sharing of ideas necessary for innovation are lacking. A crucial difference between the prevailing style of management and the Deming philosophy is how people at all levels of the organization view their jobs. In the prevailing style, workers tend to look out for themselves. In the Deming style, the focus is on system optimization. The key here is to realize that the system itself has a major say in how the people working within it operate. In what ways does the system of management, including the system of reward, guide the administrators, business & financial managers, operations staff, support staff, students, and teachers in the school system?

A critical role to consider in the school system is that of the business and financial managers, especially given the cost-conscious nature of public education systems. In order for the Deming philosophy to bring about improvement, these leaders must realize that their role is certainly to carefully steward public moneys, but this should not be achieved by beating down costs. Instead, the point is to optimize the system, remembering from Principle 4 that the main idea is to understand the difference between the lowest bidder and the lowest qualified bidder. Imagine a scenario where the school system picked a curriculum at least in part because of the cost, and then teachers end up printing other materials on their classroom printers because the curriculum that was purchased isn’t serving their needs. Price has no meaning without a measure of the quality being purchased, including after-sale service and use. This can only be realized if all people, including the finance people, see the organization as a system. 

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.