William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant.
###Edward Deming - An American Hero in Japan### Many in Japan credit Deming as the inspiration for what has become known as the Japanese post-war economic miracle of 1950 to 1960, when Japan rose from the ashes of war to become the second most powerful economy in the world in less than a decade founded on the ideas Deming taught:
- Better design of products to improve service
- Higher level of uniform product quality
- Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centers
- Greater sales through side [global] markets
Deming is best known in the United States for his 14 Points (Out of the Crisis, by W. Edwards Deming, Preface) and his system of thought he called the System of Profound Knowledge. The system comprises four components or “lenses” through which to view the world simultaneously:
- Appreciating a system
- Understanding variation
- Psychology
- Epistemology, the theory of knowledge
One of Edward Deming’s 14 points talk about “Pride of Workmanship”.
###So what exactly Pride of Workmanship is.###
From a school janitor to a Wall Street CEO, everybody seeks pride in their work. A janitor looks at the clean stairs and feels pride. Same goes for the CEO. She looks at the excel charts and feels pride in the profits she generated.
So this brings up a question: How come people fail in their job, if pride is their number one concern.
Deming answers this question by saying, “Lack of training and tools”.
So if you see someone who is not good at their job, you can simply assume that they don’t have the training or the tools they need.
This can also be applied to resolving conflicts in the workplace.
When an employee regularly arrives late or calls in sick, the employer will eventually become frustrated with the employee and question the apparent lack of commitment to his position. The employee’s reasons may seem, or even be valid to him, but when the employer begins to feel the employee may be taking advantage of the employer’s leniency, things will likely take a turn toward conflict, wherein the employer may begin documenting the employee’s lack of timeliness and poor attendance.
So if you were the employer, how would you resolve such a conflict:
The first thing to do is to remember Deming’s Pride of Workmanship saying. We know that the employee tries to have pride but it just simply doesn’t happen.
So in order to get a deeper understanding of this problem, the employer should have a candid talk and see the root reasons behind the problem and then try to solve them.
If you had previous conflicts that you are lucky because those experiences will give you to improve your conflict resolution process. You may start by asking yourselves the following questions:
- What was it about? What happened?
- What was the source of the conflict?
- What basic emotions did you feel upon analyzing the conflict?
- What actions did you take to resolve your conflict?
- If you could go back, what would you do differently, if anything?
- What did you learn from this experience?
