I do not believe you will find a good answer to how he knew. But I want to
say when a manager starts behaving as if most problems are in the way we
do the work and not in the people, they are. When a manager behaves as if
most problems are in the people then for him/her that is true also.
A manager can cause system problems to be people problems but a manager
looking for system problems does not cause people or system problems.
I believe Deming said that in different ways because it supported his
experience and he knew of we changed our questions and look at the way
work is done and not waste energy on blame we would solve more problems
and understand the truth he had in mind.
His reference supports my experience and those I have trained or forced to
change their approach found it to be true also.
et.
At 11:53 AM 2/23/99 EST, you wrote:
>The quote in question turned out to be: "In my experience, most troubles
>and most possibilities for improvement add up to proportions something
>like this:
> 94% belong to the system(the responsiblity of management)
> 6% are attributed to special causes"
>
>The author is W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (Cambridge:
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 1982. However, when I went to
>Deming's book, I was disappointed in that he did not state how he knew
>this.
>
>Peter Clute
--Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com>
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