Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge

I have always been fascinated by Deming’s adoption of an SOPK model — an interactive system which, as a whole, embraces an appreciation of systems, understanding variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology.  His work propelled him toward new ways of seeing and understanding that overflowed the boundaries of traditional academic inquiry. He was not alone in struggling with the underlying contradictions of human knowing. As a young man he stood at ringside, watching the great debates of early 20th century physics during which the very existence of “true facts” was convincingly called into question (Heisenberg Uncertainty, etc.). Of course, Shewhart spoke to this very issue. Einstein went to his grave lamenting the very idea that our ability to know was inherently limited.

Deming came to the realization that no single view of the world can ever do the job. There is no “grand unification” of human knowing. It is necessary to view unfolding events in terms of a “system” of knowing. In doing so, it is possible to continuously improve “understanding”. This is very much about becoming a generalist in the grandest sense—scientifically, morally, and spiritually. It is about developing an intuition that makes us fix our gaze on possibilities that lie over the horizon rather than behind us in the “rear-view mirror”. Our habitual ways of knowing must be overthrown.

The traditional boundaries of academic formalism have long since grown useless. Worse yet, disciplinary approaches lead us astray. forcing us down narrow paths that become self-fulfilling realities. (Whenever I sit in on senior staff meetings at various companies, I am always reminded of the fable of the five blind men describing an elephant—hapless and hopeless.)

In my opinion, Deming’s most powerful contribution along these lines has been to use what has sometimes been called “statistical thinking” to undermine the Spencerian psychological assumptions of 19th and 20th century Economics (Social Darwinism). Among Deming’s many heresies—-”money is not a motivator”, “there are no true facts”, “the most important things cannot be measured”, “willing workers”, “how could they know?” and “we are here to create a new world”. As is the case for the 14-Points, not one of these observations is arbitrary or ad hoc.

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