Deming’s Theory of Knowledge

In 1997, television journalist Clare Crawford-Mason, gave a speech to the Deming Institute in which she discussed the philosophical discoveries she made since her interviews with Dr. W. E. Deming in the documentary, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We“. She began,

” I met Dr. Deming in his basement in 1979, interviewed him there several times, understood nothing of what he said except the statement, ‘I taught the Japanese to work smarter not harder.’ However, I recognized that he was a prophet ignored in his homeland and knew that this was a story and reported it with Lloyd Dobyns in “If Japan Can,Why Can’t We?” the NBC White Paper in l980.”

Clare’s far reaching speech was new reading to me but her discussion of the “philosophical” implications of Deming’s work was right on target. It has been many years since I read Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I recall being much impressed by their writings, though I regarded them at the time as a bit too mystical for my taste.

Deming’s work represents a theory of knowledge which he came to by way of wrestling with the problems of variation’s ubiquity. This theory of knowledge can be readily translated as a theory of the emergence and structure of human consciousness. Over the years I have found many avenues of approach to this subject in the literature of both science and philosophy. I assume that Deming also found similar sources. What is clear is the work of the arch Pragmatist, C. I. Lewis, figured prominently in the thinking of Deming’s mentor, Walter Shewhart and by extension, I conclude the same was true for Deming.

My blog features a sticky post in which I make an all-too-clumsy effort at explaining in lay terms, how control chart theory is based in a theory of human consciousness (http://www.3sigma.com/whats-so-special-about-3-sigma/ ). I continue to work on it.

In a nutshell, a theory of knowledge (or consciousness if you prefer) speaks to the nature of knowing—it’s potential and its limits. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky tackled this subject with ideas about other forms of knowing. Deming’s other form of knowing was “statistical” and he carefully avoided anything that rang of mysticism. I fall into the Deming camp in this regard.

Systems thinking comes down to developing methods and instincts for hearing the voice of the process, or if you will, the voice of the system. This is the opposite of the reduction that has become the common sense of by-the-numbers and just-the-facts thinking in Western enterprise. Simply put, reduction destroys the object of study. Systems thinking preserves the interacting whole so that we can hear its heat beat, breathing, meaning, and other vital signs. Hearing and understanding the voice is the means by which the intractable interactions that define a system can be brought within the grasp of the naturally reductive mind. Prediction improves. Decisions become more efficacious. Doors to understanding open continually.

Without leadership that understands this way of seeing and understanding, our future remains determined by the fundamental flaws of scientistic reductionism. This was why Deming said, “How could they know?” Without this understanding, they can’t even ask the right questions.