My Letter to Obama

As an interesting exercise, I decided to draft a letter to Obama offering some Deming inspired advice. I just wanted to see what I would come up with.

First, I carefully acknowledged his accomplishments as a candidate and his undeniable leadership abilities. Next, with the utmost respect, I explained that he might find Dr. Deming’s ideas useful and suggested he look into Deming’s work. I concluded with some quotes and brief explanations of their importance. I included things like aiming, constancy of purpose, operational definitions, systems, variation, optimization and suboptimization, and perverse incentives.

As I was finishing my draft, Obama started his inauguration speech. I stopped writing and sat down to listen. By the time he had finished I realized that this guy really does GET IT! At this point, he doesn’t need my advice, he needs my support. Obama is so far out of the ideological box, that colleagues and media pundits haven’t got a clue about where he is coming from. First they call him “left”, then “centrist”, then “Clintonian”, then “bipartisan”, then “post-partisan”, and now “post-ideological”. They keep trying to figure his angle for gaming the system, but he sheds their labels like water from a duck’s back. He is steadfast in a vision of a better world and talks about a method that sounds to me like PDSA at its best. He understands diversity and variation. He understands systems and aims. He understand theory and methods. He knows how to plan and how to use method. He knows that sometimes plans and methods will fail the test of doing and both will need to be improved continuously.

In his speech Obama used the phrase “We are in a new age” and added that “the ground is moving out from under” those who continue to think “ideologically” (his word). He warned friends and foes alike that they would be working within a new paradigm. His message is that he has no interest in debating “right ideas”. He is interested in right aims and useful methods.

The great battles before him will not be due to the economy or Islamic fundamentalists. They will be the battles to overcome the resistance of reactionaries, ideologues, and even good-willed traditionalists who just don’t get what he’s talking about. Will he win those battles? I have no idea. But I have no doubt that this guy GETS IT!

I’ll save my “letter to Obama” as a humbling reminder of the courage, boldness, skill, and vision of this young man. I’m glad I was around to witness his rise to leadership. Here’s hoping he can survive the nay-sayers who will be looking to pick him to pieces based on nonsensical short-term measures of success and failure. That drum beat has already begun.