Profound Elephants
July 25th, 2008 Posted in Rants
You cannot understand any one element of Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) without understanding the others. Each is a theoretical perspective—a point of view—used in the final analysis, to understand the same world.
Each of the proverbial five blind men touched one part of the elephant and reported his conclusion about the beast to the Caliph. All was confusion and contradiction. Nothing was gained. Had the blind men collaborated and integrated their understanding, they would have been able to characterize the great animal in more useful ways.
Parts is parts but elephants aren’t parts, they are living, breathing, trumpeting, lumbering biological systems. We might say that each is an example of the System of Profound Elephants.
