Point 13 directs a business to go beyond job training for one’s current position (Point 6) to sup- port the personal development of every worker. Programs of this nature support people in ac- quiring knowledge and skills that enhance their abilities to think, relate, and perform more
Exhibit 12. Point 12’s Implications for the Quality Model’s Approach to Executive Functions
Result Affected Required Activities Required Resources
Sufficiency Abolish performance management sys- tems that create barriers to pride of workmanship, undermine a focus on continuous improvement, compromise people’s intrinsic striving to learn and grow in capability and achievement, distract management from their role as leaders, impede teamwork, or other- wise compromise the aims and method of the Quality model.
Ensure that managers act as leaders not judges and work as colleagues with the people they supervise, counseling them on a day-to-day basis, enabling their success, and learning from them and with them.
Implement:
more careful selection of people in the first place,
better training and education after selection,
determine pay for people within a system based on the performance of the system (perhaps similar in concept to gainsharing), provide performance assisting interviews —“three or four hours at least once a year”—not to criticize but to provide help to each worker in his or her efforts to improve personal performance, and
use data to understand and improve systems and the manager’s
performance and not to rate or rank people.
Executives who possess and apply the knowledge and skills of leadership as defined in Required Resources, Exhibit 7, pages 30–31 with the following additions.
Knowledge of:
the importance of setting the focus on continuous improvement, people’s intrinsic desire to achieve valued outcomes and grow in capability, and
the significance of their intrinsic striving for achieving quality. Skill in detecting systems or actions that deny people pride of workman- ship and undermine their intrinsic striv- ing to learn and grow in capability.
effectively. These capabilities enrich their contribution to the business by preparing them to un- dertake new, more challenging roles and to generate ever better ideas for how the business can improve. These programs nourish people’s inherent striving to learn and grow and energize fur- ther their engagement in and contributions to the business.
Deming’s Thinking
Deming asserts that, “What an organization needs is not just good people; it needs people that are improving with education” (Deming, 1982a, p. 86). The foundation of his thinking is that “advances in competitive position will have their roots in knowledge” (ibid). But Dem- ing’s promotion of self-improvement is not solely related to producing sustained organiza- tional success. It is essential for personal fulfillment—sustained pride of workmanship. He states, “People require in their careers, more than money, ever-broadening opportunities to add something to society, materially and otherwise” (ibid). In essence his formulation is this: Education and self-improvement enhance one’s knowledge and with enhanced knowledge, a person elevates his or her capability to contribute to improving a business committed to the Quality model. In such a setting, the individual's enhancement in capability satisfies his or her personal striving for growth and desire for ever greater opportunity “to add something to society, materially and otherwise.” The natural expression of the individual’s personal values and increased competence supports the business’s improvement. This yields for the person increased pride of workmanship and increased opportunities to contribute as a result of the business’s growth. A virtuous cycle of personal growth, increasing contribution, commercial
success, and expanded opportunities to grow further and increase one’s achievements is estab- lished. Once again we see Deming’s conclusion that there is an absolute convergence between enabling personal success and realizing business success.
The correctness of this formulation rests, in part, on people being intrinsically motivated to be effective and to produce measurable benefits for others as well as themselves. It also re- quires that the business is implementing all the remaining management points. Specifically, the organization must remove the barriers to the expression of each person’s intrinsic striving to learn and excel and support the person’s efforts to succeed and contribute. Whether Dem- ing’s assumption about people’s intrinsic striving for mastery and contribution is true is an empirical question. Clearly, there is research to support the existence of such people and that these people do possess the qualities Deming describes (Deci, Koestner, and Ryan, 1999; Gagné and Deci, 2005; Gibbs, 1980; Wilson, G. 2006). His assertion that people require “more than money” in their careers and that new learning, achievement, and advancement energize performance and motivate greater contribution is well supported by multicultural research (Herzberg, 1987). As well, his thinking about people’s intrinsic striving to learn and grow in capability is supported by esteemed personality theorists such a Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, and Carl Rogers, among others. And, as previously cited, the effects of success in learning and achievement on subsequent striving and achievement is supported by at least four decades of empirical research on the construct of self-efficacy and it impact on perform- ance (Bandura, 1994, 1997). Irrespective of its empirical credentials, however, and whether or not Deming’s thinking about the internal makeup of people is universally true, it is clear that such people are required to implement the Quality model.
Implication’s for the Quality Model for Commerce
Point 13 guides managers to promote, facilitate, and otherwise support people’s striving to improve themselves (Exhibit 13). In Deming’s words, a manager in a Quality organization models continuous learning and,
“... encourages his people to study. He provides, when possible and feasible, seminars and courses for advancement of learning. He encourages
continued education in college or university for people that are so inclined” (Deming, 2000, page 126).
Such a manager understands that the opportunity for self-improvement and deepening one’s knowledge is essential to nourishing people’s inherent striving to learn, grow, and achieve. It is also essential to attracting and retaining the type of person needed to implement the Qual- ity model. Thus, no organization seeking to implement the Quality model will attract and retain the people it needs unless it implements a vigorous program of education and self- improvement.
Exhibit 13. Point 13’s Implications for the Quality Model’s Approach to Executive Functions
Result Affected Required Activities Required Resources
Sufficiency Promote, facilitate, and otherwise support people’s striving to improve themselves as the opportunity for self-improvement and the deepening of one’s knowledge is essential to:
attracting and retaining the type of person needed to implement the Qual- ity model and
improving quality constantly and forever.
Executives who possess and apply the knowledge and skills of leadership as defined in Required Resources, Exhibit 7, pages 30–31, and expanded in Exhibit 12, page 45.
The guidance provided in Point 13 is essential to realizing executive purpose of sufficiency. With sufficiency realized, the business has the people it needs to succeed in commerce. Thus, advancing the purpose of sufficiency also advances the purpose of effectiveness. Having peo- ple who are continuously elevated in their competence and achievement enables the busi- ness’s continuous quality improvement and drives sustained business success.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The