28 January 2007

W. Edwards Deming on the Future of Capitalism

WARNING: This will probably challenge your notions about what constitutes good management AND what a prophet of the future should sound like.

Deming is one of my heroes. Here he explains how the current system of management destroys the individual. Think about how much within the corporation would have to change in order for what he advocates to become true.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does that mean that the prophet should sound as an engineer? :)

Ron Davison said...

Let's just hope, Vladimir, that it doesn't take the world 50+ years to get your message so that you're finally speaking to packed halls at the age of 92. :)

I've often wondered what it would be like if Deming sounded more like Tony Robbins or if Robbins thought more like Deming. Just imagine.

Anonymous said...

Knowing the strengths of Deming's vista and Robbins' repertoire, why don't you combine them and find out yourself? Courage, my friend!

50+ years?

I don't think so!

Time is essentially motion, and motion can also be highly non-linear. Our time scales have changed since Deming went to Japan in the late 1940's. Our world is experiencing higher levels of interconnection than ever before, affecting the travel of ideas, the implementation of changes, and the propagation of their effects. As a result, everything happens quicker today and the pace will keep accelerating.

What is that leading us to?

I guess many of us will be greatly surprised when interconnection reaches a critical point and things previously deemed impossible suddenly become realistic. Such as lasting world peace :)

War becomes impossible when distances (between people) begin to collapse.