Constancy of Purpose

One of the first blog entries I penned over a year ago focused on the work of Dr. W. E. Deming - one of the key figures in the foundation of total quality improvement.  In that entry I focused on only a few aspects of his work and his famous fourteen points.  What was clear then and is still evident today is that his work still holds truth for us in today's business environment even though he expounded his framework over 60 years ago. 

Last week, while I was in San Diego with other TEC Canada/Vistage chairs I learned of yet another round of personnel and organizational changes in Alberta's health care system.  At this point I've lost track of how many changes this makes for the health care system since the creation of Alberta Health Services in 2008, much less the changes since the mid-1990's.  This latest change had me reflecting on Dr. Deming's first point in his fourteen points - "Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service."  What Deming was responding to and was trying to address in this point was the fixation on issues of the day by those in leadership positions.  He saw long-term planning and a focus on the future being sacrificed to a number of factors - need to produce immediate results, desire on the part of some leaders to rapidly climb the corporate ladder and hence change positions or firms on a constant basis, or rapid involuntary turnover in leadership roles when those people were not seen as being responsive enough to "crisis" issues.

While Dr. Deming might have had corporate USA in mind when he wrote in the 1950's it seems to me that his same commentary can hold true for the public sector - in the US, Canada and other nations - as well.  Too many of our public sector entities - and the governments that fund/direct them - are focused on tomorrow's newspaper headlines or public opinion poll results, meeting "expectations" of stakeholders, balancing the budget or minimizing the deficit, or otherwise meeting some limited metric of success that may or may not have anything to do with true system performance.   "The future is ninety days at most," said Dr. Deming, "or non-existent. There might not be any future. That is what occupies people's minds. That is not the way to stay in business [or provide publicly funded services]. Not the way to get ahead."  Dr. Deming commented, "It is easy to stay bound up in the tangled knots of the problems of today, becoming ever more efficient in them."

Dr. Deming recommended that any organization that was serious about pursuing its long term goals should focus intently on fostering innovation, invest in research and education, be relentless in continuously improving its product and services offerings, and continuously invest in its capital, equipment and other means to support production and/or service delivery.  Each of these is important, but more fundamentally, what constancy of purpose also implies to me is establishing and sticking to a plan. Establish and follow through on a well thought out, long-term strategic plan that recognizes that there will bumps along the way but ultimately holds the course based on well articulated and strongly held values.  At the end of the day this strength of commitment and consistency of direction - constancy of purpose - will allow all employees to connect with and drive forward on key actions.  Failing that, the organization becomes a rudderless ship that starts to define success as mere survival.

Following on this requirement for constancy of purpose, I believe that my blog entry from last year remains relevant.  With minor updates owing to current circumstances, I append them again here as key conditions for helping move an organization forward.
 

Point Seven - Institute Leadership. 

Dr. Deming calls upon management to lead rather than manage.  Simple statement but what does it really mean for us as leaders?  Well I'm pretty confident that if you were to talk to many of our frontline staff and management personnel they would provide you with countless examples of where they felt they were being "managed", not "led".  This bias towards "management" is without doubt enhanced by the immense pressure the health system is under to perform and achieve better results.  An unfortunate "management" response is to exercise greater control and oversight to make sure results get better.  More often than not efforts of this nature only seem to put more barriers in the way of getting good work done - more reports to generate, more signatures to get, more unreasonable timelines to meet, multiple and conflicting demands, and failure to hear and act upon input and recommendations from staff. 

Point Eight - Drive Out Fear.

Maybe fear appears an effective tool to get results in the short-term, but not if you are trying to create a high-performing organization for the long-term.  With fear in an organization there cannot be open communication, innovation, and teamwork - and these are all required for an organization to achieve the full measure of its potential.  Leadership of any organization - and at all levels of the organization - must actively model open communication, encourage appropriate risk taking and innovation, and promote teamwork from the board room, to the executive suite through to the front lines of operations.  With fear in place an organization shall continue to squander the full potential of its people and the organization to the detriment of the those it purports to serve.

Point Ten - Eliminate Slogans, Exhortations and Targets for the Workforce.

Everybody needs to measure performance.  Deming did not intend, nor do I suggest, that system performance not be evaluated on an ongoing basis.  Rather, what Point Ten addresses is the notion of trying to assess an individual's performance without reference to the system in which that individual works.  If an individual is prevented from achieving higher levels of performance by a system (that leadership has created or allowed to be created) then performance managing an employee, setting new targets for them to achieve, and giving them "motivational" speeches will have little impact on performance.  It is far more likely that such efforts will actually cause frustration, demoralization and reduced performance.  Deming's red bead experiment is a great illustration of this principle - given an equal number of red and white beads, an employee is tasked with collecting only white beads with an employer-provided scoop or paddle.  Inevitably, the employee collects some red beads in their assigned task.  As a result of "failing" in their assigned task, the employee may be given further direction by their supervisor, there may be encouragement to do better, they may be applauded if their red bead count has gone down, or they may be chastised if their red bead count goes up.  Regardless, their individual effort and various interventions at the personal level will have no impact on actual outcome.  It's like expecting employee engagement scores in an organization to go up simply by saying that the target is 10 out of 10 on the next engagement survey.  Only by changing the system and the organizational environment will better, more consistent results be achieved.  I see a strong correlation between Point Ten and the need to Drive Out Fear from an organization as noted earlier.  In fact, I believe that what leaders often create by exhortations to do better is an environment in which results and information are hidden through fear rather than being actively discovered.  And only by discovery can we improve.

Point Twelve - Remove Barriers to Pride of Workmanship.

In this point, Deming was referring to unclear expectations, lack of timely feedback (or any feedback), lack of training and support, and systems that focused on short-term results rather than long-term goals.  Staff and front-line managers are often frustrated by multiple tasks or changing priorities (see Point Seven) as leaders change focus or react to external stimuli without, it seems, due regard to long-term objectives or stated core values.  And unfortunately, more than one of us can relate to the fear that the performance evaluation process creates in us - either as provider or receiver of the experience.  Too often this is because we establish the evaluation process as a one-time event, not as a continual process of discussion, engagement and opportunity.  There is a need too to ensure that the evaluation process becomes an opportunity for leaders and staff alike to identify and invest in skills and intellect.  It is also a great opportunity for leaders to model desired behaviours and reinforce common goals.  On this latter point, I firmly believe that there must be a high degree of visibility and sincere engagement with internal audiences on par with leadership visibility and engagement with external audiences.  Without the kind of internal alignment that I believe comes from such effort the ability to deliver on commitments to external audiences and customers stands on shaky ground.

Deming's principles were valid guideposts when penned 60 years ago.  They were valid guideposts last year.  They remain as valid guideposts today.
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.