The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education - 2nd Edition

W. Edwards Deming is the man who tried to tell America how to make industry more effective. Few listened, so he went to postwar Japan and revolutionized their industry instead. When American industrial leaders saw Japan beating them, then they got interested. Almost anything by Deming is a must-read for his commonsense but statistically-based theories for productive, happy work. The New Economics is pretty short but introduces a lot of the points. For the in-depth view, read his Out of The Crisis.

"This book is for people who are living under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management," writes Deming in the preface. Deming has strong convictions, many of which are counter to conventional management thinking.

Deming does not believe in ratings and grades. He says performance is mostly attributable to the system in which that person works. "The forces of destruction that come from the present style of reward ... squeeze out from an individual, over his lifetime, his innate intrinsic motivation.... They build into him fear, self-defense, extrinsic motivation. We have been destroying our people from toddlers on through university and on the job. We must preserve the power of intrinsic motivation, dignity, cooperation, curiosity, joy in learning, that people are born with."

Nor does Deming think highly of goals. "Only the method is important, not the goal."

"It is wrong to suppose that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it - a costly myth."

"The customer is not in the pyramid. A pyramid, as an organization chart, thus destroys the system, if ever one was intended." Instead Deming uses flow diagrams.

"With shared responsibility, no one is responsible. Joint responsibility is totally different from divided responsibility... Learning under a teacher is a joint effort between teacher and pupil."

Deming makes the distinction between common causes of variation, and special causes. He quotes Brian Joiner who said, "One necessary qualification of anyone in management is to stop asking people to explain ups and downs ... that come from random variation."

Deming is a legendary name in quality management, especially in Japan through his consulting work with Japanese industry from 1950 onward. He died at age 93 before the second edition of this book went to press.

In this book W. Edwards Deming details the system of transformation that underlies the 14 Points for Management presented in Out of the Crisis. The system of profound knowledge, as it is called, consists of four parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology. Describing prevailing management style as a prison, Deming shows how a style based on cooperation rather than competition can help people develop joy in work and learning at the same time that it brings about long-term success in the market. Indicative of Deming's philosophy is his advice to abolish performance reviews on the job and grades in school.

This book is a good read because it challenges traditional beliefs of how people work with each other to ultimately reach a common goal of success and advancement. Deming begins by arguing that the current system of management is flawed stating that the main problem is that were being taught that competition is the key to success. However, he argues that this is the combat of destruction. He instead encourages cooperation and that what society should be looking for is new knowledge. This is found within his idea of System of Profound Knowledge. Here his goal is to transform the style of management. Deming continues to explain that customers only learn what they are conditioned to expect. Here, he goes onto describe how quality is created. He states that it stems from top management and is determined rather than delegated. What is surprising is that he believes, “zero defect is not sufficient.” But, instead says that quality must show “continuous product improvement.”

This book taught me to see businesses, government and education different. One of his main points is to cooperate and with cooperation we can grow and improve in a better and more positive rate. I like this book because it teaches a person a challenging thought of going against the norm. What I think is interesting is when Deming challenges the concept of competition and instead encourages cooperation. Ever since we began school at the age of four or five, we were always rewarded for doing good and “sticking out” amongst our other peers and it’s been tailored like that ever since. Even now when we are applying for jobs, our resumes are in competition with our peers. I do agree with Deming’s belief in cooperation however, I also think that this only applies to the people that are willing to cooperate. In my opinion, the audience that Deming speaks to are those that are willing to learn and grow together as a society. And this is actually mentioned in the book where he discusses that the desire to learn is what can contribute to the growth of our society and advancement.

The new economics was a great book to read, however it was very repetitive. Deming thinks that the current system we are in needs to be changed because its individual based, and needs to be changed to more of a team approach. He wants to get rid of the grading system because it prevents those who have low grades from becoming better because of humiliation. I thought it should be a book for everyone to read not just those in the statistics field.

Furthermore, I thought that Deming brought too much of his personal life into the book. Almost half of the book was just about him and his wife and their personal problems.

After reading the "New Economics" by W. Edwards Deming I was very surprised. Mr. Deming's made the book very easy to read and understand. In my case it was the examples that really put things in perspective. "The Red Bead Experiment" was an example that was very good at explaining exactly what it was that, we needed to take away from the example, the difference between common cause and special cause variation. Management should be solely responsible for the well being of the production line. Personally, Deming's did a really good job in describing typical work situations that I personally am aware of. I enjoyed the way he broke everything down into its simplest form. You do not have to be an industrial engineer to understand the message he is trying to convey. The message he is trying to convey is "Team Work" because it is only when every person in the group agrees with each other that everyone can come together for one common purpose. He was very specific in the situation that he believed everything and everyone could work together. In his eyes the hierarchy had to be done away with. There was no one person that was better than the next. This one belief that I have always believed in. I appreciate his train of thought and think that if it could be applied to the small stream businesses it would be extremely effective. It sounds like Deming's was a man of the people because he described every person's job just as important as the next. It sounded like he believed in the chain of command. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and would recommend it to those trying to get a more in-depth feel to what common cause variation and special cause variation really means.

My reading has not revealed any direct answers that Deming provides. He simply presents the principles for organizations and leaders to solve their own internal situations. This approach to management applies to both private revenue-generating businesses, as well as, public revenue-derived from taxes operating government organizations. The shared mental models are adaptable to both types of organizations. Essentially, Deming stresses that all who are involved have input, so they each own the results of the product and service endeavors. Thought-provoking teachings. All for One, and One for All !! Chet Rossman II

Wow. After 25 years in the quality business I am still not ready to claim I completely 'understand' Deming. He was of course, a brilliant statistician and business optimization theorist . . . but he was also a physicist. His famous quip, "Water turns to ice . . . same molecules. . . what happened?" I finally realize, was his way of speaking to the state change that occurs in a phase transition, the same phenonmeon that occurs when organizations cross over to quality. Deming was the real Superman.

also read [[ASIN:158961397X Superperformance]]

I was asked to read this book for my quality control class and soon realize how helpful this book could be. I really understand much of what Dr. Deming is talking about. It shows that America needs to improve its management skills and work together in order to improve our over all productivity in this country. The book was great with several examples and experiments that can be used to teach our young managers.

thank you