Mike Micklewright Performing as Dr. W. Edwards Deming: What Would Deming Say About Lean and Six Sigma?

Episode #43 of LeanBlog Podcast is a very special one. My guest is Mike Mickleright, writer, consultant, and performer — most interesting to me is his impersonation of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

As I wrote about before, I've seen his DVD and Mike agreed to create this podcast with me. We start off talking with Mike about his background with Dr. Deming and how he created the impersonation. Then, we shift into me interviewing Mike as Dr. Deming, asking him some questions on modern quality approaches including Lean and Six Sigma.

For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple Podcasts.

LeanBlog Podcast #43 Key Points & Links

• Quality Quest (http://www.mikemick.com/)
• Dr. W. Edwards Deming (wikipedia)
• The Deming Institute
• “Dr. Deming” (as performed by Mike) on Lean
• “Dr. Deming” (as performed by Mike) on Six Sigma

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 372-5682 or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

Podcast #43 — Mike Micklewright on Deming and Performing as Dr. Deming: What Would Deming Say?

Recorded early May 2008, published May 17, 2008

Editor's note: The second half of this episode features Mike Micklewright performing in character as Dr. W. Edwards Deming — offering his best read of what Deming might say today about Lean, Six Sigma, and modern management. These are Mike's interpretations and imagined Deming responses, not verbatim Deming quotes. The “Mike as Deming” label below reflects that.

Intro

Mark Graban: Hi, this is Mark Graban, and you are listening to episode number 43 of the Lean Blog Podcast for May 17th, 2008.

Today is a very unique podcast. Our guest is Mike Micklewright, the founder of Quality Quest. One interesting thing that Mike does — I became aware of this a few months ago and I blogged about it — is a presentation, an impersonation of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. I've had a chance to see the DVD of his presentation, and it's quite impressive.

We are doing a podcast today that'll be in a couple of parts. First, we're going to talk to Mike and learn about his background with Dr. Deming, and the work he does as a consultant and a performer, and how he got started with the Deming impersonation. Then we're going to shift into a mode where we're actually going to podcast with Mike as Dr. Deming, kind of along the lines of his presentation called “What Would Deming Say?” We're going to talk about some modern issues of Lean and Six Sigma. Mike does a good job of speaking in the voice of Dr. Deming and saying things that we might expect Dr. Deming to say if he were still with us today, about 15 years since he passed away.

So I hope you enjoy the podcast. If you want to get in touch with Mike, or if you're interested in booking him for an in-person appearance at a meeting or a business event, you can contact him at his website, which is www.mikemick.com, M-I-K-E-M-I-C-K.com. If you have any feedback, visit the website leanpodcast.org, which will take you to the link to the page for this episode. As always, thanks for listening.

Well, again, our guest is Mike Micklewright from Quality Quest. Thanks for being here today.

Mike Micklewright: Thank you for having me.

From Saturn to NUMMI to Deming

Mark Graban: Mike, I was wondering if you could start off by telling us about your background with quality improvement and with the Deming philosophy.

Mike Micklewright: Oh boy. Well, I started off with Saturn Corporation of General Motors. Actually I was a summer student when it was still a Saturn project, back in the summer of '85. After I was done with that stint during the summer, I came on as a full-time employee.

My first person I ever reported to was the vice president of engineering — it's kind of like I had one of the best jobs out of all the summer students, because I got to report to a VP right away. That was Jay Wetzel. And he had been listening to Deming quite a bit. He was kind of a Deming disciple and learned a lot about his ways. In fact, a lot of the old people from the Pontiac Motor Division came over to Saturn, and they had been in discussions with Deming, and so some of that philosophy kind of rubbed off. I didn't know a lot about Deming at the time, but I heard a little bit about his philosophies, and that kind of got me interested.

Then with Saturn, we also did some benchmarking. So we drove two of the four Saturns that were built at the time through the deserts and the mountains out west, and learned a little bit about benchmarking. I also learned from Phil Ross about design of experiments, and the Taguchi methods, and the importance of reduction of variation. So I began to teach that right away. A lot of different things hit me right at the very beginning, early in my career, including a visit out to NUMMI, and understanding the Toyota Way and seeing how self-reliant they actually were. I went out there to benchmark equipment, and found out that they basically built all of their equipment. They were completely self-reliant. That was a big part of what I had learned back then.

Quality Quest Today

Mark Graban: Can you tell us a little bit about your firm, Quality Quest, and the types of work that you do today?

Mike Micklewright: Sure. Most of it is primarily in three different areas. It's building effective and efficient quality management systems — that are certified ISO 9001 or not, or anything that's based on ISO 9001 — root cause analysis, and then I do an awful lot of lean work. Not just teaching of lean tools, but really focusing in on developing the lean culture. A lot of what Deming preached about comes into my lean teaching as well.

There's a lot of overlap between the quality management system, root cause analysis, and lean. A lot of people don't see that overlap, but there's a tremendous amount of overlap between the three. So I try to integrate those philosophies. One example would be lean quality management systems. A lot of companies have over-documented quality management systems — way too many procedures and work instructions to ever be effective. I instill the principles of lean into the quality management system, making it much more effective and efficient and shorter.

How the Deming Impersonation Began

Mark Graban: The reason we had you here today really is to talk about the impression that you do of Dr. Deming. I want to thank you again for sending the DVD. It was really pretty amazing to see. I was wondering if you could, before we chat with you in Dr. Deming's voice, tell us a little bit about the idea of doing that presentation and impersonation — how you got started and how it's been received so far.

Mike Micklewright: Yeah, well, I've always kind of liked acting. I put a lot of my own videos together, and I've always liked being up on stage and presenting. A couple years ago I went to an ASQ conference — I think it was for an auditing conference — and they had one of the keynotes was a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator. And he was pretty good. But he struggled to tie it in with quality. A lot of people didn't really see that tie-in. It went off okay, and that was the first time it hit me. I was thinking, well, geez, wouldn't it be cool to have Dr. Deming up there speaking about quality at a quality conference?

So I started at that point to do a little bit more research and started to put a script together. And then also locally here — I'm in the Chicago area — locally here, there's a DJ who speaks to a Thomas Jefferson impersonator on the radio. And he is as if he is Thomas Jefferson. They also do a show, and in the show, which is an evening show, the moderator asks Thomas Jefferson questions, and Thomas Jefferson of course is dressed up in the same garb that he would have had in the 1700s. And he asks some questions. So it's kind of a back-and-forth talk-show type thing. At the end there's a very long question-and-answer session in which the moderator fields questions from the audience, and they take up to a half hour, 45 minutes to do it that way.

That's how I set up my presentations. When I give presentations as Deming, with another moderator, I have my overhead projector — the old-fashioned overhead projector — up there like Deming would use. And then there are an awful lot of questions that come in from the audience. They really want to know what Deming would think of, in today's world, of quality and business.

Mark Graban: Sure. And after we do our chat as Deming, certainly have you give some details about how people can get in touch with you if they're interested in having you come do that presentation.

Mike Micklewright: Oh, that'd be great. Thank you.

Mark Graban: If it's okay, I'd like to go ahead at this point and invite, I guess we might say, your version of Dr. Deming to be our podcast guest. Does that sound all right?

Mike Micklewright: That sounds good.

Mark Graban: Okay. I don't know if you need a second to get into character.

Mike Micklewright: I'll go get him. He's downstairs, so I'll go get him. Hold on.

Mark Graban: Okay.

---

Mike Micklewright, performing as Dr. Deming

The following section is Mike Micklewright speaking in the voice of Dr. Deming. These are Mike's imagined responses on behalf of Dr. Deming, not quotes from Deming himself.

---

Japan in 1950: Two Years, Then Five

Mark Graban: Well, Dr. Deming, it's really quite an honor to have you here to talk with the podcast listeners today.

Mike as Deming: Well, I'd like to thank you for inviting me to speak. It's been quite some time since I've spoken in a public forum.

Mark Graban: Thank you again. Dr. Deming, did the Japanese really listen and learn from your principles? If so, how long did it take for them to reach the desired outcome of improved quality?

Mike as Deming: Well, in 1950, my friend, Mr. Ichiro Ishikawa, invited me to speak to 50 executives of manufacturing companies at the Industry Club of Japan. They wanted to learn from a statistician what statistical methods might do for Japanese industry.

When I speak in public, I then ask the audience oftentimes to raise their hands if they are quite sure that their top management would listen to a statistician for hours on end. No one ever does raise their hands. Quite interesting. I find that no one would raise their hands in this era of what you now call Six Sigma.

I faced this meeting in front of so many executives with a great deal of trepidation. I was only a statistician. I told them it would take two or more years to revise Japanese ideas of quality, precision, and uniformity. I told them it would take another five years to establish a reputation for quality, precision, or uniformity. I told them that plans for a new era would be long-range and would require a great deal of patience.

They surprised me. They started to develop a reputation for quality. And in just four years, they were very fast — or you might say today, lean.

On Six Sigma

Mark Graban: Dr. Deming, I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on Lean and the state of Lean in today's world. But I'm curious first if you can tell us a little bit more what you think about Six Sigma.

Mike as Deming: Hmm, interesting question.

First, it's an elitist system. Black belts, green belts. They do all the work. They're special. Quality is supposed to be everyone's job. Just like I say in my 14th point: put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. It's everyone's job. It's not special belt people. It's not special people who have a special certificate. That's one issue.

Six Sigma is based on 3.4 defects per million. How do you get to 3.4 defects per million? The easiest way — you open up the specs. This does not improve quality. If an airline executive says that their goal is to achieve no more than one in 10 million airline passenger deaths in one year, and the company achieves one in 7 million, they don't meet the spec. But then the executive changes the spec to one in 5 million. Is their quality now better now that they meet the spec? I don't think so.

Six Sigma is based on defects per million opportunities. Per million. That's subjective. You can make up many defectives. If a carpenter hangs a sheet of wallpaper, a sheet of sheet stock in the house — is that one defect opportunity, or are there several? Whether it's level or not, whether it's square, the thickness, the width, the length, surface defects, nail pops. How many defects per million are there? It's completely subjective. It doesn't focus in on reduction of variation. That's what must be the focus. That's another issue.

And another: black belts receive about 160 hours of training, from what I understand. I asked a manager one time how many they taught in his company. He said they taught 800 Lean Six Sigma black belts. I said, how many of them practice? He said, about 5%. That's 40. I said, of those 5%, of the 40, what percent do they use of what they were taught? He said about another 5%. That's two. Two out of 800 are fully using the knowledge, the information that they gained. Lean Six Sigma training is not lean. Lean Six Sigma is an oxymoron.

Six Sigma training is not lean. Another case in point — want to make you think. My dear friend Dr. Ishikawa said that 95% of a company's problems can be solved with the seven basic quality tools, including control charts, which my good friend Dr. Shewhart taught me originally. These seven tools can probably be taught to people in 16 hours. I ask you: is it best to teach 160 hours of training to a black belt, or 16 hours of basic quality tools to 10 people who work with the problems every day? It's something your company needs to ask itself.

On Lean and the American Tool Fetish

Mark Graban: Those are some really interesting and provocative thoughts, Dr. Deming. I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about what your thoughts are about Lean and how the Lean methodology is practiced today.

Mike as Deming: Well, principles — they're good. They're very good. Practice in the United States is not. Americans love tools. It's the latest drug. Five S. Kaizen. Value stream mapping. Quick changeovers. Haphazardly apply the tools, just buy the training. These tools, they're only solutions to root causes. That's all they are.

No one taught Toyota 5S. It was a byproduct of good root cause analysis and employee involvement. One day there was a customer complaint. Someone blamed the operator, and they said, “No, we're going to do root cause analysis.” They got down to the root cause. The operator probably said they didn't use the right tool. Why? they asked. It wasn't available. Why was it not available? they asked. Because the place is completely disorganized. It's a mess. So they cleaned it up. That's where Americans would usually stop. They cleaned it up. But then they said, “No, there's something wrong in the system. We don't have a system to keep our areas organized. Our tools set in the right area.” So they developed 5S. It was only a solution to good root cause analysis.

Americans love tools, and they teach the tools, and they suboptimize areas. There's very little system focus. Well, they pretend — many companies pretend they're focusing on the system, but they don't. Focusing on areas to achieve efficiencies, not to improve quality. The two are one and the same. Many people still don't understand this. So they use it to drive production. They have successes short-term, but there's no change in leadership. Without a change in leadership, improvements will not occur.

American top management does not want to change. They want to buy programs. They want to buy the new drug. They want to do what everyone else is doing. Your leadership does not want to change. Their egos are too big. There's almost no use. It needs to start at the top. Leadership has to change, or any lean effort is a farce.

On Individual Incentives and Annual Reviews

Mark Graban: Dr. Deming, I thought maybe one last question we could talk about, and thank you for sharing your thoughts on Lean and Six Sigma. Something you always wrote and talked about, I think is still a relevant issue today: why is it that managers and companies are focused mainly on individual incentives and annual reviews? Why haven't companies learned about what you taught?

Mike as Deming: Part of it is the American culture — not willing to change. American culture is about competition. Haven't learned that competition is the destruction of businesses, of systems, of families, of neighborhoods, of countries.

When there's competition, as there is with individual incentives, a person says, “I have an individual incentive.” They will do all it takes to reach that incentive, even if it hurts others, other departments, or other individuals they compete with. The net effect is negative, because the loss is built-in. For every one winner in the incentive system, there's more than one loser. Because when one loses, they talk. Negative feelings boil up. They boil all around. The overall system is hurt.

The greatest waste in companies today is the politics. Nasty emails are sent to people, from what I hear. They protect their turf. They hurt each other. Individual incentives just creates that competition.

And annual reviews. Doesn't that go against what so many companies are now preaching with Lean? How often are reviews done manually? Once a year, in a big batch? That batch processing was wrong. So why are you doing it? It's better to do single-piece flow. Lead every day. Coach your people. Challenge the people. But lead, and be there every single day. Not once, at the end of the year, to review their performance when it's too late.

Mark Graban: Well, Dr. Deming, I can't thank you enough for taking time to come speak with us today.

Mike as Deming: I thank you too. I hope it helps.

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Back to Mike, out of character

Mark Graban: Well, Mike, thank you. I think that was certainly outstanding work there. Thank you for speaking in Dr. Deming's voice. One question I had — I think you had mentioned that you were maybe going to put some sample videos either on your website or out on YouTube.

Mike Micklewright: Yeah, that is coming forth. I just haven't done it yet. There's still just have to put it together. It's from one of the presentations that I made about a week and a half ago. It was filmed in the Chicago area, and my production guy is working on that.

Mark Graban: People are hearing obviously the vocal part of that today, but from the DVD, I think the whole picture you get of the overhead projector, and the whole experience, is something hopefully people will be able to sample in a video at some point. It really is a nice job that you do.

Mike Micklewright: Well, thank you. And I also had to shave my head. So nice to get something out of it. But I'll be doing it again though, down in Columbus, Georgia this coming week.

Mark Graban: If Dr. Deming were still with us today, it really is hard to imagine him with the classic bad PowerPoint of animations and things flying around on screen.

Mike Micklewright: Yeah, but you know, it's kind of an interesting thing too, because people have asked me that question after the fact. Like, I wonder if you would use PowerPoint or an overhead projector. I'm ready for that question. I think you would've used PowerPoint, but also Deming talked about not using technology for technology's sake. And there are still some strong advantages of using the old-fashioned overhead projector. Because when he's writing up there — or when I'm writing up there on the screen — people tend to watch more, and it's a good learning tool. And then sometimes they write along with you.

So I think there's even an answer to that from Deming. But what I try to do with Deming all the time is treat him with the utmost respect. Because I do believe in him so much.

Close

Mark Graban: That definitely comes across in the video. I hope that came across to people today. I think it did. If people like what they've heard and they're interested in contacting you for maybe booking an appearance as Dr. Deming, what's the best way for people to reach you?

Mike Micklewright: My email address is mike at mikemick dot com. The domain name is spelled M-I-K-E-M-I-C-K. And then people have gotten a hold of me just by Googling my name — Mike Micklewright — because I've written a lot of articles, and they pop up when you Google my name.

Mark Graban: I'll post a link to your website on my site. If people listening want to come and find the post for this episode, I won't put your email and phone number online, but they can find your website, and I'm sure they can track you down. Really enjoyed this. Hopefully we can do a follow-up if there's interest. If people have their own questions of what might Dr. Deming say on modern topics, maybe we can do this again.

Mike Micklewright: That sounds great. I'd love to do it.

Mark Graban: Okay.

Mike Micklewright: Thank you, Mark.