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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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REACHING THE SUMMIT OF LIFE’S SUCCESS

Full Disclosure—this post isn’t really about Edwards Deming. There’s something much more important coming. So, keep reading.

We’re all hearing stories about Ford Motor Company’s announcement that they’ll be closing 12 plants and laying off 30,000 workers over the next five or six years. This morning, I heard the name EDWARDS DEMING mentioned as the guy who tried to convince post-war American business to adopt his “Total Quality Management” program. He was rejected in the U.S. (according to this story), but

He was invited to Japan at the end of World War II by Japanese industrial leaders and engineers. They asked Dr. Deming how long it would take to shift the perception of the world from the existing paradigm that Japan produced cheap, shoddy imitations to one of producing innovative quality products. Dr. Deming told the group that if they would follow his directions, they could achieve the desired outcome in five years. Few of the leaders believed him. But they were ashamed to say so and would be embarrassed if they failed to follow his suggestions.

As Dr. Deming told it, “They surprised me and did it in four years.”

Demings work in Japan led to a philosophy termed “kaizen” (“kay-zin”), which teaches that big goals, seemingly impossible to reach, are not IF we will start by taking even one tiny step toward it, and then another, and then another, etc.

this Japanese concept of “continuous improvement” yielding quality control is still used extensively in factories and offices around the world.

Much of kaizen is based on the work in postwar Japan of legendary American statistician W. Edwards Deming, who died in 1993 at age 93. His innovative theories on creating effective, slow but steady work systems were used to rebuild Japan’s economy.

But, it’s not just building better cars that kaizen is useful for. In the USA TODAY STORY, which is really sort of a book review of Dr. ALBERT MAURER’S adaptation of kaizen to overcoming personal problems (it also reviews another similar book). VERY interesting.

Maurer, an associate clinical professor at UCLA Medical School and the University of Washington medical school at Spokane, says anxiety stops people from reaching their goals. He believes the destructive emotion paralyzes the cortex, the thinking area of the brain and center of creativity. If one begins by taking tiny steps, panic and anxiety can be sidestepped….Maurer also says writing has been a challenge for him. He initially had a hard time making himself sit down and write.

So employing kaizen, he says, “I started out one minute a day.”

I’m sure some will say that this is “tricking yourself” into getting started, and maybe so. But, if it works and you end up doing something worthwhile that you would otherwise never have got going on…...what’s the problem?

PLUS, for those of you who have trouble even with tiny baby steps, there is apparently a KIND OF PERSONAL TRAINER for this kind of thing…...haven’t spent a lot of time on this site, but it’s free, and brings the power of community to your over the Net, in the service of building good habits. Check it out.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/27 at 09:28 AM

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