We are within an emerging new sociocultural era of challenges and expectations:
- A sudden movement to virtual work environs as the new "Normal."
- The continued emergence of women asserting their long-overdue realization to manage, lead, and promote civil engineering programs and projects,
- Moving from posters, articles, and speeches about teamwork and diversity to actually delivering it, and,
- Increased pressure to deliver projects that delight clients, support continued career development of staff, and actually realize the budgeted profit at the project's closeout.
"Close enough" only counts in playing "Horseshoes."
Dr. W. Edwards Deming [1] addressed this foolish process of doing the same things over and over, each time expecting a different result. Some of his unusually poignant "One-line" insights are for you to dwell on:
"Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets."
"It would be better if everyone worked together as a system, with the aim for everybody to win."
"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory."
"People are entitled to joy in work."
"The merit rating nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, [and] nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system that they work in."
Our own Mitchell Winkler[2] notes:
"In general, senior staff, executives, and companies need to:
- Stop the nepotism/ cronyism in hiring and promoting.
- Set objective and quantifiable standards for performance and behaviors and hold themselves and employees accountable.
- Increase promotion of women into the top roles, CEO or president."
-Mitchell Winkler, P.E., R. Engineer, M. ASCE DEC20
In the Deming method, it is the leader's role to accomplish the organizational transformation and create a thriving and joyful enterprise. But knowing "what to do" is not enough; learning "how to do" makes the difference.
- Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It . . .As Easy as A, B, C:
A. Read Deming's Guiding Philosophies:
B. List five (5) of Deming's points that you believe do not apply to the work
of Civil Engineers.
C. List five (5) of Deming's points that you believe do apply to the work
of Civil Engineers.
I will NOT add to this initial post until after receiving responses.
"It's amazing what can be accomplished
when no one care who gets the credit."
Stay Healthy!
Cheers,
Bill
p.s. Your responses are not due until early next year.
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William M. Hayden Jr., Ph.D., P.E., CMQ/OE, F.ASCE
Buffalo, N.Y.
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliot 1819 - 1880
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