Podcast: Breaking Down Dr. Deming’s ‘Biggest Pet Peeve’ Among His 14 Points for Management

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the workforce. — Dr. Deming's 10th point for management

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, shop-floor walls were plastered with posters urging workers to “be safe” or reminding them that “quality begins with you.” Even today, such slogans adorn manufacturing walls across the country, promoting everything from improved productivity to zero safety incidences.  

Dr. W. Edwards Deming would tell you to rip them down. “Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity,” he wrote in his 10th point for management transformation. They’re not only harmful, but their aim is off.

In this episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement, co-hosts Dr. Mohamed Saleh and John Dyer delve into Deming’s 10th point for management transformation in their continuing review of Deming’s teachings.

Why was Deming so against slogans, exhortations and targets? For several reasons, notes Dyer.

“One, these various posters would imply that it was the worker’s fault that quality was poor or that there were unsafe conditions, and that if the workers would just try a little harder, then all these problems would go away. Well, of course, the workers have some impact. They have to follow the procedures, the standardized processes, but they're not the ones designing the systems. It's the leaders that design the systems,” Dyer says. “The other thing is that there is a sense of fear associated with these posters.”

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In this episode, the co-hosts also discuss:

• How slogans can act as a shaming technique
• Why you should replace slogans with problem definitions or methods.
• How mission statements and values are similar to slogans if the workforce doesn’t understand the mission or observes the organization ignoring the values.
• Why Saleh describes slogans as a "leadership avoidance strategy." 
• Why it's important to improve the system rather than just change the target.