William M Hayden JrAdjunct Assistant Professor| University at Buffalo, School of Management, Operations Management & StrategyBuffalo, Ny, United States
A Bad System Will Beat a Good Person Every Time[1] So, what was Dr. Deming trying to convey with this quote? It wasn’t an attempt to get people to give up trying because failure was certain. It was an attempt to get people to understand the importance of the system and the futility of trying to focus on blaming people for failures.
So, if a bad system will beat a good person every time what can you do? You have to focus not on trying harder within the current system but on changing the system so that success is built into the system. Relying on heroic measures is a poor way to manage.
Cheers,
Bill
Agreed - the bridge collapse is another example of the dangers of complacency when dealing with complex adaptive systems.
The book Fluke by Brian Klaas has tons of examples of this...
Kiron Saving Changes...
William M Hayden JrAdjunct Assistant Professor| University at Buffalo, School of Management, Operations Management & StrategyBuffalo, Ny, United States
Thanks Kiron!
Might you share a bit more, e.g., what, in this case, makes this outcome the
result of a "Complex Adaptative System?"
Cheers,
Bill
...
1 reply by Kiron Bondale
Mar 30, 2024 8:09 AM
Kiron Bondale
...
A CAS would be any system where understanding the components individually is insufficient to understand how the combination of them might behave. In this case you had weather, the ship, water currents at the time, the bridge design and points of weakness and the bridge status (i.e. under maintenance). Only looking at the interactions between all of those components could one see how this event could come to pass. Changes to any one of those might have resulted in a near miss or in a collision which didn't result in a collapse.
Thanks Kiron!
Might you share a bit more, e.g., what, in this case, makes this outcome the
result of a "Complex Adaptative System?"
Cheers,
Bill
A CAS would be any system where understanding the components individually is insufficient to understand how the combination of them might behave. In this case you had weather, the ship, water currents at the time, the bridge design and points of weakness and the bridge status (i.e. under maintenance). Only looking at the interactions between all of those components could one see how this event could come to pass. Changes to any one of those might have resulted in a near miss or in a collision which didn't result in a collapse.
Kiron Saving Changes...
William M Hayden JrAdjunct Assistant Professor| University at Buffalo, School of Management, Operations Management & StrategyBuffalo, Ny, United States
Thanks Kiron.
Now, why, what, and how do you think people, process, and the lack of leadership actually made this possible.
Cheers,
Bill Saving Changes...
