Welcome to the blog and this 14-point series. This is the Sunday edition and I promise no preaching today. If you're just coming across the series, I started on April 1 with Deming's first point. No worries if you don't start there, I'm not going in order anyway. So today we will talk about point ten, removing exhortations. Enjoy!
Eliminate Slogans, Exhortations, & Targets
Deming is not a fan of production targets, a point we will cover another day. The intent with this particular statement highlights the difference between what your people can and cannot do. Slogans about the production goal doesn't help them meet it. As leaders, we are responsible to enable employees to produce quality output. Taglines, posters, and other media is something Deming found as non-value added work. Perhaps we could call it noise or even a distraction.
Deming also believed slogans are hot air. Fake virtue about quality of process output. We can interpret this here as management skating on their real job to serve their personnel. The cost of clinging to stated targets may just be the whole organization. People will push and quality will become the enemy of the slogan. As I learned, sometimes from experience, in the military: "don't be that guy".
So what should you post?
Let's not get the idea this point means tools like visual management aren't useful. Deming is quite specific about the stated goals on a poster having unintended consequences to the organization. Your company is a complex machine, a singular quota may not adequately facilitate success. Also, let us consider the reality of your situation. Have you established your goals by truly digging into your why? We must ensure the aim we seek to meet is represented by the tools we use.
Start. Somewhere. & Slogans
Start somewhere is a bout finding purpose, why, and building a structure to continuously improve your system. Slogans I recommend are based around your why. As used in military operations, "commander's intent" was a concept brought to use by successful operations teams. Navy SEALs commonly use this a structure to enable ownership of high-level mission objectives at any applicable level of a unit. I am simplifying this a bit. You must have a system to define the purpose of your system to the highest degree. Use this understanding to motivate your people, refine your processes, and train your personnel.
If you need some help with this, please reach out. My highest goal is to help people. How can I help you.
