Ever wondered what Dr. Deming really meant by "profound knowledge" — and how it can still transform your work today? In this conversation, Bill Scherkenbach shares with host Andrew Stotz lessons from Dr. W. Edwards Deming on profound knowledge, systems thinking, and why "knowledge without action is useless, and action without knowledge is dangerous." Tune in for wisdom, humor, and practical insights on learning, leadership, and finding joy in work.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00:02 .2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Scherkenbach, a dedicated protege of Dr. Deming since 1972. Bill met with Dr. Deming more than a thousand times and later led statistical methods and process improvement at Ford and GM at Deming's recommendation. He authored the Deming Route to Quality and Productivity at Deming's behest, and at 79, still champions his mentor's message, learn, have fun, and make a difference. Bill, how are you doing?

 

0:00:36 .3 Bill Scherkenbach: Doing great, Andrew. How about you?

 

0:00:38 .6 Andrew Stotz: I'm good. It's been a while since we talked. I took a little holiday to Italy, which was. I was out for a bit, but I'm happy to be back in the saddle.

 

0:00:48 .9 Bill Scherkenbach: Dove in Italia?

 

0:00:51 .3 Andrew Stotz: Yes.

 

0:00:52 .5 Bill Scherkenbach: Where in Italy?

 

0:00:53 .6 Andrew Stotz: Well, I went to Milan for a trade show in the coffee industry, and then I went to Lake Como and relaxed and oh, what a paradise.

 

0:01:03 .2 Bill Scherkenbach: Beautiful. Beautiful. Yep.

 

0:01:05 .0 Andrew Stotz: And, of course, always great food.

 

0:01:09 .4 Bill Scherkenbach: Yep, yep, yep. Well, you have a chance to use the PDSA on improving your mood there.

 

0:01:16 .6 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, it was just... The resort I stayed at was a tiny little place on the side of a hill, and the food at this tiny little place was fantastic. We just didn't want to leave. Every single meal was great. So I love that. Who doesn't love that?

 

0:01:34 .4 Bill Scherkenbach: They didn't have a food cart in the background.

 

0:01:38 .0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. In fact, they didn't really open for lunch.

 

0:01:39 .8 Bill Scherkenbach: Like what they do over here.

 

0:01:41 .3 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, they didn't open for lunch. They only served sandwiches at 2pm so we had to hold out. But we still, the sandwich was so good. We just thought yeah, just wait.

 

0:01:51 .3 Bill Scherkenbach: Early lunch. Yep.

 

0:01:53 .3 Andrew Stotz: Well, you've got some interesting stuff to talk about today, and I'm gonna share the screen, and then I think we can kick it off from there. So let me see if I can get that up straight here. One second in. All right, so hopefully, you see a white screen that says profound knowledge. You see that, Bill?

 

0:02:16 .0 Bill Scherkenbach: Yes, I do.

 

0:02:17 .2 Andrew Stotz: All right, well, let's... Yeah, let's. Let's get into it.

 

0:02:23 .2 Bill Scherkenbach: Oh, okay. I'll go from the bullets that I've got, and we'll hear from Dr. Deming and how he couched it in a little bit, in a few minutes, but he recognized that leaders would say they had the knowledge. Oh, yeah, we do SPC. We follow Deming's philosophy, we do that. But they really only knew the buzzwords. And to an extent, and I don't know how he came up with the word profound, but I do know in speaking with him that he intended it to be a degree of expertise that was beyond the buzzwords. Now, he said you didn't have to be an expert in it, but you had to know enough to be able to understand it and in fact, use it, as we'll talk about in a little bit. And knowledge obviously includes, as he said, an appreciation for a system and variation and knowledge and psychology. And as we'll hear in the audio, he also didn't really limited to that when he said there was there... His point, main point was that there are a whole bunch of interrelated subject matters that are very, very useful in managing your business or managing any organization.

 

0:04:17 .1 Andrew Stotz: You know, I was thinking about that word profound. It's oftentimes wondering exactly what is meant by that. This is helpful to help us understand. It's, number one, about expertise. And I think the thing that I've always also felt is like, when you understand appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge and psychology, it, like things click, like it comes together, it's a whole. And that's the way I've thought about it. But that's interesting about the expertise aspect.

 

0:04:51 .8 Bill Scherkenbach: Yeah. And that's something Don Peterson at Ford spoke about. He gave a very good talk to our leaders with Dr. Deming in attendance. And he said that a lot of you have said, "Oh, yeah, we already do this at Ford, " but you have to come to grips with a lot of you have been promoted for perhaps the wrong reason throughout your career, and you're gonna have to change. The change starts with us. So that was very impactful for Dr. Deming to listen to that.

 

0:05:32 .7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And I just thought about the idea of profound action. Like, once you get this knowledge, does that mean that you're going to also, you know, the way that you do things is going to change substantially.

 

0:05:47 .3 Bill Scherkenbach: Yeah. I mean, that's been a philosophical question. In one of the slides, I quote Confucius. About 2500 years ago, essentially saying knowledge without action is useless and the action without knowledge is pretty dangerous. But that's been consistent with Eastern and Western. Aristotle did the same thing, and Mid Eastern folks did it as well. Philosophers dealing with, yeah, we've got knowledge, but everyone agrees, at least in the good thinker role, that, that you've got to take action, otherwise it's useless. Okay, so we've got, and the subject matters, as I said, are not new. And he coalesced on four, but the general thought was that. And you've got to remember Dr. Deming was a classically trained physicist in the 1920s. And because of that a lot of, although it had been a few years, but they were very aware that everything started in the both, the eastern philosophies and western philosophies. Everything started with philosophy. Science wasn't a separate subject matter. And so everything was connected on how people should live, on how the stars move, a whole bunch of stuff. It all was philosophy. And these various subject matters evolved over the years.

 

0:07:50 .6 Bill Scherkenbach: So even though he stopped it for his general intent was that a whole bunch of things are interconnected. If you go study these various subject matters.

 

0:08:05 .1 Andrew Stotz: It's interesting because I attended the seminars in 1990, 1992 and then I went to Thailand and then I did other things and I didn't really keep up with it because I was in the financial world and doing my thing. And then I got The New Economics years later and there was this discussion about System of Profound Knowledge. And then I think about also going back to your previous discussions of what it was like being in a classroom with Dr. Deming when you first met him and studied with him. You know, that these things were going on. Obviously he had a deep understanding of variation. He definitely understood about the theory of knowledge from his scientific background. But I'm just curious, as you... It's interesting what you said, these things are not new. It's the way he brought them together. I just find that, that fascinating. How do you see that journey for him going from when you first met him to a very full formed concept or theory of profound knowledge at his later years?

 

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