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Re: Having Your Style Guide and Eating Your Fries Too
Subject:Re: Having Your Style Guide and Eating Your Fries Too From:Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 7 Apr 2001 11:28:17 -0700 (PDT)
> Pardon, what? Deming didn't fail in Japan. He darn near single-handedly
> turned their failing economy around by helping them understand, develop and
> implement quality improvement methodologies.
Its a false gain. Japan's economy was crushed to bits after WWII. They
basically had nowhere to go but up. Given a clean slate, they could do a lot
of things correctly from the get go. Such as planning for efficient means of
production.
However, while Deminigs methods may have helped growth and expansion, the real
factor was the people of Japan. I think it is a little ridiculous to think that
Japan thrived after the war solely because Americas helped them get there. As
if they would have all just eaten each other after the war had we done nothing.
We helped Italy after the war as well...and they have a terrible economy these
days and one of the largest per-capita debt ratios of any industrialized
nation.
The culture of the Japanese had a lot more to do with their rise and eventual
crash than it did Deming's processes. Japan has always had cultural factors
that encourage hard-work and efficiency. Unlike us fat, lazy Americans who all
want to chomp cigars and order people around or open a New Age shop and drive a
Subaru.
Furthermore, the Japanese economy is nothing to admire these days. It has been
in recession for almost a decade. There are many factors to that...one being
cultural.
This is not to say Deming's ideas aren't interesting, useful, and helpful. They
are. But as I always like to say: its real easy to have brilliant theories when
you don't have to do any of the real grunt work.
Andrew Plato
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