Money

In the early 1980’s I climbed out of my teens, I entered the workforce and started to learn how business worked. As part of a company following the flavour of the month management philosophy I was put through W. Edwards Deming Institute’s training program. Being young and impressionable I thought the philosophy was excellent. I still do. I was tasked as a lower middle management employee to champion the new philosophy through the company.

I knew these sorts of things needed to be championed from the top. I thought that upper management were all committed. I found to the subsequent demise of my employment how wrong I was. A lesson learned. Don’t challenge the boss by pointing out where they aren’t following the philosophy they are committed to following.

There were two things that particularly stuck in my mind from my Deming Training.

Firstly, that “Fear” was an impediment to good business.
Secondly, that random remuneration was infinitely more motivating than the current systems of remuneration.

Like all good business management philosophies the relevance of their wisdom extends beyond the business context.

Many systems have stemmed from Deming’s teaching; Kaizen (Tony Robbins calls it Cani), Just in time, Six Sigma and many more have tweaked and branded their way to successful consultancy service models. Almost without exception they all tended to avoid what Deming had to say about remuneration.

It wasn’t that they avoided the question of Money and how to dish it out. It’s just that of all Deming’s wisdom, this was the piece that was most consistently ignored.

I came to realise over the years that the reason for that was probably “Fear”.

The following video is old but still true. It is worth watching in it’s entirety but if you don’t have time skip through to the 3 and a half minutes starting at 5 minutes in.

This part is what Deming regards at his third Deadly Sin and what I remember most vividly from my training. As with many people who have been trained along these lines I have come to realise, it applies not only in business but in every day life. Life just isn’t fair

Save the World — The Venn Diagram - What system impacts the most fundamentally on our World?

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” ~ Mayer Anselm Rothschild (Banker)

What do we reform to give best bang for our buck?

Financial independence is something we all covet but very few enjoy. Money, however much we wish it not to be so, dictates much of our enjoyment of life. We wish to eat, it requires money. We want new clothes, it requires money. We’d like to travel, more money, and so on. Hence those who have control over the supply of money, are deemed by most individuals to have power and control. Banks, Governments and Companies are the groups which wield this power. Within these organisations, individuals make the day to day decisions which ultimately give or take away money from other individuals. Traditionally, these organisations tend to be organised in a hierarchy where the individuals at the top have the ability to make decisions over the supply of money to those individuals beneath them. The ability to hire and fire is the ultimate example of control of the money supply. As society’s requirement for access to money increases so, an individual’s feeling of control over their own lives diminishes. Entrenched fear of losing money supply is still the most dominant management system in play. There are many management systems which have been implemented to redress the control of money, and hence control over our own lives issue. Within business, Piecework Pay, Production Bonuses, Profit sharing, Gain sharing are all systems, with varying degrees of merit, which, whether by chance or design, promise to pass back a degree of control to an individual. Most of these systems attempt to design in fairness of compensation through the use of empirical data, manipulated by some algorithm. Generally the algorithm consists of logic that some form of consensus has deemed to be fair. More often than not, individuals within an organisation will know of, or perceive of, examples where the system has not produced a fair result, whatever the system.

What if we accepted that systems were sometimes not fair and created a compensation system that didn’t use “fair”, as a guide but instead relied on faith in group, and individual humanity?

What if we created a system which enhanced communication, exchanged ideas, and gauged feelings?

What if this system empowered all individuals within an organisation not just those who excel?

Wouldn’t that be “Good”?

I’m a Communist?

I’m a Greenie Wack job?

I’m a conspiracy theory Nut?

I want to bring down the free market?

I’m none of those, just a bloke with a plan to save the world.

Kahatika

Tag Archives: Money

Deming

"It Pays to Communicate"