A bad system will beat a good person every time.

A bad system will beat a good person every time.

This famous quote was made by W. Edwards Deming at a February 1993 Deming Four Day seminar in Phoenix, Arizona.

But what does it means and how should it be tackled by the person and the system.

Person : A person in this case can be anyone a member of a family run business, an employee of a private sector or a public sector , a politician responsible for running the party or the country or a representative of a society.

As far as the person is concerned it does not means that s/he should give up trying because failure was certain. What It suggests is to understand the importance of the system and the futility of trying to focus on blaming people for failures.

 We are being destroyed by best efforts. Trying harder, to do what you understand as your job, when the system is broken often results in more damage. Don’t just do something, stand there (and think).

So if a bad system will be 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.

The way to change the system is to remain in the system and start making small changes and showing the benefits of the same to the stakeholders. It is very important not to claim credit of the benefit and to pass it on to the team.

Once the team owns the same and also sees the benefits the second step is to involve the team in asking them for the changes they feel would be good for the system and after considering the ones which are beneficial and impactful start implementing them.

By doing this it becomes a cycle where in slowly all the persons with a good intent ( and I believe that all of us have a good intent and it is only because of the fear or ego that we act otherwise ) the bad system starts it's journey towards evolving into a good system.

System : The second and more important responsibility is on the system . The system is nothing but the top management who had the authority to allow the change in the system to make it a good system from a bad system.

The willingness of the leader to adapt to the various frictions and issues that will crop up during the journey of transformation of a system to a good system is the most important factor.

S/he would be ready to accept changes , admit mistakes made in past and allow person/s with the good intent to make the positive changes not only by supporting them but also by mentoring them and coaching them to ensure that they do not fell prey to the corporate politics in the hands of few who feel threatened due to the changes . If there are few such examples of good people failing then it becomes very difficult for the system to make the strides for change as people start fearing to speak and act about the system's inefficiencies and it continues to be bad and even can get worse with time.

I would request to give your valuable insights about the same.

#Good to Great

#Change Management

#Disruption