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Edwards Deming, Mary P. Follett andFrederick W. Taylor: reconciliation of differences in organizational andstrategic leadership

 Academy of Strategic Management Journal, Annual, 2007 by Lonnie D. Phelps, Satyanarayana Parayitam, Bradley J.Olson

 At the time when Japanese companies were doing well, American businesses wereshowing downturn. The characteristics of American businesses during early 1980's were:(a) short-term orientation, (b) declining R&D expenditures, (c) declining capitalinvestment, (d) sluggish productivity growth over the period 1960-68 (USA was last outof the ten industrialized countries; Japan was first), (e) excessive concern with marketingand reliance on the power of the marketing effort to 'shift produce', (f) excessivepromotion of people with finance and/or law background to the top management with acorresponding neglect of people with engineering background, (g) pseudo-professionalism, and (h) a preoccupation with mergers and acquisitions at the expense of product development (Haynes & Albernathy, 1980). Thus, American businessesexperienced a market deterioration of competitive vigor and a growing unease about itsoverall economic well-being. Japanese companies earned success because they followed asimple formula, i.e. competing over the long run by offering superior products. Asexpected, Japanese companies were committed to compete in the global marketplace ontechnological grounds (Lawrence, 1996). Much credit goes to Deming who advocated thatJapanese firms compete on the basis of quality of output, rather than quantity. Inretrospect, it may be safely inferred that some of the problems faced by American

 businesses could have been averted had they followed Deming's messages three decadesearlier.

TAYLOR VERSUS DEMING

Taylor was interested in achieving efficiency in the production processes. He advocatedscientific study of the work to determine a proper day's work, and called on managementto implement the standardization of procedures to complete the work. He also suggested

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that management send a 'competent teacher to guide, help and encourage' (Taylor, 1911:70) when workers repeatedly failed to do a task. Deming expressed the same contentusing the statistical control theory using different terminology. For example, what Taylorclassifies as a 'proper day's work' is equivalent to 'process capability' in Deming'sterminology. Furthermore, Taylor's suggestion of involving a competent teacher to helpguide the failing worker is akin to taking necessary rectificational measures in Deming's

terminology. When Taylor emphasized efficiency, Deming went one step further andsuggested that quality is antecedent to efficiency. Deming's philosophy has its roots instatistical theory, which involves stochastic analysis of processes. Deming was interestedin measurement and analysis of how variation can erode the quality of both products andprocesses. While Deming focuses on variation in the quality, Taylor's emphasis was on

 variation in the production by individual workers.

Taylor was discredited for his purely scientific approach and neglecting the humanelement partly because his messages were not interpreted in proper perspective.However, Taylor did emphasize the development of workers and expressed his concernfor their welfare. For instance, according to Taylor, "The principal object of management

should be to secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximumprosperity for each employee ... maximum prosperity means not only higher wages thanare usually received by men of his class, but, of more importance still it also means thedevelopment of each man to his state of maximum efficiency, so that he may be able todo, generally speaking, the highest grade of work for which his natural abilities fit him,and it further means giving him, when possible, this class of work to do" (Taylor, 1911: 9).Taylor was very emphatic about improving the system (through efficiency), which is thecapstone of Deming's philosophy. Deming recommends constant improvement in thesystem to improve quality and productivity and thus decrease costs. Deming recommendsShewhart Cycle or PDCA (i.e. plan, do, check, and act) to ensure continued improvementin the system of production (Deming, 1986). As Deming suggests, "improvement of the

process includes better allocation of human effort. It includes selection of people, theirplacement, their training, to give everyone, including production workers, a chance toadvance their learning and to contribute to the best of their talents. It means removal of 

 barriers to pride of workmanship both for production workers and for management andengineers" (Deming, 1986: 51).

 

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