Systems and Individuals

In a group discussion of awards and recognition, I asserted the following:

Most award, reward, recognition and similar programs are aimed at the individual (treating every person as a special cause). Sometimes that’s appropriate, but generally it is the system as a whole (of which the people are a part) that produces the variation in performance. What did Deming say, over 90%?

If we apply Shewhart’s recommendation to this situation, we wish to reduce variability of the whole system and move the whole system average in the direction of goodness. Thus, what is needed, is action on the system as whole. Acting on individuals (Employee of the Month) doesn’t get that job done and may (if one thinks of tampering) make things worse.

This is not to say that people aren’t different. They are. Also this should not be taken to mean that individual differences don’t matter. They may be critical in a given situation. The point is that fixing the system requires action on the system, not the individual parts.

So what is needed is to create a system where people can grow.