Episodios

  • The Courage to Not React

    The Courage to Not React
    Mar 2 2026
    What do you do when a new data point drops—and all eyes turn to you? In this episode, John Dues and Andrew Stotz explore the leadership discipline required when performance data changes. Instead of reacting to a single data point, they unpack how Deming thinking (understanding variation, avoiding tampering, and pausing to interpret patterns) can protect trust, stability, and improvement. A practical conversation for leaders who want wisdom—not speed—to guide their decisions. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is when the numbers change and everyone looks at you. John, take it away. 0:00:28.4 John Dues: Yeah, it's good to be back, Andrew. I think this is sort of an interesting topic. Many of us that have been in leadership roles have been in this position where the numbers change, whatever they may be. For me, they're dips in attendance, they're assessment results changing, something like that, a subgroup's results changes from the previous year. Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes they're big. But I'm thinking about times when they're just large enough to draw attention in a meeting. And it's not even really so much the size of the change that's important, it's what happens next. 0:01:12.9 John Dues: So you can kind of put yourself in one of these meetings where you're looking at data and maybe you didn't even expect it, but people kind of notice. Then someone asks what went wrong? And then the next thing that comes is someone suggests some type of fix or solution, and then this pressure starts to build. Especially if they're all sort of looking at you, the silence can feel irresponsible. And so what do we do? We react in some way. We call another... For explanations, maybe from others. We adjust a plan that's already in place. We launch a new initiative or tighten expectations on people, whatever it may be. None of it's out of malice. It's done out of care, most typically, or at least in the settings I've observed this sort of phenomenon. 0:02:13.1 Andrew Stotz: Don't just stand there, do something. 0:02:15.2 John Dues: Don't just stand there, do something. But the thing is, very often it just makes things worse. Right? 0:02:21.0 Andrew Stotz: Don't just do something. Stand there. 0:02:23.8 John Dues: Right, right. The opposite. But even if you know that, it's very, very difficult in the moment to... 0:02:32.5 Andrew Stotz: The pressures. 0:02:33.6 John Dues: Yeah. 0:02:34.9 Andrew Stotz: Well, I have a little... Little thing happened last night when a friend of mine came to see my mom and me, and we went out for there's a restaurant nearby, so we got the walker and got mom going. And her natural inclination was to help mom in getting up and that type of thing. And I was explaining to her the difference between what I call a caregiver and a caretaker. And I was saying that most people are caretakers where they're just taking care and they want to just help. And she's like, "It's irresistible. I mean, in my bones, I want to help." And I said, "It's very hard to see that sometimes the best help is to let her struggle and use her legs to get up, not to help her on that." And that was like a revelation for her last night, it just made me think about that. 0:03:33.8 John Dues: No, that's actually a perfect analogy because her health is sort of a high stakes environment. Just like schools are high stakes environments or many of the businesses that people run that listen to this podcast have high stakes. In our cases, it's students and families matter, outcomes matter. There's a lot of different stakeholders that are interested in what's going on in schools. And when those numbers do change, it can feel like neglect if you don't do anything. We're expected to notice. We're expected to... Good leaders are supposed to respond. They're supposed to act decisively, right? 0:04:12.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, because there's another aspect to it too. Let's just say that you have a boss that understands it and you're like, "Yeah, it's just noise. It's not signal." But how many times can you say that? Right? 0:04:27.8 John Dues: Yeah, that's right. 0:04:28.5 Andrew Stotz: That's another kind of pressure in that situation. 0:04:31.6 John Dues: Yeah, that's like the second-in-command type person, right? So they have their own pressure. And what you can see happening, this like visible action is sort of like evidence of competence because you can see it. And so the reaction becomes the default. So just like in this example you're giving with your mom, that action to help is very hard to resist. Even though by doing so, like you were saying, she doesn't get the physical ...
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    25 m
  • Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 3)

    Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 3)
    Feb 2 2026
    How do you design a team off-site that actually improves your organization? In this episode, Travis Timmons breaks down the mechanics of a Deming-styled off-site team meeting—from starting months early and setting a clear aim to using pre-work, fishbone diagrams, and PDSAs to drive real change. If you want a real-world example of how Deming leaders create focus, collaboration, and joy in work, this conversation is a practical place to start. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussions with Travis Timmons, who is the founder and owner of Fitness Matters, an Ohio-based practice specializing in the integration of physical therapy and personalized wellness. For 13 years, he's built his business on Dr. Deming's teachings. His hope is simple; the more companies that bring joy to work through Deming's principles, the more likely his kids will one day work at one of those darn companies. Travis, how are you doing? 0:00:35.2 Travis Timmons: Hey, Andrew. Doing well, how are you? 0:00:37.1 Andrew Stotz: I'm really excited. We were just talking about the structure of today's discussion, and the topic for today is the mechanics of a Deming-styled offsite, which I... In today's session, we're going to be talking about the importance of starting early, setting an aim, figuring out and developing an agenda. Also homework, huh? 0:01:05.1 Travis Timmons: Right. 0:01:05.4 Andrew Stotz: Pre-work for attendees. I thought that's interesting as we were going through it. And then you talk about your activities, your outcomes and all of that. So why don't you get into it and walk us through the mechanics of a Deming-styled offsite. And by the way, one last thing. When we say Deming-styled, well, you're certainly getting a lot of support from a true Deming advocate, Kelly Allen, and your understanding of the teachings of Dr. Deming. And so you're doing your best to apply those things in this. Is it a perfect Deming offsite? Well, that's why we say Deming-styled offsite. Maybe the listener or the viewer would add in or subtract some things, but at least we've got the general structures. So why don't you take it away, Travis? 0:01:47.3 Travis Timmons: Yeah, no, happy to, Andrew. So yeah, we have our team offsite. It'll actually be 10 days from now. So from a big picture standpoint, one of the things I've learned is systems, process, organization, and none of that happens quickly. So every time we do an annual team offsite, it's about a three-month work-ahead process for myself and the leadership team. So we start a good three months before the meeting date just to start percolating on what do we need to talk about at this meeting? What's the aim? What do we want the outcome to be? And that doesn't happen with a week of preparation. So we've had to spend some time looking at our KPIs, where do we have an opportunity to have a positive impact on our system? So we have to study our current system, see where there might be opportunities for improvement, understand how do we want the team to engage with that. And for this year's offsite, our big aim... We have two aims for the offsite. One is to make the system visible. Everybody on the team. I've had some learnings through some newer leaders on our team that have been through the DemingNEXT and they've been on our team for a few years. 0:03:04.1 Travis Timmons: But they until going through the DemingNEXT, they didn't fully understand what system view meant. And that kind of hit me over the head like a ton of bricks. It's like, well, maybe that would be a good thing to spend part of our offsite making sure the entire team can visualize and see our organization as a system. And then the second aim from a mechanics, from a KPI standpoint, if you will, is we want to improve arrival rate for our visits. So basically, how many scheduled appointments show up is what we call arrival rate. To have a better impact on patient outcomes, joy in work for our team members, joy in the referral sources that send to us. So yeah, it was about a three-month process. 0:03:49.3 Andrew Stotz: And if I... Just curious, sometimes when I've done offsites or I've attended offsites, it's more general. Here you have a very specific thing, improve arrival rates. Why is it so specific and how do you come to that decision that this isn't going to be just an open discussion about things in our company? 0:04:14.4 Travis Timmons: Yeah. That's a great question. Some years they are a little more general. Like last year we spent quite a bit of time setting a new round of BHAGs, Big Hairy Audacious Goals. This year, looking at KPIs, looking at where the opportunities were to improve, where there were the most breakdowns and frustrations happening in our system that we were hearing consistently across our team. It's like, what's the one thing we can have an impact...
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    33 m
  • Where is Quality Really Made? An Insider's View of Deming's World

    Where is Quality Really Made? An Insider's View of Deming's World
    Jan 26 2026
    In this episode, Bill Scherkenbach, one of W. Edwards Deming's closest protégés, and host Andrew Stotz discuss why leadership decisions shape outcomes far more than frontline effort. Bill draws on decades of firsthand experience with Deming and with businesses across industries. Through vivid stories and practical insights, the conversation challenges leaders and learners alike to rethink responsibility, decision-making, and what it truly takes to build lasting quality. Bill's powerpoint is available here. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussions with Bill Scherkenbach, a dedicated protégé of Dr. Deming since 1972. Bill met with Dr. Deming more than a thousand times and later led statistical methods and process improvement at Ford and GM at Dr. Deming's recommendation. He authored the Deming Route to Quality and Productivity at Deming's behest and at 79, still champions his mentor's message: Learn, have fun, and make a difference. The discussion for today is, I think we're going to get an answer to this question. And the question is: Where is quality made? Bill, take it away. 0:00:44.9 Bill Scherkenbach: Where is quality made? I can hear the mellifluous doctor saying that. And the answer is: In the boardroom, not on the factory floor. And over and over again, he would say that it's the quality of the decisions that the management make that can far outweigh anything that happens on the shop floor. And when he would speak about that, he would first of all, because he was talking to the auto industry, he would talk about who's making carburetors anymore. "Nobody's making carburetors because it's all fuel injectors," he would say. And anyone who has been following this, another classic one is: Do you ever hear of a bank that failed? Do you think that failed because of mistakes in tellers' windows or calculations of interest? Heck no. But there are a whole bunch of other examples that are even more current, if you will. I mean, although this isn't that current, but Blockbuster had fantastic movies, a whole array of them, the highest quality resolutions, and they completely missed the transition to streaming. And Netflix and others took it completely away from them because of mistakes made in the boardroom. You got more recently Bed Bath & Beyond having a great product, a great inventory. 0:02:51.4 Bill Scherkenbach: But management took their eyes off of it and looked at, they were concerned about stock buybacks and completely lost the picture of what was happening. It was perfect. It was a great product, but it was a management decision. WeWork, another company supplying office places. It was great in COVID and in other areas, but through financial mismanagement, they also ended up going bust. And so there are, I mean, these are examples of failures, but as Dr. Deming also said, don't confuse success with success. If you think you're making good decisions, you got to ask yourself how much better could it have been if you tried something else. So, quality is made in the boardroom, not on the factory floor. 0:04:07.9 Andrew Stotz: I had an interesting encounter this week and I was teaching a class, and there was a guy that came up and talked to me about his company. His company was a Deming Prize from Japan winner. And that was maybe 20, 25 years ago. They won their first Deming Prize, and then subsidiaries within the company won it. So the actual overall company had won something like nine or 10 Deming Prizes over a couple decades. And the president became... 0:04:43.5 Bill Scherkenbach: What business are they in? 0:04:45.5 Andrew Stotz: Well, they're in... 0:04:47.0 Bill Scherkenbach: Of winning prizes? 0:04:48.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I mean, they definitely, the CEO got the distinguished individual prize because he was so dedicated to the teachings of Dr. Deming. And he really, really expanded the business well, the business did well. A new CEO took over 15 years ago, 10 years ago, and took it in another direction. And right now the company is suffering losses and many other problems that they're facing. And I asked the guy without talking about Deming, I just asked him what was the difference between the prior CEO and the current one or the current regimes that have come in. And he said that the prior CEO, it was so clear what the direction was. Like, he set the direction and we all knew what we were doing. And I just thought now as you talk about, the quality is made at the boardroom, it just made me really think back to that conversation and that was what he noticed more than anything. Yeah well, we were really serious about keeping the factory clean or we used statistics or run charts, that was just what he said, I thought that was pretty interesting. 0:06:06.7 Bill Scherkenbach: Absolutely. And that reminds me of another comment that Dr...
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    55 m
  • Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 2)

    Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 2)
    Jan 19 2026
    What happens when an entire company learns to see its work as a system? In this episode, Travis Timmons reveals how his team uses Deming-inspired pre-work, collaboration, and the Red Bead Experiment to make their offsite energizing and impactful. It's a practical, engaging look at how clarity and shared purpose can transform improvement efforts and build a happy workplace. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with Travis Timmons, who is the founder and owner of Fitness Matters, an Ohio-based practice specializing in the integration of physical therapy and personalized wellness. For 13 years he's built his business on Dr. Deming's teachings. His hope is simple. The more companies that bring joy to work through Deming's principles, the more likely his kids will one day work at one. The topic for today is bringing systems thinking to your next team off-site. Travis, take it away. 0:00:41.5 Travis Timmons: Hey Andrew, great to be with you again. And, yeah, looking forward to sharing a little bit about how we're preparing for our next annual team meeting. And focus for this meeting is going to be, well, a little back story, we had three of our newer leadership members attend some Deming learning, some Deming education. And the biggest comeback, the biggest aha moment they had was they now better understood what I meant by the system view and systems thinking, which got me thinking, boy, it would be great if more of our team fully understood what the system meant, how to visualize it, and then how that further dives into the Deming System of Profound Knowledge. So that's what we've been working on. Our offsite is January 30th, so about a month away. We're about six weeks into preparation for that, kind of going back and forth on what needs to be in there. And the biggest thing, the first exercise, they're going to have homework to do coming into the meeting. We're going to have them kind of diagram what they think the system is. What is the Fitness Matters system? And we're going to prime them a little bit. 0:01:51.7 Travis Timmons: We're going to be doing it via a fishbone chart is the method we've decided to do that with. So, yeah, very excited about that. And it's a great way to get the team working on the work together and making sure they have an appreciation, as Dr. Deming would say, an appreciation for the system. And if you don't know what the system means, it's hard to appreciate it. So, trying to make more team members understand that. 0:02:14.7 Andrew Stotz: And what you're describing, I think is like pre-work that you're asking them to do? 0:02:21.1 Travis Timmons: Yes, yeah. So we'll have we've been spending the last few weeks on making sure we get the right questions in there because we want them to come in prepared but not feel like it's overwhelming or not feel like it's too heavy, if you will. But we want them to do the work so that they can come in and we can dive deeper once we get into some of the teachings and making the visible system of what everything looks like for them. So, that's kind of what we're working on. 0:02:49.1 Andrew Stotz: Did you guide them on, "Here's a fishbone chart, here's how to use it," and then, "Here's the system"? Or do you want them to just understand the fishbone chart and how to use it, and then, "Okay, don't talk to anybody else, you come up with what your vision of the system is"? 0:03:05.0 Travis Timmons: Yeah, so we have a total of seven locations. So what we are going to put in the homework is a one-page definition on what a fishbone is, how to use it and maybe pre-fill in a few of the primary bones, if you will. 0:03:20.3 Andrew Stotz: Yep. 0:03:20.8 Travis Timmons: Just to give them a primer. But we do hope they work together around the lunch tables and the break rooms, and the local leadership will be there to kind of guide them. Because that's where a lot of the collaboration and culture starts to happen and continues to build. So yeah, there'll be some learning about what is a fishbone, how to use it, because several have probably not used one before. And then we'll prime it a little bit, but then we want them to work on it, kind of kind of work, struggle a little bit to see, like, "All right, what's been invisible to me that happens behind the scenes, and it just happens." And make sure that then we can kind of dive deeper into when we say somebody has a good visit at Fitness Matters, how does that happen? And it's everything from first contact to insurance, to in the clinics, to how they pay their bill. So, just making sure that somebody understands what piece of the puzzle they play and then how it all works together. So we don't have silos, is one of the things we try to avoid, having silos within the organization. 0:04:25.8 Andrew Stotz: So, just so that the listener and viewer...
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    30 m
  • Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 1)

    Fitness Matters: A Deming Success Story (Part 1)
    Jan 12 2026
    Travis Timmons shares with host Andrew Stotz how a decade of frustration running his physical therapy practice turned into joy once he discovered Deming's philosophy and embraced systems thinking. Through PDSA cycles, clearer processes, and genuine team involvement, he transformed Fitness Matters from chaotic growth to a scalable organization getting stellar outcomes. His story shows how small businesses can create stability, joy in work, and remarkable results by improving the system rather than pushing harder. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.1 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm here with featured guest Travis Timmons. Travis, are you ready to tell us about your Deming journey? 0:00:19.7 Travis Timmons: Hey Andrew, thanks for having me. And yeah, very excited to share our journey and how impactful it's been on both our company, but also me personally and my family. So, super excited to kind of share where we started before Deming and where we're at today. So I'll just dive right in if that sounds like a good... 0:00:39.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And I think just for the audience here, I'll just mention that Travis is physical therapist, founder and president of Fitness Matters in Columbus, Ohio, going on his 27th year of business. And you know, you and I have had some discussions. You've had a lot of great things that you've written and we've gone through and I think it's really an exciting story, particularly for a small mid sized business owner who's just frustrated as hell that things aren't going the way that they want. And I think your frustration a long time ago was a driving force. So I'm excited for you to share your story. So yeah, take it away. 0:01:22.6 Travis Timmons: Yeah, very excited. Yeah, 2000 is when we started, January 2000. So coming up on 27 years, as you mentioned, do physical therapy and wellness. And the first 10 years I was in business, pretty good at being a physical therapist. Started my own business and had no idea how to run a business. I knew a lot about physical therapy, but just kind of shooting from the hip in regard to business. Spent about a decade struggling, frustrated. We were growing, but growing slowly, growing chaotically. No process, it was just a, it was a heavy burden, to be honest with you. We were growing, but it was kind of Herculean effort on my part. 0:02:10.1 Andrew Stotz: I'm just curious how you were feeling at that time. Like there's gotta be a better way or this is the way business is and I just gotta muscle through this or how were you feeling at the time? 0:02:21.0 Travis Timmons: I was feeling frustrated and isolated. Didn't quite know where to turn. Yeah, I guess that's how, and just a burden. Didn't want to let the team down, I did not want the business to fail. I knew we had something different to offer. Just really had no idea how to scale that in a professional way. And along the journey was very fortunate to have a client who had a very successful business, took me under his wing. Ray Crook is his name. Started mentoring me and as luck would have it, he was familiar with Dr. Deming and a very long story short, after several meetings with him over time, some mentoring, I'd read the book along the way, the E-Myth Revisited and had some learnings from that book that really jumped out at me and came to the conclusion, both with reading that book and some feedback from Ray of basically, hey, it's time to grow up and turn this into a real business. If you're going to do this, let's do it right. And at that, around that time he introduced me to Kelly Allen with the Deming Institute. And you know, so we were 10 years into some chaos, had really no process, just would try stuff, see if it stuck or didn't. 0:03:43.5 Travis Timmons: If that didn't work, didn't really have any way to measure if stuff was working well. So really just a lot of chaos. And became introduced to Deming through Kelly Allen about 10 to 11 years into our journey and man, was that a breath of fresh air in terms of like having a direction to go in. After a few meetings with Kelly, him getting a better understanding of what was important to me, I think him just really understanding that I was serious about wanting to turn our organization into a large, professionally run and well run organization that would have a positive impact on people's lives, both team members and clients. I think he kind of, I think that we were so bad off he took pity on me to begin with, just to be honest with you, and he was like, man, this guy needs a lot of help. He could do some good in the world with what the services they have to offer. But if he doesn't figure out how to run a business professionally, they're never going to scale. 0:04:44.0 Andrew Stotz: And it's interesting that you reached out. I mean, there's a lot of people that are stuck in that situation and they really don't...
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    54 m
  • When is Change an Improvement?

    When is Change an Improvement?
    Dec 29 2025
    How do we really know when improvement has happened inside a school or organization? In this episode, John Dues and Andrew Stotz unpack a clear, three-part definition of improvement and show why evidence, method, and sustained results matter far more than year-to-year comparisons. Their discussion offers a practical lens for leaders who want to distinguish true progress from noise and build changes that last. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is, How To Define Improvement. John, take it away. 0:00:23.3 John Dues: Hey, Andrew. It's good to be back. Yeah, I think this is really interesting. Apologies on the front end. I'm a little bit under the weather, so I may sound a little raspy today. But you know, one of the things that's really interesting is there's lots of claims of improvement. In my world, there's lots of claims of school im- improvement. I would even go as far as to say that those claims are like a dime a dozen, something like that. And the reason I say that is not to be mean or anything, but you know, I think that a lot of these claims, they're not grounded any kind of reasonable evidence. And I think sort of even beyond that, that claims are often made without a logical definition of improvement. So I thought in this episode we could talk about a three-part definition that makes it really easy to tell when improvement has occurred and just as importantly, when it hasn't. 0:01:21.9 Andrew Stotz: Exciting. 0:01:23.2 John Dues: Yeah. When I talk about this, I always like to start with a challenge. So, you know, if I'm in a workshop, I'll say, you know, get out a piece of paper and a pen so the listeners could do this as well and think about, you know, the successful improvement efforts that you've led throughout your career. So in my world, maybe it's increase in state test scores or maybe you improved student enrollment in your school. Maybe you did a better job at retaining the teachers in your school. It could be any number of things. Maybe it's decreasing student office referrals or decreasing chronic absenteeism rates in your school or your school system, which are two things on everybody's mind coming out of the pandemic especially. And I tell people, just create a list of those instances. And I give them a few minutes usually. And typically, people come up with eight, nine, 10 or so instances of improvement, whether that's teacher in their own classroom or principal in their school, or a superintendent thinking about the whole system. Then I say to them, now what I want you to do is pause and think, what does it mean to improve? 0:02:46.7 John Dues: What do you mean by that? And that really brings us to this important question. What is improvement? You know, and this was... Full disclosure, when I started thinking about this, I stumbled across the definition in a book I'll show you here in a second. But when I stumbled across this, you know, there was some conviction. And I think that probably a lot of educational leaders or just, you know, leaders in general would say, actually, I never really thought about that. I don't have an answer for this seemingly simple question. And like I said, I didn't have an answer to that question when I really thought about it, when I stumbled across the definition, probably for the majority of my career, maybe the first 20 years or so, if I'm at year 25. So, yeah, the first two decades, I would not have had a clear answer for that simple question. Now, I turn to this seminal work in the field of improvement science called The Improvement Guide. I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with this. And I'll share my screen so people can see the book and kind of share an interesting story about the book. And, you know, when you're... Can you see my screen all right now? 0:04:06.9 Andrew Stotz: Yep. 0:04:08.1 John Dues: So you can see, if you're just listening, you can see the covers of two books. So on the left, a lot of people will recognize The Improvement Guide. But there's an arrow up there. It says, second edition. And a lot of people will recognize that book. Probably less people. Maybe some people that have been doing improvement work for maybe three decades will know this other book, the first edition of The Improvement Guide. It's this purple book on the right, if you're watching. But there's this interesting anecdote that I actually think I might have heard maybe on your podcast when some of the authors were on. And almost as soon as they wrote this first edition, this purple edition, they got this note from this professor in Brazil, and it said, I know you guys are really big into improvement, and you're really big on operational ...
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    28 m
  • Optimizing Student Learning: Crazy Simple Education (Part 2)

    Optimizing Student Learning: Crazy Simple Education (Part 2)
    Dec 8 2025
    What if more quizzes created more joy—not stress? Lee Jenkins shows host Andrew Stotz how Deming-inspired practices like random-concept quizzes, student-led charts, and "all-time best" celebrations turn classrooms into true learning systems that build confidence, motivation, and real understanding. A simple shift in method—massive shift in joy. (View the powerpoint referenced in the podcast.) TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm talking with Lee Jenkins, who is a career educator in public schools, completing his full-time work as a school district superintendent. During that work, he was introduced to the teachings of Dr. Deming and has been applying those teachings to his life and work since. In his business, Crazy Simple Education, he helps people apply Dr. Deming's principles in their schools to bring joy back to learning, to help kids learn more. The topic for today is how educators have applied Dr. Deming's ideas to learning. Lee, take it away. 0:00:42.8 Lee Jenkins: Thank you so much, Andrew. It's amazing what Dr. Deming taught in five minutes. I've been able to teach that for over 20 years. It's just amazing. And then you see in the next slide, it was Lou Rhodes. And this is just a short little review of what we did on the first podcast. But he's the one that said, I think you're going to enjoy this. Little did he know how much I was going to enjoy that in 1990 when he said that. And then in 1992, heard Dr. Deming in person as the statistician. And he described in five minutes just a little touch of what was different about a classroom as opposed to all the other systems that he was teaching. And so over time, you're going to see how it's been implemented with great joy with so many people. He taught that education should have a learning system instead of an inspection system. And that's what we have, is an inspection system. The state departments of education inspect the schools and the teachers inspect the kids. We don't have a learning system. So if you think about that distinction, it's truly a learning system. And you're going to see that as we go through this today. 0:01:51.2 Andrew Stotz: Lee, I was just... After listening to you in the last episode and listening to some of our other great guests on the show, I talked to my students about this. And one of my students, after I went through it and talked about the random sampling as an example of questions to understand the level of knowledge that students as a group are getting, one of my students at this prestigious university I teach at in Thailand said, "So why are you grading us? " 0:02:26.1 Lee Jenkins: Yes. Yes. That's it. 0:02:27.4 Andrew Stotz: And I said... Lee, I need help. I gave my best answer and that is, "I decided that right now, the fight with the university to change the way it's done is not a fight I'm prepared to take. But what I'm going to do is try to deliver the best experience I can in the room." Now, that was a bit of a cop out, but that's part of... People who are listening and viewing this are also caught in a system, in a trap, an inspection system. So it's just great to hear you talk about this and it can help us think about how we can handle it. 0:03:09.9 Lee Jenkins: People say that education hasn't been improved for 50 years. Then think about it. We've had an inspection system for 50 years. Maybe that's the problem, right? So here's what Dr. Deming taught. Tell them what you want them to know first week of school. Here it is. You're going to give them a weekly quiz. The quiz is going to be the square root of the total number of concepts you want them to learn. So a teacher teaching a second language, 400 vocabulary words, they had 20 words a week at random out of the 400. It's simple, but it's crazy that you don't... People say, "How can you assess them on something you haven't taught yet? " You can, if you have a learning system. And then he said to build a scatter diagram and a class run chart. And let's look at those two just to review. The scatter diagram, and if you can't see this, it's just across the x-axis on the bottom. It says 1 to 14, which is for half a year. The y-axis goes from 0 to 10 because there are 10 questions every week in this classroom. And we have a dot by how many kids got 0 right, how many kids got 1 right, how many kids got 2 right. And if you look at over a semester, you can see all the dots moving from the lower left corner up to the upper right corner. So that's the scatter diagram. 0:04:29.7 Andrew Stotz: That's all the students in the class. That's not one individual student. 0:04:33.0 Lee Jenkins: That's not one student. It's the whole class because you're the manager of the learning of a classroom. He taught that. And then he said graph the total correct for the whole classroom. 0:04:46.6 Andrew Stotz: So you just did what he said....
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  • What is "Profound Knowledge"? An Insider's View of Deming's World (Part 4)

    What is "Profound Knowledge"? An Insider's View of Deming's World (Part 4)
    Nov 17 2025
    Ever wondered what Dr. Deming really meant by "profound knowledge" — and how it can still transform your work today? In this conversation, Bill Scherkenbach shares with host Andrew Stotz lessons from Dr. W. Edwards Deming on profound knowledge, systems thinking, and why "knowledge without action is useless, and action without knowledge is dangerous." Tune in for wisdom, humor, and practical insights on learning, leadership, and finding joy in work. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Scherkenbach, a dedicated protege of Dr. Deming since 1972. Bill met with Dr. Deming more than a thousand times and later led statistical methods and process improvement at Ford and GM at Deming's recommendation. He authored the Deming Route to Quality and Productivity at Deming's behest, and at 79, still champions his mentor's message, learn, have fun, and make a difference. Bill, how are you doing? 0:00:36.3 Bill Scherkenbach: Doing great, Andrew. How about you? 0:00:38.6 Andrew Stotz: I'm good. It's been a while since we talked. I took a little holiday to Italy, which was. I was out for a bit, but I'm happy to be back in the saddle. 0:00:48.9 Bill Scherkenbach: Dove in Italia? 0:00:51.3 Andrew Stotz: Yes. 0:00:52.5 Bill Scherkenbach: Where in Italy? 0:00:53.6 Andrew Stotz: Well, I went to Milan for a trade show in the coffee industry, and then I went to Lake Como and relaxed and oh, what a paradise. 0:01:03.2 Bill Scherkenbach: Beautiful. Beautiful. Yep. 0:01:05.0 Andrew Stotz: And, of course, always great food. 0:01:09.4 Bill Scherkenbach: Yep, yep, yep. Well, you have a chance to use the PDSA on improving your mood there. 0:01:16.6 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, it was just... The resort I stayed at was a tiny little place on the side of a hill, and the food at this tiny little place was fantastic. We just didn't want to leave. Every single meal was great. So I love that. Who doesn't love that? 0:01:34.4 Bill Scherkenbach: They didn't have a food cart in the background. 0:01:38.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. In fact, they didn't really open for lunch. 0:01:39.8 Bill Scherkenbach: Like what they do over here. 0:01:41.3 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, they didn't open for lunch. They only served sandwiches at 2pm so we had to hold out. But we still, the sandwich was so good. We just thought yeah, just wait. 0:01:51.3 Bill Scherkenbach: Early lunch. Yep. 0:01:53.3 Andrew Stotz: Well, you've got some interesting stuff to talk about today, and I'm gonna share the screen, and then I think we can kick it off from there. So let me see if I can get that up straight here. One second in. All right, so hopefully, you see a white screen that says profound knowledge. You see that, Bill? 0:02:16.0 Bill Scherkenbach: Yes, I do. 0:02:17.2 Andrew Stotz: All right, well, let's... Yeah, let's. Let's get into it. 0:02:23.2 Bill Scherkenbach: Oh, okay. I'll go from the bullets that I've got, and we'll hear from Dr. Deming and how he couched it in a little bit, in a few minutes, but he recognized that leaders would say they had the knowledge. Oh, yeah, we do SPC. We follow Deming's philosophy, we do that. But they really only knew the buzzwords. And to an extent, and I don't know how he came up with the word profound, but I do know in speaking with him that he intended it to be a degree of expertise that was beyond the buzzwords. Now, he said you didn't have to be an expert in it, but you had to know enough to be able to understand it and in fact, use it, as we'll talk about in a little bit. And knowledge obviously includes, as he said, an appreciation for a system and variation and knowledge and psychology. And as we'll hear in the audio, he also didn't really limited to that when he said there was there... His point, main point was that there are a whole bunch of interrelated subject matters that are very, very useful in managing your business or managing any organization. 0:04:17.1 Andrew Stotz: You know, I was thinking about that word profound. It's oftentimes wondering exactly what is meant by that. This is helpful to help us understand. It's, number one, about expertise. And I think the thing that I've always also felt is like, when you understand appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge and psychology, it, like things click, like it comes together, it's a whole. And that's the way I've thought about it. But that's interesting about the expertise aspect. 0:04:51.8 Bill Scherkenbach: Yeah. And that's something Don Peterson at Ford spoke about. He gave a very good talk to our leaders with Dr. Deming in attendance. And he said that a lot of you have said, "Oh, yeah, we already do this at Ford, " but you have to come to grips with a lot of you have been promoted for perhaps the wrong reason throughout your career, and ...
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