After one of my talks a young lady came up to me and said “I’m seeing a difference in your approach versus others. Most business people believe that company success comes when the workers engage. Your approach is to enable the workers to be successful with innovation and because the workers are successful the company is successful. The end purpose is the same but your method is the reverse.”
Her words were simple but so insightful. I suddenly made the connection to what Dr. Deming taught my father back in 1979 “94% of the problem is the system – 6% is the worker”.
Dr. Deming knew that the foundation of success lay in enabling the workers. Today the Innovation Engineering movement enables workers with the training, tools and methods they need to think smarter, faster and more innovatively.
Dr. Deming and Innovation Engineering are about Democratizing thinking. Countries don’t invent. Companies don’t invent. Only the people can invent the kinds of smarter work systems, products and services that are needed to transform the success trajectory of companies.