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My guest for Episode #424 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Balaji Reddie, the founder of The Deming Forum of India.
An engineer by trade, Balaji was exposed to W. Edwards Deming's ideas through his father, then became highly interested in the Deming Philosophy after a chance introduction to the founder of the British Deming Association, Dr. Henry R. Neave, who became Balaji's mentor.
As it says in his bio:
“Balaji's contributions have been featured in textbooks and coursework on Quality and the Deming Philosophy. He holds a Degree in Electrical Engineering from COEP (the Government College of Engineering in Pune), and a Master of Science in Quality Management from BITS (Birla Institute of Technology & Science).”
Topics and questions:
- Tell us more about your professional background
- In his factory, had a “quality section” but not department – what's the difference?
- 1991 was a key year for India – opened up outside investment and foreign products
- Xerox 5-day Leadership for Quality course
- Wanted to know where this all began, learned of Deming & Juran
- What was your first exposure to Dr. Deming and/or his work?
- His father went to Japan in 1964
- “Juran had answers, Deming asked questions”
- Recommends Managerial Breakthrough from 1964
- 14 points were for an American audience, the Japanese didn't have them
- Red Bead Experiment – Deming used in 1940s to teach sampling
- “Respect for people” – Deming was talking about this a long time back
- Tutored under Henry Neave – tell us about him — The Deming Dimension book
- Get “12 Days to Deming” for free
- “The guru is the person who shows us the way… asks questions but maybe doesn't give the answers”
- The Deming Forum of India – 1999 founding
- Unique properties or qualities of Indian companies?
I hope you enjoy the conversation. We managed to have a lot of laughs, even though we're talking about serious topics.
The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.
This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.
Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)
Announcer (2s):
Welcome to the Lean Blog Podcast. Visit our website www.leanblog.org. Now here's your host Mark Graban.
Mark Graban (13s):
Hi, this is Mark Graban. Welcome to the podcast. It's episode 424 for September 22nd, 2021. Our guest today is Balaji Reddie, who's the founder of the Deming Forum India. An engineer by trade, Balaji was exposed to W. Edwards Deming's ideas through his father. Then he became highly interested in the Deming philosophy after a chance introduction to the founder of the British Deming Association, Dr. Henry Neave, who became Balaji's mentor. So it's a very Deming-themed episode, but I think there's a lot of interesting history, a lot of insights here in the episode.
Mark Graban (53s):
I think you'll enjoy it for links and more information. You can go to lean blog.org/424. Thanks for listening. Hi, welcome to the podcast. Our guest again is Balaji Reddie. He is an independent management consulting professional, he's founder of the Deming forum of India. So you can probably guess we are going to be talking a lot about the late Dr. Deming and all sorts of topics today. So Balaji, thank you for joining us. How are you?
Balaji Reddie (1m 19s):
Thank you so much, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been one of your secret admirers on LinkedIn, and I've been watching your blog posts and wow. You know, good thing once upon a time, it would be me and I never thought it would be like this. Thank you. So,
Mark Graban (1m 35s):
Oh, well, thank you. You're very kind. And you know, there's, there's so much I want to hear from your experiences and your perspectives. I mean, including your, your time or what you've learned from Dr. Deming and, and working with others from, you know, the realm of, of quality gurus, if you will, but can you share a little bit more about your professional background with, with the audience?
Balaji Reddie (1m 58s):
Yeah, well, I, I'm an electrical engineer by profession, so I've done my graduation in electrical engineering from, from an Institute in institution here in India, which is very well known. In fact, many of our, my, our alumni have gone on to complete their master's in the US and college, you know, it's one of the, oh, they come from this college, I think they're on. So that kind of stuff, suppose I, I, I somehow never had the drive to go abroad to study or to complete my master's. I mean, I just, I just decided to stay back here. I went up to, I mean, when I, after I completed my engineering, I got a job in a company that manufactured automotive, lamps, automotive, headlamps de lamps and indicator lamps.
Balaji Reddie (2m 50s):
And that was, that was the first time I was looking into the quality section. We didn't have a quality department, but we had a quality section. And if you know, India's history, the whole entire economic outlook changed in 1991. When the then finance minister who then became a prime minister, just opened up the skies and allowed the whole world to come in and invest in India. That's when we were introduced to be useful foreign companies coming in, or those, we had a very, very clustered kind of an economy. We were happy with the way we, well, we, we, we never had any foreign products coming in and now suddenly we had companies interested.
Balaji Reddie (3m 31s):
So things changed and, you know, it was the change that we realized the company that I worked, that we had to compete on quality and not anything else. And that's when I saw the drive, but then I didn't, I think I picked competed a year. Then I went on to join another company, but they're there. They put me into quality and I then had my first training in Xerox's leadership for quality course. It was a five day course. And I was, I was all struck at the way they spoke the training, the tools. And the first thing that struck me was there has to be a beginning and I've been a big, enthusiastic about history.
Balaji Reddie (4m 17s):
Where did it all begin? How did it all begin? So then gain a postgraduate diploma in quality management. And then when we started hearing about the history and I heard the name Deming, and then Juran, I don't know, somehow it just struck a chord with me. It seemed both, it seemed very personal for some reason. And the other connect was that my father was in Japan in 1964. That is before I was born. And unfortunately, I mean, I, I, he, he, he passed away in 1994. So this was before it really got into quality. And, but I know one thing in the 1980s, when there was this huge, big influx of Japanese goods into American markets, and, you know, it became a bottle of folklore.
Balaji Reddie (5m 5s):
What happened in, in America and people woke up with Japan and everything. People started frequenting my home to meet my father because he was in Japan in 1964 to hear from him secrets, you know, of Japan. And I remember him telling them, but then, you know, you know what, I radically, they were taught by two Americans and it all fit into place. Did he mean them? And it was only later two years after he passed on that. I discovered something in his drawer. I don't know if you'd be able to see any of this. It's in such a data state quality it's quality. If you didn't see it, it's quality.
Balaji Reddie (5m 45s):
And these are his notes from Japan. Oh, wow. And this was the beginning of, you know, it was, it was hair raising for me to know my father was into quality. It was like, I was carrying from where he left.
Mark Graban (5m 59s):
Oh, wow.
Balaji Reddie (6m 0s):
Then later on, I went from to go masters in the subject. But by the time of all the books that I read, you know, I mean, I had read Philip Crosby and then I read to rant or Juran, or there's so much to read. He wrote so much.
Mark Graban (6m 15s):
Crosby was the author of quality is free among others.
Balaji Reddie (6m 19s):
The books I read these free quality without tears. And I think quality is still free. And then he had this leadership, this thing about leadership. I forget, forget the title of the book, but it's yellow color, big, big kind of book. And then the question thing about the 99 questions we to ask let's drop quality. Okay. Let's drop quality. So these are the books that I read of his and, you know, in parts they can appeal to me. And Juran of course, was, was the master in. He had everything. There was no question. He did not answer. And then came to Deming, you know, and I started reading Deming. Somehow there was a kind of a connect because he didn't give answers.
Balaji Reddie (7m 3s):
He just raised you. He wanted me to think so in out of the crisis, there is one of the chapters where he say says, you know, isn't it obvious you need to tell a worker about a defect that you will be, don't tolerate defects here. We need to tell them. And then suddenly it goes on to reveal that claim. And that was, that was the, you know, the thinking. And I, I said, this man, this man is not easy to understand right out of the crisis. And then I took, it took me, I think, you know, three or four years to figure out what you're saying. And then in the bombshell that the New Economics and that was worse than Out of the Crisis
Mark Graban (7m 42s):
In terms of being not super straightforward, you mean?
Balaji Reddie (7m 46s):
Absolutely. And profound knowledge. I remember, I just knew I had to understand this even more than out of the crisis that was straight. And I was getting used to having speak by that time, you know, the, the kind of language that he was using. But even then it took me some time. And so I tried this trip, I gave the book to my wife and I said, now you read out the book to me. And I, and I think let's, let's have a conversation. And that's when, when she read out a few things, it suddenly struck me while he was trying to save. And he said, when you're in the system, you become the system. You need to break out of the system. Do you understand the system? And I was here outside the system and I was listening to the book from the outside.
Balaji Reddie (8m 28s):
I was seeing my wife read out the book to me and suddenly it began making sense. And that was, that was the turning point. Then we went, we started having conversations. I remember theory of knowledge, man. I think I must have read the chapter for two, two and a half years continuously to actually get to what he was trying to say. It was, it was, it was not very direct. Yeah. So that's what attracted me to his work.
Mark Graban (8m 53s):
So I took a few notes. We may go back and dig deeper into some of the things you touched on there. Balaji first off, when you, when you talked about starting in manufacturing, what w w what's what you distinguished a quality section from a quality department? Could you explain a little bit more about what that differences in your mind?
Balaji Reddie (9m 14s):
Okay. For me, a quality department essentially would mean that there is someone in charge and they have few people, you know, there's a separate group of people doing that. You have a little like a manager and a deputy manager, then you have the, that's what it used to be. Right. You know, inspectors. And whether we have the bunch of people there and they in charge of quality and all that. So that's what we used, what we were used to in India. Right. A separate quality department. And so we just had a couple of, couple of guys who used to come and check, and that was the job. So quality was inspection, right. They used to come in there to check for those. That's what I meant that there was, it was not inherited, not the kind of stuff that I'm into right now.
Balaji Reddie (9m 58s):
Okay. Right. When we speak about the system and it should start at the job and you don't need a department, it should be everywhere. No, that, that kind of thinking was not there. That's what I meant by that.
Mark Graban (10m 8s):
And then, yeah, there, there's a really interesting parallel. What you described with India becoming open to foreign competition, including Japan, repeating, you know, what had happened, we'll call it roughly a decade before in the United States. You know, we think of Dr. Deming and the famous NBC documentary program, you know, if Japan Can, Why Can't We?, which I think was, was that 1980? I mean, it was, it was really, yeah. I mean, so in a lot of ways, parallels to India in terms of, we we've got this competition, we we've been maybe protected a bit in our own market.
Mark Graban (10m 48s):
And same question applied. If Japan can do it, why can't India? Was there a similar inspiration, or it sounds like similar motivation.
Balaji Reddie (10m 56s):
Okay. I thought it was something like that. It was just that we were walking up to a different world and it was that we were welcoming. I don't think it was competition. It was there, we were welcoming foreigners and we just saw a different perspective of things. And I think at that time, even because Suzuki had been in India for some time by then, they gave him to India in 1982. And it was 10 years by then. And now, you know, they were really growing. So they tied up with this Indian company called and they brought in these guys. But that was, that was, there was an amazing guy as compared to what we were used to.
Balaji Reddie (11m 36s):
And it was, it was different. We were welcoming. It was not a competition. I think we looked at it differently, look at it as an opportunity to grow, but, but we were still, you know, there are a lot of mental space. There are a lot of mental blockages about a few things, which I think it took a long time to get used to, at least at least I can drop from my personal interaction. Yes.
Mark Graban (11m 58s):
Sure. And did that open up likewise opportunities then for Indian companies to export more to other markets?
Balaji Reddie (12m 5s):
Yeah, but they were getting done things in India and other made in India, Kathy. And there was another thing that happened now, you see the samples and the bachelors that I think the Indian company sent at that time, you know, a very good, but the consistency was lacking or a period of time. And so I think the shotgun that people thought to get everyone on par that let's let's, you know, introduce ISO 9000. So that became a big thing during the nineties in India, you know, all everyone had, if you wanted to export, you need to have an ISO 9000 certification. That was, that was a must. So every, all the companies started going for Iceland nine. Now that's the first time I heard about ISO 9000 in my life or in 92, 93, I didn't even know what it was.
Balaji Reddie (12m 50s):
All right. And then attending a program, an introductory kind of a program. And I said, okay, this sounds, this sounds very, you know, straight jacket, but it's, it's better than what we're doing right now. That's the impression I got. In fact, I became an auditor. I became a certified auditor. So that, so that was the, that was what was good. Was, was the, the thing about quality leadership for quality happened to me. And then, yeah,
Mark Graban (13m 17s):
So, I mean, you've talked a little bit about Dr. Deming and I would like to explore more about what you've learned from him and talk about the Deming forum of India. We talked about Joseph Juran. I know he is held in similar esteem is I think part of my own gap in my own education or reading, like I've poured into Deming a lot over the last 30, almost 30 years. I don't think I've read any of Dr. Juran books. So can, can you share a little bit more about kind of his influence and what he brings to the discussion that that's maybe similar or, and then what, what might be different or additive to what Dr.
Mark Graban (14m 4s):
Deming would teach or ask about?
Balaji Reddie (14m 8s):
Yeah, I would say Juran wrote with a lot more clarity and meaning he didn't ask questions, he give you the answers, but it was, it was from a traditional, because he rose from the traditional rank blank ranks of management. I'm too small to speak about. It's really beyond everything else, but, and the language that he wrote, it was so clear. And you could see, he had a lot to share and people talk about his, his handbook. Of course, that was the first book I went through. And I said, this is so terrible, but it had, you know, 28 to 30 other authors as well. Okay. Each one altering a certain section. I would, I would say one of the best books that, that I've ever read is, and I would recommend this to anybody who wants to learn to your hand is this book, managerial breakthrough.
Balaji Reddie (14m 58s):
And I think it's the best, one of the best books ever written by provider management. I mean, it's not just about quality. I mean, you can see, you can see the seeds there, right? Absolutely. But the way he's explained this, because at that point, this was 1964, right. When he wrote this book, and then this is, this is, this edition that I have is the 1995 edition, the 30th anniversary edition for me because, because I, I, I had it autographed by him. So, and this incidentally is another, another something special. It was my first wedding anniversary gift for my wife.
Balaji Reddie (15m 38s):
So
Mark Graban (15m 41s):
That's definitely special.
Balaji Reddie (15m 44s):
She's all my, my, you know, my passion for both Deming and Juran. And she saw this book and that was, that was the music. It would be by surprise and went on to read this booklet so that this book is a classic. Now, like I said, he, he lays it out and he demystified the entire craft of managing for quality. He did that and he did it from the lens of, of a traditional manager. So in that sense, he was pretty traditional. And, you know, he made things, like I said, I said, a lot of clarity, a lot of structure, this is what you need to do. You need to start here and need to do this. So I think that he left nothing to chance.
Balaji Reddie (16m 25s):
Whereas Deming wanted you to have your own method and your own approach. That's the way I look at it. Okay. That he didn't, he didn't want to give any, any structure. He said, you, you, you just have to think differently. And that's what was, was the challenge, right? He just said, you know, look at things. We look at things differently. I remember, I think it was Henry Neave you know, Henry neem has coached me because that's, that's when it all began right after all this. I remember that day when I was getting it to them in, okay. So this is you're me about your, and yes, the handbook is a must, but until the fifth edition post that I don't want to commend because it's not the way it was.
Balaji Reddie (17m 6s):
And his other books, you know, which, which are classic. So Juran on quality planning and analysis and leadership for quality, quality by design, the well you name it. I mean, planning for quality. I think the planning for quality became quality by design and then leadership for quantity was upper management and quality was originally in Japanese and then translated into English. But this book, I would, I would still say that you, you know, you got to read it to understand the genius of this person. You know, he created it and Devin, Deming's a challenge. And he's really challenged with,
Mark Graban (17m 43s):
Yeah. I've heard that from a lot of people that, that if there is common criticism of Deming, is that what he taught? Didn't always translate well into his own books. I mean, I often recommend there was a book written by, so I mean, it, Henry Neave wrote a book called The Deming Dimension, which I've heard people recommend. There's another book, Rafael Aguayo, a book written about Deming. And that like, honestly, that's the book I recommend to people is, you know, for an introduction as somebody else writing about Dr. Deming's principles and works, but there, there are the different books out there, of course.
Mark Graban (18m 23s):
But
Balaji Reddie (18m 25s):
I think he's one of the few people on whom books have been written rather than by, you know, he wrote many books in management and three in statistics, but many people are written on him. So Rafael was, I happened to speak to him once on video. He, we got chatting about something and I don't know where we met initially. I think it was LinkedIn. That'd be meant for the first time. I mean, I chatted up, maybe I posted a comment, which he just replied to and he gave up after that, he wrote another book, right. The meter knowledge, that's nothing but profound knowledge. You know, we meet eat, he put some more meat to it.
Balaji Reddie (19m 8s):
Sure.
Mark Graban (19m 9s):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to go find him on LinkedIn and maybe I can convince him to be a guest on here as well. So we talk about, you know, the, the things that connected with you very deeply from, from Deming and Juran, and, you know, I want to explore your perspectives on what Dr. Deming taught. I mean, I think if I'm remembering right at one point, Dr. Deming said or wrote that the most important thing for a manager is to understand variation. Now, I also remember him saying the most important thing is understanding psychology. And like, I guess you can have more than one most important thing, but, but to you, what was the impact of this idea of understanding variation and focusing on reducing variation?
Balaji Reddie (19m 56s):
Oh, I would say all four parts because he never distinguished, right. All four parts of performance, which are equally important. I think he said that he said, there's no one, you don't need to be an expert in any one of them. And that's the, that's the difficult bit, right? When you start teaching Demi and he says that all four are equal and you don't need to be an expert in that you need to have working knowledge and just about enough. So it, it's a way of looking at things around you. I don't see it as a subject or as, as a tool. It's something else. And you can't, you can't really explain it. It's it's like you can't, you know, sometimes the positive, the English language comes in, usually country explain what he was trying to say.
Balaji Reddie (20m 35s):
And I would say that all four areas that he picked out, let me, let me tell you something about this when he was distilling his life's work. All right. And then, I mean, the 14 points we'll work primarily for an American audience because I believed he could not, he saw that people were not really grasping what he was saying. Right. And it was at Hibbett backyard that somebody wrote a list of 10 points that you know, that this is what I've learned from you. And then he added something more. And then at least if you, if you read that the, what statistics came in at least six or seven of them, and then you refine those and meet them 14. Okay.
Balaji Reddie (21m 15s):
And the buildings became more and more concise and very, very, to the point. But that was primarily for the north American audience. I don't eat the Japanese, never knew what he was talking about. Right. The 14 point system for them. And, but when he was putting it all together, it was might want to try this. If you know who he was, He was, he was, he was a directors at MIT, Massachusetts. And he was brought in from what I know, this is what I've heard from at least two people. He was brought in to prove them in wrong. And because he was a brilliant man, he was a brilliant man and you'd run the mean wrong.
Balaji Reddie (21m 56s):
But then he started spending time with Deming. He became one of his greatest proponents. I won't use the word follower. No he wasn't. But definitely one of his greatest before.
Mark Graban (22m 9s):
Yeah. I mean, Dr. Deming references, Myron, Travis, a lot in, in his books. Was there something in particular that he was supposed to try to disprove Deming on or just somehow more broadly, like discredit might not be the right word, but disprove I'm curious. I wonder what that was about.
Balaji Reddie (22m 27s):
He was, he was taking on just about everybody, right. W was known for no, that's, that's too bad. That's the silliest thing. And he just want you to think, I mean, there are people who took it badly, the people who took it. Well, I think Jim McDonald was one of the people in Ford who initially did not like what he said, when Deming Deming once asked him, what's your job. And he said, I am vice-president of manufacturing. And he said, that's your title? What's your job. And then later on, he realized, he said, I realized what he was getting at, but it was unnerving being in front of him.
Balaji Reddie (23m 8s):
And so, but some, some took it well, like I said, some took it badly. So Myron wood, wood it'll keep questioning and questioning. And he said, this man always answers the question with the question he never gave me. Or one of the times he said, he asked him that if you were to put it down into a few words, what would you say your, your, your message to management was? So that being said, you've lived, you heard me speak so many times, what do you use it? And so I went back and after a week I came back to them and I said, well, system's psychology variation, Deming that wonderful, just add theory of knowledge.
Balaji Reddie (23m 58s):
And then he showed him the notes that he'd made until you of knowledge was there. So Deming's interaction with, so in all four were equally important. And he said, in fact, Henry told me this was the end of his life. The last two, three programs that he conducted in Europe, he would stand up and say, I'm not here to teach you anything new. I'm here to make you see things that you normally would not see And perform knowledge, I believe makes you see things that you normally would not see when you see things differently, you ask different questions. When you ask different questions, then you'll get different answers.
Balaji Reddie (24m 39s):
When you get different answers, you draw different conclusions. When you draw different conclusions, you get different results when you get different results. Okay. That's when things start changing, it's insanity to ask the same questions again and again, expect. Right. So that's my thing. I think all four are equally important. Yeah.
Mark Graban (24m 58s):
And when, so when you talk about helping people see what they wouldn't normally see or helping them see differently. Yeah. I think when you talk about things created by HP people, the red bead game as legend has, it was actually created as a gift for Dr. Deming and
Balaji Reddie (25m 19s):
Not, not really, not really. The red bead game was, was an experiment. He conducted in the 1940s to, to teach sampling. Alright. And he was teaching that during the 1940s, you know, he taught martial arts methods and one of the things, because he was a master of sampling. So he used to teach that he used to use the red beads to teach that I have, I have proof yet the 1950, these are the, this is the 1950 lectures in Japan. I think I must be one of the few people in the world has a copy of this book because it has Demings and writing.
Balaji Reddie (25m 59s):
And the, the, he calls the as, let me take it to the chapter.
Mark Graban (26m 10s):
And while you're looking for that, I mean, part of the history I've heard and, and thank you for filling in some of these details, maybe somebody created more of the script and the scenario, the way Dr. Deming was later using, oh, there's a picture of a paddle. Yeah. Yep.
Balaji Reddie (26m 25s):
Okay. It was a 1950 lectures. So he was, he was talking about the red needs, but strictly from a sampling perspective, the lessons and management. Yes. They came through HB. That came much later. Yeah.
Mark Graban (26m 39s):
So, but I think, you know, back to the, the power of the red bead game, I've seen healthcare executives start seeing things differently from participating hands-on with the game and seeing the, the scenarios and the role-playing like the one I thought this was a really powerful moment when it was the chief medical officer of a hospital was sitting in the VR in the front when we were debriefing and talking about the game and he raised his hand to make a comment first. And he said, you know, I think I've learned that all of our safety and quality metrics are red beads equivalent, right. In terms of like the way they were setting targets and responding and reacting and doing all sorts of things that weren't really changing the system of work, if you will, of looking at, you know, the system is created to it, it's created to give the results it's giving and, and, and, and that I've seen that really be powerful for people.
Balaji Reddie (27m 41s):
Yeah. I have with a lot of, a lot of lessons because I have conducted that experiment myself around, I think 64 times now in total. And it's an every single time mark, it's really amazing. It's almost like it's, you know, history repeating itself, the numbers come again and again, and I have an explanation for every single number that comes up there. What are you doing? Yeah, incidentally, I have the same kind of experience that Dr. Deming had about using a wooden battle and then an acrylic, right? The wooden paddle was gifted to me by Henry and Henry said that this was one of the battles that Deming had used.
Balaji Reddie (28m 22s):
I don't have it here right now, but that, then, then after those later on, I started using an acrylic one and like Demi mentions in, in his, in the lessons of the red beads. And he says that, you know, what should it settle down to the average, right? What should the set on the number of red beads? Because you know that it's 20% projected,
Mark Graban (28m 41s):
Settled down to 10,
Balaji Reddie (28m 43s):
But he said, look with a wooden paddle. I had 11.6 and with the acrylic fabric, it's 9.4. Now, what do you say to the hat? All right.
Mark Graban (28m 52s):
I have not, not a big enough sample size yet, or a
Balaji Reddie (28m 56s):
No. He would say, that's the difference you see, there is no such thing as random sampling. He said, this is mechanical sampling. And that's why they're always, that's the system at work. Right. You can never tell, you know, are these red beads originally white beads dipped in red are the red meat dipped in white? What, what are we looking at here? Because that's going to change everything with, with the pattle.
Mark Graban (29m 24s):
I'm still, I can still hear you. I'm going to move off camera for a second. So I've always used, I'm a metal paddle that I had. And then I had this made this, this plastic. This is actually 3d printed. Oh. And there is, there's somebody, what's his name? It's on here. Kevin civic, as with many 3d printing designs, you can go and download the design and then you can print it yourself. I don't have a 3d printer. So I had a company print, one for under $20. And in some places, people could go to their public library and upload that file and print it probably even cheaper than that.
Mark Graban (30m 5s):
So there's, there's my new paddle.
Balaji Reddie (30m 9s):
Wow. So Alan Pippenger makes these Alan Pippenger. If you know him they've been cooperative or not cooperative, sorry. What's what's it called the Deming.
Mark Graban (30m 20s):
I forget it. I'm not sure.
Balaji Reddie (30m 22s):
Oh, oh my God. Why am I forgetting this? But he makes, he makes a 19 minutes and eat. I mean, you know, we'd get the repeat kit. Tony, Dr. Tony Burns has come up with something amazing. It's, it's augmented reality that they mean red beads and you could do it
Mark Graban (30m 38s):
It's virtual reality or through your phone, augmented round,
Balaji Reddie (30m 43s):
He was going to vote and you can do it with three, four with the same number of people all over the world. And you can connect on the same thing. It's an app, you download it and you can use that. So it's interesting. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Mark Graban (30m 57s):
Here's an Australia, right?
Balaji Reddie (30m 59s):
That's right. Eases in Australia, Dr. Tony Burns.
Mark Graban (31m 3s):
Oh, I'll, I'll look that up for sure. So, you know, there, there are the, you know, all these different lessons for the red bead game. And, you know, I think this one idea of not blaming individuals for system driven results, to me, connects to an idea that's often associated with Toyota, this idea of respect for people or respect for humanity. And I know from when we talked before you said, this is something Dr. Deming was talking about a long time ago, if you can tell us more about that.
Balaji Reddie (31m 39s):
Yeah. I mean, I mean, after I think his earliest into Japan, he used to go back, I mean, annually for the Deming prize and, and things like that. And as he continued to traveling for quite some time, but he also wrote a lot of papers, which he was, he was trying to, I think, come out with what we can today call this profound knowledge. But he was, he was using, of course, you know, I can understand coming from a statistical background and there was a new science. And so he was trying to promote that. So between 50 and 1975, there's a bunch of papers that he wrote in, in fact, it's intriguing that he kept on talking about people, people, people, and if you ever get to see those papers, they're are available on the, on the Deming website, www dot dot org.
Balaji Reddie (32m 26s):
And if you go to the papers, they're there for download, but they're, they scan from the, from the original journals. So they appear in the same print that are there. So you may have to enlarge and read some of those. The print may not be good, but, but the matter, and he speaks a lot about people need to be, no people are important and people need to be looked at, and there should be a structure. In fact, I don't know that half the, the text right now, but he said at the end of the eight day course that he gave in Japan. He said, this is apart of, you know, what you can do. There's so much more, you can do this so much more. You have to do.
Balaji Reddie (33m 7s):
And remember this, this is that there are many other systems at work. And he said that, that this is the first time someone in the world is going to be doing something like this. It's never been done before. So I wish you, well, he says that. So they always had this thing and he asked them to do, he said, you have to work with your suppliers. You know, your work with that with Zuma. And he said, it was a logical thing for me to say to them that they have to be as good as you are. So I think the whole concept of working together cooperation was the tea. And one of the notes I found in his diary was, you know, that statistics shall be taught by someone else and I'm going to teach them theory of a system and I'm going to teach them cooperation.
Balaji Reddie (33m 53s):
I mean, these are his words. So I think it was, it was more about working together and suppliers are not apart from the organization. They are part of the organization. So I think that that was, that was important. What he spoke to them besides of course the technique, the technical stuff, which statistics and well, I think there are a lot of literature available. In any case, they become common knowledge at that time, you just put it all together. I think he had them put them together.
Mark Graban (34m 22s):
Yeah. And that's where I think like, you know, sometimes people describe Dr. Deming as a statistician. I'm like, I don't, I don't that, that word doesn't that doesn't capture it. Right?
Balaji Reddie (34m 32s):
Yeah. It does
Mark Graban (34m 36s):
Much,
Balaji Reddie (34m 38s):
Even if you read his books on sampling and I think he talks a lot about theory, incidentally, a lot of the stuff I was reading the other day, some theory of sampling, and there was a beautiful reference to my friend, Dr. Juran. And that's what I want to see the country to believe. You know, they were, they were, they were very respectful of each other. And in fact, some of the things he's written about him and, and then Julian attributes, the fact that he knew nothing about Japan, the Demi introduced him to the Japanese. He said, I had no clue. This was 1952.
Balaji Reddie (35m 18s):
When Devin brought the Japanese to the American society for quality annual meat. And they made a presentation on what they had learned from Debbie. And that's when, and Jan had just written his, his handbook 1951, and Deming had gifted that to, to the Japanese and said, you need to meet with him. Then he, he introduced him and said that my friend introduced me to the Japanese. I had no clue before that if I associated Japan with, with junk
Mark Graban (35m 50s):
Stuff, that was the reputation.
Balaji Reddie (35m 53s):
And then he went two years later and he said, he planned the visit beautifully. So, you know, the, the, the notes he said in the ascendant man. So yeah, so he was talking a lot, talking a lot about people. And of course, Japan gave them the structure that, you know, the concept of a council, and then they invented the circles. So that, that was interesting. You know, I think that that was when the evolution really began with the 1960s, the Japanese started getting out on their own, right. Getting the lessons.
Mark Graban (36m 25s):
And you mean by the circle what's often referred to and still referred to, there is quality circles.
Balaji Reddie (36m 30s):
Yes. QC central, as they call it an excuse. So council came from Juran and he said that you need to have cross-functional and across Iraq. And, and then they meet and then they, they take up an issue. And when it's done, you disband and then new gene takes their place and takes up the next part. And he said that, that this, this should we keep repeating because everyone should be involved. And then they created their own concept of circle that the circle sustains it, the council initiates it. But I think the rest of the world got it all wrong. We got it all wrong. In fact, people everywhere in the world, the thing that you initiate everything to a quality circle, I'm sorry, you initiated through a council and then you sustain it through a circle.
Balaji Reddie (37m 18s):
That's the way you should look at it.
Mark Graban (37m 20s):
I have never that that's, that's new to me. So that's part of what's been propagated. I cause even when in, in recent years in Japan, I've, I've visited companies that are very proud of their QC circle activity as I often call it. And those, those teams that may be together for six months. And so that's actually what you are. What, what you're saying is a QC council. The circle is an ongoing.
Balaji Reddie (37m 49s):
Yeah. And the council is, is th the circle bit from what I understand, what, what the giraffe and Dr. Ishikawa, because he's the one who brought that in rave the circle concept, because he said that you see what happened was I think the town cells, which were established in 1954, that's what Dr. Juran gave them. And I think it will the next six, seven years. That's what doc issue that when noticed that every single person in Japanese industry had served on a council more than once. So they were aware of the know-how and they knew why they were supposed to do things. So everyone from the highest level to the lowest level. And that's when they started having women, they had magazines where they started having radio programs on quality.
Balaji Reddie (38m 33s):
And what have you, or right in the Deming prize ceremony was broadcast on prime time, television and things like that. And that's when I believe he thought that let's, let's, let's just take this to another level. So at, at an informal level, you get together and you let let's, let's sustain what we've learned during our trust with the quality council. And let's try to do it in a small way here so that we don't, we don't rust. Right? And so that bit started getting sort of propagated. And at the same time, they would be a part of the council. They would get a chance to be on the team. And if there would be something going on there, you know, there was a cross learning that was going on, like a pollination going on. I think that's what really happened.
Balaji Reddie (39m 15s):
And, and I think we, the people outside of Japan, I'm not really grasped that the Japanese are as cryptic as anybody else. They're not clear. Right. If you ask them, if they see that you're really good and you're grasping something that they very quickly open up and tell you everything, but otherwise they would, you know, you ask them stupid questions, you get silly answers. Right. But what's that? Well, that's this. Okay. Okay.
Mark Graban (39m 40s):
Yeah. So there's, there's cultural differences. And then it's hard to tell sometimes what's cultural difference versus translation.
Balaji Reddie (39m 47s):
Oh my goodness. It should. Lots of, yeah. There's a huge issue. I, I I've seen it with Japanese words with, I mean, seeing things like guisane and gemba, I mean, you, you can translate those words into English, forget that you can't even translate the word guru in, in doing the goodness from my country. All right.
Mark Graban (40m 7s):
I was going to ask you about this. What, what the word guru gets thrown around a lot Deming and Juran and others might be called gurus, but what, tell, tell us more about the origin and the history and the real meaning of that word.
Balaji Reddie (40m 21s):
Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, it's a metaphor. In fact, most of the language which is spoken in the orient is metaphorical, right? The 10,000 meanings to a single word, and they're contextual meanings to a single word. And you can just say guru, you can translate and say, it's a teacher now. I mean, someone looking stupid in abstract here, but this is the best way to explain it, right? Apparently when, when God created all everyone, I mean, that's, you know, we say the angels, the demons, the, the, the, the animals and the humans, right. He created everyone equal and give them equal powers and said, you know, here it is, this is what you need to live and go get, go live a good life.
Balaji Reddie (41m 3s):
Now, what happened was quite funny. The angels were the only ones who understood the real world of these powers. And so they were judicious about them, the demons, they were quite excited about it, but they could be tamed by the angels, the animals, right? The animal kingdom. They had no clue about these part. They didn't even know they existed, but the humans were the worst. They ended up abusing the, so using it for the wrong reasons. And that's when abundantly, God gets very concerned and called every miracles, gene, the angel, and are, you're the only ones who understood, look at what these guys are doing. Right. This guy knows, these guys know nothing. But look at, look at the humans, talking about their dreams. So what do we do? So the angel said, you know, take away all the powers. And God says, no, I can't take away the class because once I give them, you know, I, I can't take it away.
Balaji Reddie (41m 47s):
So what do we do? So let's hide these bars. Okay. So where do we hide these spots? And let's hide them top of mountain. So is it, they said, no, you can't do that because there's this, the humans are very inquisitive. They climb the mountain and then find the parts. Okay, let's hide it in the depths of the ocean. So, no, they're very inquisitive. They'll go there and find it. But what the hell do we do that? Let's hide it inside of them. We hide it inside of them and then keep searching their whole life for the past. Instead of looking at flocks, the bars, yeah. Unlocks the bars is the group. So the guru is not the teacher. The guru helps you realize who you are. And so we have this, this, this whole concept in our, in our, in our part of the world and our country, we can never get better than the group.
Balaji Reddie (42m 35s):
So all this crap that I keep hearing about is, you know, the Japanese got better than they would never think like that. Absolutely not them in Japan they're gurus because they help them discover who they are. So that would never go away. I mean, I'll give an instance here again. I mean, there's, there's this game in India, which is very famous called cricket. If you've heard about it, it's, it's a craze in this camp and there's a very, very, very famous player in India by the name bell Suchy. And I'll just stick to that and such in is like the God of cricket here. But he always went to his guru and his guru never played a single game for our country.
Balaji Reddie (43m 19s):
This man has played more games than anybody else in the world for that matter. But he always went to his guru and paid his respects. So that was that. That's the key, that's the way, you know, we've been brought up. So we never say we get better than the group. A group is someone who shows you the way he, you know, who, who helps you discover who you are, shows you, here you go. And then you, you just grew from there. And who decides that you're better than the group. Only the group decide that not anybody. That's the way we look at it. So, yeah, that's, that's one big misconception I see here. So you can just use that word loosely for anybody. Everybody's a Google, that's a Google study, please. There may be some good teachers.
Mark Graban (43m 59s):
I mean, there's maybe a similar discussion is going back to a Japanese word sensei. Yeah. I, you know, I might choose, there are people I will refer to as sensei, but that's, that's, that's, that's me bestowing that upon them. That doesn't mean somebody gets to say they are a sensei. It's all directional. Now I think of like, you know, John shuck from Toyota and the lean enterprise Institute, I would say John shook is a sensei, but then there are people to whom he would call sensei. Good. John is, John is not sensei to the people who taught him at Toyota. For example, they may respect that they would respect him, but that's different than, you know, that different, different use of that word, sensory, or I think of Peter Drucker who often gets put into that same Mount Rushmore of management, Eric Reese.
Mark Graban (44m 58s):
I don't know if you're familiar with him. I've interviewed him. He's the author of books, including the lean startup and the startup way. And he, and he shares a story cause Eric sometimes we'll get called, oh, he's a guru of lean startup. And I presume this is true. Or, you know, he says, y'all well, Peter Drucker, you know what Peter Drucker said about gurus is that they call you a guru because they can't spell the word charlatan
Balaji Reddie (45m 22s):
That's. So Peter Drucker.
Mark Graban (45m 24s):
Yeah. I don't have the book. I don't have the exact reference to footnote that, but that's a wonderfully self-effacing way of, So I, I want to ask a little bit about the Deming forum of India and hear a little bit about some of, you know, the, the history and what you do today. And then if you can share some examples of, you know, nowadays working with India, Indian companies, India based companies. I, in my travels, I haven't had the chance to come to India. So I've never personally been able to visit Indian companies like life.
Mark Graban (46m 5s):
We look at here in this decade of the 2020s, what does the Deming forum bring to Indian companies? And I know I'm asking three questions altogether here, so I'll apologize for that me step back and say, well, tell us about the DMing forum of India and how they came to be. Yeah.
Balaji Reddie (46m 24s):
So yeah, that gave to me when I was teaching at, at the, at this college. And at the same time I saw this interest in Devin grow, right. It was happening. And then we had 1998 where the first statement in an Indian company, one of the Deming cries, which opened the flood gates here. And so the awareness about Deming was taking was, was in really growing. So 1999, I just went on to this, it's called the w from India, but then I changed it to just recently the Demi from India. So it was primarily aimed at getting these points across, but unfortunately it, people misunderstood and thought that this was a consultancy for the Deming price.
Balaji Reddie (47m 8s):
So I kept getting calls about the Deming prize and I said, no, I'm not dealing with that. I'm dealing with the, I mean, Dr. Deming's philosophy. And so they said, how's that different as it is very different. It's not that they're not the same. You know, you may have been the Deming prize, but understanding that there in philosophies is much, much deeper. And I look at it as, as a, you know, a ways and means of getting people to at least be aware of what is happening. So if you go ahead and check outside of Japan, the highest number of Deming prize winners in the world that come from India, right? The sheer number of companies that have won the Democrats. And they all say it's a spiritual journey, but I think it's more about getting, you know, from what I see, many of them are so focused on getting the prize that I don't think they really gotten deep into.
Balaji Reddie (47m 55s):
Maybe they have a lot of respect for them being in the sea, but they limit that to the 14 points. And that's what really irritates people trying to break that. Okay. Trying to get people really aware. So there are a couple of things that have happened in, in between 2004 and 2009. There was this gentlemen who was working with Indian railways and he got me involved, Mr. his name. And he gave me this chance to speak to some of the top people in Indian railways. And I saw a lot of things happening there, a lot of good things happening, but as is the case here, you know, when you, when the, the railway ministry that it's all politically motivated, right?
Balaji Reddie (48m 38s):
If the railway minister, if he loses the election and then everything that he's set up all goes, you know, they just, they just stopped doing what he was doing and that's exactly what happened. So those five years were quite amazing and then managed to reach, you know, the rail wheel factory and the coach factory and the training centers, even the financial, I mean, we came to the financial, the chief accounts officer. They, they got interested in that in the Western railway. So a lot of things happened, but it was left midway. Okay. Just around, I think two, three years ago, we tried to rekindle that. And again, there was interest, but it's just, it's just really remained dormant.
Balaji Reddie (49m 21s):
But in industry, I keep getting these calls. So I decided to focus on academia. I said, let's let me, let me train students. Now. I didn't realize what, what actually happened was that the students came with absolutely no baggage. They took to this like a fish takes to water. And that was exciting. That's been really exciting all these years. And many of the students now are attaining positions in their companies where they can actually do things. Many of them. In fact, I don't typically they get chosen to be a part of the Devin prize team because they know more about Deming than anybody else, the company, but then they using that to get things forward.
Balaji Reddie (50m 2s):
So I'm just waiting. I've said this before, you know, that you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but it could never come the number of apples in the seed. You know, I'm just throwing the seeds that are, I mean, I think things will, and some companies are taking it. This there's a company in India who we meet once a week on zoom, on a zoom call. And the owner of the company is totally into Demi. And he started off with the Deming prize and he contacted someone from the Debby Institute and they said, there's a person in India. Why don't you talk to him? So that's how it started.
Balaji Reddie (50m 43s):
And I said, look, if you're for the Deming prize, I think you're knocking on the wrong. No, no, no. I want to learn about Demi and you tell me what I need to do. And I said, okay, let's meet. And you tell me what you understand about Demi. And that's what happened. The first meeting, this was amazing. Two hours mark, two hours. He made a presentation in front of me on the 14 points and where he stood. Vis-a-vis the 14 points at the end of it. I said, you know, this is not, it there's more, there's more.
Mark Graban (51m 12s):
Yeah, yeah. What, there's 18 points now? No.
Balaji Reddie (51m 19s):
So then I told him about profound knowledge. And when we started all of that, the next day he was eyes and ears and it was, it was really mind-bending. I love to see that in the eyes of the people, when they start realizing a few things, you know, I saw this happen so many times during the, the trust with the Indian railways that I met some, some of the top people. And on the first day, they would be very skeptical. Don't teach us anything that we already know. And then by the, it would be a three-day program. By the end of the second day, it was, it was all coming together, you know, by the term had introduced profound knowledge and say, my God, this is something different.
Balaji Reddie (51m 59s):
We didn't expect this. And I don't know what the red beads, cause it was used to be bigger by the end of the first day, right. We introduced you to the red beads. That that was an eye-opener for some of the people. And they say, okay, you're getting what you're getting at. Some of them would go along with the role play and have fun, you know, because in India we do suffer from this kind of, sometimes we take things a little too seriously, you know, the sense of humor kind of goes somewhere Henry or in India. And he was trying to do the red beads experiment is that understood. The 9,000 company here we follow procedures, is that understood you put it the battle at 40, 40 people would think that, oh my God, why would he get me?
Mark Graban (52m 43s):
But I have seen people, you know, here in the US and other countries, they, they know it's, it's just a game, but people get competitive and they get upset when they get a lot of red beads and, and, and, and people do get drawn into it in a way that's hard to explain. Sometimes it goes beyond role-playing like they're feeling and experiencing something deeper than that. When they, when they're participating,
Balaji Reddie (53m 11s):
Some of them actually, you know, just staring, what did I do wrong? You know? And when I go and they called the employee of the month, I remember once there was this, this student of mine, this girl, and she says, why exactly the employee of the month, can you tell me
Mark Graban (53m 29s):
You have the best results?
Balaji Reddie (53m 33s):
That's exactly what the rest of doing. You know, why, why are you shouting at them?
Mark Graban (53m 40s):
People, people get it. And that game gives them a perspective and language to talk about. Maybe now, when they see similar situations, you know, sometimes the red bead game role playing is exaggerated, but it proves a point. And then people start seeing this behavior and meetings of like, wait a minute, why are we spending so much time talking about why last month's data point is lower than the month before please just sit and do nothing. And I bet it fluctuates back. I was a little bit better, but we'll take credit for that because, you know, we talked about it Very powerful. So, you know, here, here in the year, 2021, which, you know, like what, what do you think is the most powerful or most meaningful contribution of the Deming philosophy to Indian companies?
Mark Graban (54m 29s):
And from your experience, are there things, are there unique properties of Indian or India based companies?
Balaji Reddie (54m 38s):
I think in India, we have the mindset to understand and use Deming well, but right now I think pretty much consolidating, you know, trying to be self-sufficient and it's still it's on the productivity bear. I don't think we really, really get into the, we've gotten to that phase where I'm quoting Dr. Juran again, that we are at the century of, of productivity will not reach the century of quality. Right? So I think that's, what's happening here. And when, when people really, because when you read profound knowledge more and more it's, it's got the spiritual side to it, which, which I think is, is, you know, we, as, as a, as a people are very spiritual. So I think it would appeal if it's, if it stopped the right way, it would appeal to people right here.
Balaji Reddie (55m 22s):
And I can see that happening in, in the, in the colleges and now with this company, which I'm dealing with this slowly getting into it. And I think that it it'll take shape. All it takes is, you know, one, one good day, one good one good event, and everything will start changing. So till the new energy is Begley, that's the way I look at it. And you're, you know, the Deming Institute, Henry, they've all been so helpful. I mean, whatever resources, right, right now, Kevin Cahill, you know, W Edwards, Deming, Easiest taking that forward. And he's, he's getting all the resources in place and making things affordable, you know, getting Deming online, Deming, next, giving things digital.
Balaji Reddie (56m 6s):
I think that that's going to be the next big thing happening slowly. So resources are going to be there at a price, of course, but you don't get things for free, but affordable is what he's making it. And Henry of course, has gone to the other extreme, the, his entire effort into creating this Magnum Opus of his called 12 Days to Deming. And he's offered it completely free for anyone to download and read and do it by themselves. And if they need any kind of coaching or some things that get back to him and it was, it was, it was something that, you know, I, I was, I was trying to write about Deming here in India and in 2012, okay.
Balaji Reddie (56m 51s):
I, there was this, this friend of mine and he writes for, you know, in India, we have the different states have different languages. I don't know whether you know this, but we are very unique country. There's no, there's no country like this in the world where you have 35 different languages. And that two officially there more than 200 other languages. But anyway, so coming to here, you know, so in, in the, in the state that I live in, okay, if you have a local language it's called Marathi and he's a very good writer. So he, he was intrigued about Deming. And then he said, would you like to do a series of articles on Deming? We'd write it every other Sunday. So 26 short articles, but I had to write them in very simple English, which he would then translate.
Balaji Reddie (57m 36s):
And I told you, it's very difficult to translate. So he had, he used to read it. Then he used to call me up and the east to have a discussion. And then he used to translate it to be as simple as I could. And then those articles, when Henry wrote to me saying that he was doing well, days to Devin is getting to it. I said, I just sent him all those articles. I said, I don't know if you would find this useful, useful. He, he just meant on to keep it as a separate section. And he said, there's a contributions. And he took me by the contributions of biology ready as he gave it a separate section. In fact, there are some parts of the course that he says, read this. And then I was dumbfounded to say the least.
Balaji Reddie (58m 18s):
Yeah. So he's really put it all together. It's around a thousand pages. If you look at that,
Mark Graban (58m 24s):
Let me show you hope it doesn't Magnum Opus. Yes.
Balaji Reddie (58m 27s):
Oh, it is a Magnum Opus is the biggest fattest book on Deming. And I think I'm the only print version of it.
Mark Graban (58m 36s):
Oh gosh. Yeah. And it says that with contributions from Balaji Reddie. Nice. Right on the cover. That's very nice.
Balaji Reddie (58m 46s):
So that's, that's what, of course, this is not the official cover and all that. He, he, he didn't break anything. It didn't strike him much. So he wanted more to, with the sketch of Deming that, you know, he got from an artist once, which he liked very much. He thought he would want to use that.
Mark Graban (59m 5s):
The sketch that's on the cover of The Deming Dimension. I'll put links to all of these books in the show notes for the episode, I'll make sure that there are links to all of the books, The Deming Institute, the free downloads and papers and, and the webs and the Deming form of India has its own website. I presume
Balaji Reddie (59m 31s):
No, we a bit, I'm just constructing that. I did have a website, but it was hacked into, and Ooh, I, I was quite upset at what, what word was put up there. And so I just tore it down. And then I had a problem with, with the hosted this, and then of course I managed to retrieve everything because I own the domain. Right. So there was a bit of a problem, but yeah, everything has been sorted. So getting that website and now I have a very professional person doing the website, someone who tells me, you know, nothing about this. Yeah. That's the one that's my daughter. And so she's been,
Mark Graban (1h 0m 12s):
And she's going to make sure it doesn't get hacked.
Balaji Reddie (1h 0m 14s):
It, yeah, she, she works. She is with, she's doing her masters at immerse and in Boston. So she's handling that website. So she's, I know what it is, you know, nothing about
Mark Graban (1h 0m 31s):
Humbling, but well, people can find you on LinkedIn is one way they can connect with you and see what you're sharing and posting there.
Balaji Reddie (1h 0m 42s):
Yeah. I, I, I don't know. I just react sometimes to a few things. It's, it's very rare that I comment. I liked some of the things, I just leave a note there. I think Bob Emiliani, is it too? Who writes a lot about this Bob, right? Bob.
Mark Graban (1h 1m 0s):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I've, I've interviewed Bob here a number of times.
Balaji Reddie (1h 1m 4s):
I don't think I pronounced his name. Right. yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, but yeah, there are a few there's David Hutchins from, from bread Britain. All right. Yeah. We, we have, I mean, I be shared messages, private messages, a lot, not so much. It was when I see some of the schools. Of course I do write a comment there because he's got the amazing British sense of humor. You know, I remember there was this, this guy who someone wanted to do a research on that
Mark Graban (1h 1m 37s):
Research on one I'm sorry. Yeah.
Balaji Reddie (1h 1m 39s):
Yeah. Dr. Ishikawa said 95% of the problems in quality can be solved by these seven tools. And he said, let me do a research. My research shows that only 25% can be solved. You really?
Mark Graban (1h 1m 54s):
Yeah.
Balaji Reddie (1h 1m 56s):
So David was trying to convince, you know, that, Hey, look, look badly. You know, I worked with Dr. Shigella and he meant that you would see most of the time that you're thinking would be there. And these tools are just to wait for the finger. No, you need to say he said that. Okay. So I just said, David, you know, I think it's not, it's not 95. It's it's it's 87.43.
Mark Graban (1h 2m 22s):
How many desks will faults? Can you take that too? And it's a similar thing with the number that gets thrown around with Dr. Deming of what percentage of problems are caused by the system. Is it 93? Is it 97? Is it 85? The number itself doesn't matter
Balaji Reddie (1h 2m 37s):
Exactly. The unknown,
Mark Graban (1h 2m 46s):
The vast majority. We can maybe just leave it at Well. And I think maybe we'll, we'll leave the conversation at that for now, but Balaji, thank you so much. This has been really nice to hear your perspectives and, and some of the history and, and bringing, you know, some of these luminaries to light that people might not know of. You've inspired me to, to take a look at Dr. work and be interesting to look at that from today's perspective and look and see where the influences from his work start becoming clear in the work of others that I've learned from.
Mark Graban (1h 3m 29s):
So thank you for sharing all that. Thank
Balaji Reddie (1h 3m 31s):
You so much.
Mark Graban (1h 3m 33s):
This is about a lot of fun. Maybe, maybe we can do another episode someday. We can take a deeper dive into one of these topics or we'll leave it up to you, but this has been nice. Hopefully we can, we can do it again.
Balaji Reddie (1h 3m 45s):
I'd be delighted more than delighted. Thank you so much.
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