Are You Trying Too Hard?

                    David and Sarah Kerridge

We do best when we are relaxed and confident. In a sport like 
golf, this is easy to see, because it shows in the scores. Try 
too hard, and we become tense, and make mistakes. This applies 
just as much in management. Dr Deming put it this way, in his 
"Theorem number two": The world would be a lot better place if 
not so many people were doing their best.

   Of course, it is  possible to try too little. Some people are 
careless, a few even deliberately obstructive. We notice people 
like this because they are rare, and their attitude shocks us. 
Management must take action, because they can demoralise others. 
But sometimes, when we look closer, there is a reason for the 
problem. For example, a worker who cannot read, and is ashamed to 
admit it, or needs new glasses, and does not know it, will seem 
careless. So will one who has not been trained properly, and does 
not know what to do.
 
   Others may simply lack enthusiasm. This is understandable if 
they are frustrated, or if the work is boring, or unpleasant. The 
best way to deal with that is to change the work.

   Even so, many more people try too hard than not hard enough. 
That sounds very sweeping. It goes right against conventional 
wisdom: that the main reason for mistakes, failures and delays is 
that people are not trying hard enough. Sweeping or not, it is 
based on very strong evidence.

   In the 1920's Western Electric was manufacturing equipment for 
Bell Telephones. Quality goes with reduced variation. So they 
wanted to advertise "As Alike as Two Telephones". But again and 
again, the harder they tried, the worse the results. Western 
Electric were so baffled that they asked Bell's central research 
laboratories to help. Bell Labs passed the problem on to one of 
their best scientists, Walter L Shewhart.

   As Dr Shewhart studied the problem, he saw the need for 
fundamental re-thinking. This led to his invention of the Control 
Chart, and the new concept of stability or "Statistical Control". 
He then showed that when the process is statistically stable, 
trying harder never makes things better, and usually makes things 
worse. So there is a simple test which tells us if we are trying 
hard enough. Many processes have been studied since then, and no 
exceptions to this rule have been discovered.

   Few processes involving people are stable to start with. In 
fact, unless a process has been plotted on a control chart and 
shown to be stable, we should assume that it is not. Does that 
mean that trying harder is  good sometimes? Yes, and this may 
explain, in part, why we feel "by experience" that trying hard is 
good. We may have no experience of stable processes. But if the 
process is not stable, we should find the "special causes" which 
make it unstable, and remove them. So trying harder only works in 
a situation that we ought not to allow to continue.

   If we waste time trying harder, when we are already trying 
hard enough, we miss other opportunities. Time is valuable, and 
there are always real improvements we can make somewhere else. 
But  there are many other dangers. "Trying harder", and getting 
nowhere, makes us frustrated, especially if we are blamed for 
failures of the system. Frustration then increases the risk of 
avoidable mistakes.

   Trying harder often leads to tampering: to changing things in 
response to chance events. This really does make things worse. 
Even if we try things out before making the change, we may not 
avoid this, unless the system is stable. The past of an unstable 
process is not a safe guide to the future. Remove the special 
causes, and the Deming Cycle (PDSA) works far better.

   We are all tempted to try too hard. It makes us feel good 
ourselves, and look good to others. Pay for performance, and many 
other traditional management practices even encourage it. This 
makes it certain, in a company that does not understand the 
Deming transformation, that wasted effort will continue, and that 
tamperers will be promoted.

   If even this one idea could be fully understood, and the 
enthusiasm wasted on trying too hard could be turned into useful 
channels, we would see a management revolution.

Reproduced by permission from Variation, the newsletter of the 
British Deming Association