Why Are We So Stupid?

David Kerridge, Sarah Kerridge, and Margaret Morgan

Someone once suggested the idea of a Deming tee-shirt. Asked what should be written on it, Dr. Deming said: "Why are we all so damn stupid?! Well, why are we? We hear a new "Deming" idea, and at first it sounds meaningless, or even silly. Then quite suddenly it is obvious. Now we have another problem. We rush off to tell everyone else about this wonderful insight, and they simply can't see it. The example, or the explanation, that made things clear to us does not work for them: it may even annoy them. But don't despair: there is nothing wrong with you, or them. Everyone has the same experience.! Our minds work in different ways. So to increase our own understanding, and even more to help others, we must dig deeper into our thinking. Somewhere, if we go deep enough, there are false assumptions common to most people. Don't go about telling other people how stupid they are: but when you can recognise these fallacies in yourself you can help them much more.! The Cause Fallacy! If we see something happen, we think that there must be a direct cause for it. Something moves, so something is pushing it. This was the basis of Physics for nearly 2000 years. Then Galileo discovered inertia: once anything starts moving, it goes on until something stops it.! Applied to people, the "cause fallacy" means that no one will do anything unless threatened or rewarded. Applied to variation, everything has a special cause. Something has gone wrong: someone has blundered. No wonder so many misunderstandings of the Deming Philosophy arise from problems of variation and motivation. When we try to point out the obvious, we threaten the only way most people can make sense of the world.!

The System Fallacy! The system controls us and not us the system. This is very deep-rooted. It makes us feel helpless, and so hopeless. Belief that the system is fixed leads to the idea of win-lose. All we can do, without changing the system, is to adjust the control levers, to trade off one disadvantage against another.! Of course, in reality, the system is changed all the time. We individually may not be able to change a very large part of it, but together we can change a great deal. A bigger problem, perhaps, is that we are afraid to change it. Until our Profound Knowledge is deep enough to know a good change from a bad one, we should be afraid of change. We are more likely to tamper than to improve. So experience warns us not to change the system.! The Experience Fallacy! There is nothing like experience, surely? Well, as Lewis Carroll says, there is nothing like hay when you are faint. In fact, experience is very good when we want to go on exactly as before. We develop skill in handling the most frequent problems. And we all know how much more comfortable it is to be in familiar situations, handling them in familiar ways.! Unfortunately the very reason why experience is so good in an unchanging situation makes it bad when we want to make changes. We speak of "taking a fresh look": and that is just what we cannot do if we have too much experience. When you first go to work in a hospital, the "hospital smell" is overpowering. After a week, you can no longer smell it. The mind has filtered out something that is always there. In the same way, experience makes invisible the things that we see every day.! Dr. Joyce Orsini was once asked "Is there any experience of applying the Deming Philosophy to plumbing?" She replied "No, you're really lucky, there's none at all". We should never underestimate the creative power of inexperience. !

The Visibility Fallacy! "Out of sight, out of mind", as the proverb has it. We consistently behave as if what we cannot see does not matter. In ordinary life, this often good enough. But in running an organisation, any visible problem will soon be put right. If not, there is an invisible problem somewhere that stops people putting it right. So we should take it for granted that the most important problems are invisible.! Of course, the most common invisible problem is fear. Fear makes everyone concentrate on appearing right, in covering up, and making all the hidden problems worse. It takes courage as well as insight to make a change, however necessary, that makes things look worse in the short run.! The short-term is always more visible than the long-term, and the measurable more than the immeasurable. In this one fallacy, we have the key to many problems. But that is true of all the others.! The Logic Fallacy! The world is a logical place isn't it? So a logical explanation persuades us even when it is obviously contrary to the facts. It is as if we need an excuse to believe our own eyes.! This is why Dr. Deming, discussing the Theory of Knowledge, stresses that true knowledge is based on the power to predict the future: not simply explanation. This has been the key to scientific advance in every field. But it has not yet got through to everyday thinking. We make "obvious" assumptions, reason logically from them, and most of the time we get a good enough answer. If not, life would be impossible.! This may be the reason why many of these fallacies persist. What works well enough in ordinary life is "common sense". But as Dr. Deming says "Every theorem is true in its own world. The question is - which world are we in?" If we reason from assumptions that are true in the world we know, we forget that they may be totally false in the transformed world we are trying to create.!

The Lemming Fallacy! "Everyone else thinks so, so it must be right". Naturally, you feel safe if you think the same as everyone else. It must be a great comfort to the lemming as it goes over a cliff.! Of course, the majority often are right. But to make progress, you must run the risk of being wrong. One reason why the lemming fallacy is so popular is fear: conventional wisdom is safe. If you are wrong in the same way as everyone else, you can hardly be punished for it. But a stronger reason may be that most people do not know how to use a new idea: cautiously and safely, testing as you go using the Deming cycle. Hooray! We don't have to be lemmings after all. But, on second thoughts, it was rather comforting....! These fallacies are just a start: you can no doubt think of others. They all can be summed up as one great fallacy: the fallacy of common sense.! Of course it is true that common sense usually works, especially in simple problems: and many problems are simple. What is more, a great many decisions have no lasting effect. It is better to do something quickly, rather than the right thing, too late. "Use your common sense" is excellent advice.! It is different when we come to long-term decision-making. The systems we deal with in management are not simple. Above all, the things that common sense can do have usually been done already. What most people call "Common Sense" is reasoning from assumptions that are deeply felt, but not stated. If we want to improve still further, we must question "obvious" assumptions. The things we have always assumed may not be true after all. But equally, if common sense contradicts what a theory says, challenge the theory. Which gives better predictions?! No wonder there is resistance to Dr. Deming's ideas. He wants us to grow up: not to follow blindly, but to think for ourselves. It is painful to analyse our own stupidity, but a great mistake to deny it. There is great comfort in the old saying "In the country of the blind, the oneeyed man is king". Let us all study Profound Knowledge, and be a little less blind.!