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• Create a Constancy of Purpose

• Institute Leadership

• Take Action to Accomplish the Transformation
  (Deming's Points 1, 7 and 14 respectively)

Hoglund (1993, 1994) has written several articles about the Three E's - Environment, Expectations and Evaluation. This article will add a n element to the three E's, by addressing the importance of a Constancy of Purpose and of Taking Action to Accomplish the Transformation. Institute Leadership will be addressed in a separate article in this newsletter.

Duncan and Hoglund (1993) created the Pathways to Quality. In that document, the fourteen points of W. Edwards Deming and the three main points that Glasser synthesized from Deming's work were merged. An additional component, The Vision and Direction was created by Duncan and Hoglund (1993) to fill a gap that was missing.

The Vision & Direction is important if a system as a whole wants to change.

In Deming's first point, Create a Constancy of Purpose, he states that the aim of a business or service should be to continuously improve so that the company will stay in business. Barker (1991), claims that the buggy whip makers are no longer in business because their paradigm was that they were in the buggy-whip business. Had they realized that they were in the transportation business the companies could have survived, by creating new products for the "horseless carriage".

The vision and direction must be set and known by everyone, or as Senge (1990) states: "to empower people in an unaligned organization can be counterproductive. If people do not share a common vision, and do not share common "mental models" about the business reality within which they operate, to empower people will only increase organizational stress and the burden of management to maintain coherence and direction." 1

For example:

The Center for Quality Education, Inc., is an organization to encourage and support education for all learners.

You'll notice that there is no reference to how. The "How" comes in the mission/vision statement. To include any more than the purpose for the company's existence may lead to losing sight of the business that we are in - education.

The mission or vision statement should then be aligned with the purpose statement. In the ever-changing global economy, information networks, etc., it is extremely difficult to predict what knowledge and skills will be necessary for jobs twenty to thirty years from now. The purpose of our schools is to continuously improve educational opportunities and practices for all learners. If this can be done, public education will survive. If not, the public school system will not survive. The Missions would then include "best knowledge" and "best practices" such as creating self-directed learners, students with high self-esteem, teaching control theory, etc.

For example:

1. CQE will provide useful, practical information and training that will lead to success for all students.

2. We are committed to providing integrated, up-to-date information and strategies. After building the psychological base (Control Theory), you will learn practical, useful strategies that you can implement immediately.

3. We believe that the practical, useful strategies include, but are not limited to:
Reality Therapy, Quality Principles, The Pathways to Quality, The Three E's, Quality Tools, Cooperative Learning and The Learning Organization.

4. We are committed to maintaining a reputation of providing quality instruction in a relaxed, enjoyable atmosphere. In other words, "To practice what we teach".

The above four points may change as new information becomes available or the school system, as we know it, changes drastically or fails.

Take Action to Accomplish the Transformation. Change does not occur by only talking about it, we must act on our convictions and study the results of our choices. The PDCA cycle Plan, Do, Check, Act has been advocated by Deming for years. (Some now call it PDSA - s being study).

Only then can you hit your target.

References:

Glasser, William Control Theory Harper-Collins 1984.

Hoglund, Robert Center for Quality Education, Inc. Newsletters 1993, 1994.

Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline New York: Doubleday 1990