“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
W. Edwards Deming
Once upon a time in a small town outside Austin, Texas, the clock struck one and the full moon cast shadows across the Central Texas landscape. In all of the houses up and down the roads mothers were sleeping, fathers were snoring, little girls and boys were dreaming. In my house, my husband slumbered too.
But not me. I tossed and turned and sighed deeply. Sleep eluded me.
Well, I thought, maybe I'll turn on the TV.
Twenty-five years ago, without any cable, there weren't many channels to flip through. So I decided to try our local PBS station. Surely, I thought, I'll find some obscure nature show that will quiet my busy mind and lull me to sleep.
As the picture on the TV came into view, there appeared a young man named David Langford. David, his staff and students were explaining how applying Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s teachings had made a tremendous change in their school in Sitka Alaska.
My ears perked up. I mean, educators are always on the look out for the next change… the next shiny new program that will instantaneously yield fantastic results.
But I heard something quite different. I saw students and staff working closely in partnership.
I saw students engrossed in talking about charting their data and looking to improve… not because of a grade but because they had a deep understanding of the purpose for their learning.
Well, by now, I'm sitting up in bed reaching for the notepad on my night stand, jotting down the title of the program —Quality or Else— and the names of the people I heard mentioned. Thank goodness my husband is such a sound sleeper.
There was something about the things that David and his students said during that 10 minutes that made me take notice. They didn’t promise a silver bullet that would change things overnight. In fact, they said it would take quite a long time, with everybody working together. What I saw and heard was a glimpse of different conversations about learning than I had ever heard before. This David Langford, this Deming, knew something that intrigued me, that challenged my thinking about what is possible in schools.
I had to know more!
If Barnes and Noble had been open at that time of night, I would've thrown on my clothes right then. Instead, I had to wait until the next morning to purchase every book I could find on Dr. Deming. My insomnia usually brought me a sleep deprived day to struggle through. This time, my insomnia brought me a gift— a gift that disclosed a purpose for me to follow.
Synchronicity
“I do believe in an everyday sense of magic— the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity.”
Charles de Lint
The next day, armed with several of the books I had purchased, I waited outside the superintendent’s office for our regularly scheduled meeting. His secretary apologized that he was going to be delayed a few minutes because of an unanticipated phone call.
I absent-mindedly picked up an educational magazine that was on the top of the stack of periodicals on the table next to me and began flipping through it. (Okay, I promise I’m not making up this next part of the story. I couldn't make up something this good!)
As I flipped through the magazine, a sidebar advertisement bolted off the page. There was picture of David Langford.
Come learn from David Langford about Dr. W. Edwards Deming and the potential for improving education. Two day event to be held in Dallas Texas.
Well, as you can imagine, I nearly jumped out of my shoes with excitement. It was an incredible coincidence! It was meant to be!
Now I'm not someone who is known for jumping quickly on a bandwagon. I am known for mulling things over. My colleagues tell me they appreciate my skills in questioning and delving before taking action, so I can’t explain away my deep need to know more and to take immediate action.
“Alone we can do so much. Together we can do more.”
Helen Keller
So, with the Superintendent’s interest and blessing, I asked seven other people to join me on my quest to Dallas. These seven scouts were from diverse positions and grade levels, and most importantly, I could always count on their thoughtful, forthright opinions. I told them, “Look, I’ve only seen a ten minute segment on TV about this guy and I don't know anything else about him. But those ten minutes piqued my curiosity. What we’re about to hear may be terrible, or it may be wonderful. I just want you to come to listen and to tell me what you think.”
It didn't take until the end of the two days for opinions to surface. At lunch that first day, to a person my colleagues said, “Well, he certainly is challenging all of our notions about what school should look like, but I definitely want to know more. I think he may be on to something.”
Armed with the recommendations of this scouting party, our superintendent and our director of finance took a huge leap of faith by investing in our future. All principals and assistant principals and a teacher from each campus came together to attend the next—the first— four day seminar of David’s to take a more in-depth look at these intriguing ideas. There were forty-one of us learning together. The excitement was palpable, as was the skepticism. From there, we brought David in to talk to the entire staff. Over the next two years, I was fortunate to learn directly from Dr. Deming when he was 92 and 93 and sharp as a tack. So that's the beginning of my story.
Of course, I can't describe in a few pages the actions of twenty-five years that resulted in transformational improvements. But, when I am asked, ‘How did you begin?’ the first thought that always, always springs to my mind is that we changed the questions we asked each other.
I know that sounds simplistic, but when we changed the questions we asked each other, it changed the conversations…. and those conversations began to change our culture…and that culture supported a seismic shift to joy in learning. This book describes those questions that led to powerful dialogues and, ultimately, the most significant and lasting improvements.
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
Edwards Deming
I have been fortunate to have David Langford challenging and mentoring me for the past 25 years. I vividly remember one conversation I had with David. It was early on in my learning and application of Deming’s concepts, and I was trying to make sense of all this information and translate it into action. And I wanted the answer. I wanted him to give me the recipe.
I remember that David sighed and said, “Okay I'll do better than that. I'll give you a flowchart. You probably will want to jot this down so you can remember it.”
“A FLOWCHART!” I thought. “This is awesome! This is even better than I expected!”
So he drew a box. Inside that Box, he wrote start. Underneath that box he drew another box and inside that box, he wrote don't stop. And finally, he drew an arrow right back to the first box to create a never ending loop.
Yep, that was it!
Start…Don’t Stop.
Start….Don’t Stop.
Start….Don’t Stop…
Although, at the time, I was less than thrilled with his flowchart, it ended up being incredibly wise advice and the best way to describe how I've muddled through the application of Deming’s work.
One of my favorite quotes is from the movie Babe. If you haven't seen this movie, the main characters are a farmer and a pig that was raised by sheepdogs.
At one point in the movie, the narrator says…
“Farmer Hoggett knew that little ideas that tickle and nag and refuse to go away should never be ignored, for therein lies the seeds of destiny.”
One restless night a little idea tickled and nagged, and changed my life.
But the reason I'm putting pen to paper is not really about my story.
It is about your story.
Somewhere someone will read these words and be intrigued.
Someone is going to walk away with a little idea that tickles and nags and refuses to go away, and IF you act on it…. it just might change your destiny.