Ep283: Marcia Daszko – Question Everything to Bring the Joy Back

Andrew Stotz 00:04
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community we know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. This episode is sponsored by a Stotz Academy which offers online courses that help investors, aspiring professionals, business leaders, and even beginners to improve the finances of their lines and of their businesses. Go to my worst investment ever.com to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz. And I'm here with featured guest, Marcia dasho. Marsha, are you ready to rock

Marcia Daszko 00:51
really ready to rock?

Andrew Stotz 00:54
I can feel that let's go. I can feel that we've had a great discussion leading up to this. So I'm looking forward to sharing some of that with the audience. So let me introduce you to the audience. So Marsha is one of the world's leading business strategists and catalysts for leadership in organizational transformation. She believes and teaches innovation and leadership thinking. She has 25 years of proven success as a founder and CEO of a consulting firm, Marcia, dash dash CO and Associates, and is an executive team workshop facilitator. In addition, she is a researcher and graduate level teacher, a keynote speaker and award winning writer and communicator and an executive advisor to fortune 500 corporations, private companies, government agencies, educational institutions, and global nonprofit organizations. And ladies and gentlemen, she's recently published her book, pivot, disrupt, transform how leaders beat the odds and survive that you can find on Amazon. And you know, what's interesting is I was just on Amazon and I was looking at your reviews, and you have 4.9 out of five, which is pretty darn impressive so far. So congratulations on that. Maybe you could take a minute in Philly further tidbits about your life.

Marcia Daszko 02:17
Thank you. I'm really happy to be here and help you rock this show. And oh, further tidbits. I was so fortunate to transform personally from being excruciating Lee shy to meeting Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Perry Blackmon who were my mentors and taught me a new philosophy of leadership. And so it made me question, so many thousands of things, beliefs and assumptions in my life that then have now transformed and I help other people question the way that we currently do things. And that might not always give us the results that we want.

Andrew Stotz 03:13
Interesting, you know, I, it would be great. We'll talk for a few minutes. Before we get into the question. And I want to warn the audience, we're going to take a little bit different tact there's going to be some really interesting discussions on this one. But I there's a lot of people out there that are listening, I would say the majority of people have never even heard of a man named W. W. Edwards Deming. And maybe in a in a little short snippet you could tell us who was this man? Why was he significant?

Marcia Daszko 03:41
Dr. Deming was a man invited by General MacArthur to go to Japan after World War Two, and help them come out of the crisis. So he helped Japan become a global competitor in a matter of a few years. And it was, I think, a shock to the world as that happened. But Dr. Deming told the Japanese,

04:10
if you

Marcia Daszko 04:14
learn my philosophy of leadership and management, you can become a global competitor. And so he said, in non air conditioned rooms with hundreds of thousands of people, IT managers in Japan, he would begin teaching at eight in the morning and would be still teaching after 8pm at night, and they diligently were studying what he was teaching them.

Andrew Stotz 04:45
And what was so interesting about what he was teaching, I mean, was he just like a statistic teacher or why would people line up to attend that course.

Marcia Daszko 04:57
I don't think that they really knew What they were getting into, but when he talked to the leaders of the country, and he talked to General MacArthur, they knew that he could make a difference. And they knew they believed that he could help them. So yes, he was a PhD statistician. He had helped with the Census Bureau in the United States. And he also was helping them with that. And he had worked with the manufacturing organizations who were working on the like the war machine. Before we won World War Two in the United States, so we were in the United States, we were applying Dr. Demings philosophy of management. But then, after we won the war, and we were, we had been so productive. And we were, you know, cranking out all the, the war materials that we needed. People didn't like that philosophy anymore. They didn't think that they needed to be efficient or productive, or think about new ways that they were they had one. And that's all they wanted to think about. So that's when General MacArthur invited him to Japan.

Andrew Stotz 06:21
And if you could summarize now, maybe just briefly, describe your interactions with him, you've actually met him.

Marcia Daszko 06:32
Yes, I was fortunate that I was in the right place at the right time. My first career was corporate communications and marketing. And I was hired by a small consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. To help market that firm, and it was owned by Dr. Period, Luqman. Perry was a good friend of Dr. Deming. So when I started working with Perry, I was doing some marketing. And then one day, Perry said, I want to to help get more business. And I said, What am I selling? And that's when he sent me off to Dr. demings, four day seminar in San Diego, he was holding it there at the Dell cornado. And so in that room of about 1500, senior executives across all sectors, I began to listen to Dr. Deming, who at that time, was in his 80s. He did not talk. No, Crispin, clearly, at that time, but also, he was using a vocabulary that I was not at all familiar with variation and systems, and x bar charts and, and so forth. It was just foreign to me. And so I went, when I went back to the office, I said to Perry, you know, my, my manager, I said, What was he talking about? And he said, Don't worry, I'll teach you. And I began to study and learn, and we would have four and five hour conversations about Dr. Demings concepts. After a few months, I said, Perry, I think I want to go hear Dr. Deming again. And he sent me off. And at that second four day seminar that I attended on the organizer, Dr. Nancy Mann, introduced me to Dr. Deming, and she told him that I worked with parry and since they were good friends, he said, fantastic. I'll help teach you as well. So I had two amazing mentors in my life. And I began to learn not only Dr. Demmings philosophy, but with the work that Perry and the statisticians were doing, the consultants in our company were doing, I learned how to apply Dr. Demmings philosophy. And so I went through that for the next. Well, the next. I attended 20 of Dr. demeans four day seminars

Andrew Stotz 09:14
over the next few years. That's amazing. 20. And now I was lucky enough to attend two and they believe they were two day seminars at the time. One was in 1990. And one was in 1982, when Dr. Deming Deming passed away in 1993, but I remember the energy. And I remember him teaching, you know, all day. And I was just so impressed. In fact, there's so many things about Dr. Deming that impacted me for the rest of my life. And there's very few people that you come across that really turn your mind upside down. But I want to ask you a question about this. There's listeners out there. There's a lot of young people out there that are studying things like statistical quality control and six sigma, black belt and all these different things. In a sense, what they're doing is they're, they're becoming experts in the use of the tools of quality. But Dr. Deming wasn't really about the tools of quality, I thought that's what I was getting into, when I went like I'm going to learn from this guy, how to make this kind of charter, that kind of thing. And what I learned was that there was just something much different and much deeper than the tools and I wonder if you could just explain briefly to the listeners out there who are interested in quality, maybe they have already, you know, studied the tools. What is it different about Dr. Deming, CG.

Marcia Daszko 10:42
Dr. Deming taught about transformation, not mere change, not mere even continual improvement. He focused us on quality, a customer, creating a system to deliver results like never before continually transforming not just changing. And yes, you use some tools, because he taught us the system of profound knowledge. That's what he called it. And it was about systems thinking, statistical thinking, theory of psychology about people and what motivates them, and theory of knowledge, how do we plan and continually, as Si, use the PDSA plan, do study act? And how do we continually use that way of thinking, and the more and the faster, we use that PDSA, the faster we learned that the faster we can get to that competitive edge, because we're learning, working, improving and innovating together. And he was all about break down the barriers, break down the silos, break down the hierarchies, get out of the traditional mindsets that we have created, when the major question that I always am asking with when I'm talking to people is are you getting the results that you want? Because if you're not step back and look at the system that's delivering those results. It's not about the individuals. It's not about holding individuals accountable, which is a huge in my book I have the first section is Stop, stop all of these practices, best quote unquote, best practices and management fads that are actually harming our people and our organizations. And our bottom line. Dr. Deming basically gave us a fork in the road, we can go with the management fads and best practices. Or we can learn a philosophy of management that has a theoretical foundation. And if we learn that we can make a difference in the world, we can have an impact, we can have a competitive edge, we can keep innovating. It's awesome.

Andrew Stotz 13:30
That's exciting. Well, I think the audience knows you now pretty well, and your background. And also, I think it's a great introduction to Dr. Deming so that those people that are interested, first of all, you know, go check out Marshalls book, because you'll see her evolution of Demings thinking and how that applies, you know, into her way of thinking now and her way of helping companies. But now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstance leading up to it, then tell us your story. And ladies and gentlemen, Marsha is going to take this away on her own direction. So go

Marcia Daszko 14:13
so well, we then we will never know where we're going to end up because that's, that's been my life. I had no idea. You know, meeting Perry and Dr. Deming, the opportunities, the possibilities. That's why I don't plan too far in advance because I want to keep navigating. You know, if there's a challenge or crisis, it's like,

14:42
okay, that's fine.

Marcia Daszko 14:43
Here it is. Let's keep moving. Let's learn and work together and what is what else do we want and need? And so I think that was a big investment which is normal. That is made, you know, as I, as a good student as a, as a good, I had a great work ethic and moving forward. It's like, you just go like, okay, I was in school, I got good grades, I made the Dean's list all these sorts of things, then I go to a job. And I need, I want to do well on my performance appraisals, not that I work for that. But it is a reflection. And that's what these are all of those things we've put in place in our organizations, whether it's education, or corporate or nonprofit, we run into this all over where we're judged and criticized and blamed and so forth for the results of a system. So I needed to end with, with Perry and Dr. Demings help, I learned how to question everything. If someone has, you know, great titles in big companies and so forth, I have them on a pedestal. Well, also, when you put people on a pedestal, the only place they have to go is down, though they'll fall with because they can't know it all. But I learned question everything. Question. You know, why do we do performance appraisals, we talk about wanting to have teamwork and collaboration, yet we set up recreate systems, where we have people competing, and blaming and judging each other and ranking and rating each other. What what kind of thinking is that? What What have we done to reach out? So many companies, organizations that go out of business or struggle on falter? It's not because of its it's not because they're of the outside competition? It's because of that internal competition that internal practices and systems that we put in place, and cannot make the organization self destruct?

Andrew Stotz 17:17
Can I ask about this? Because, you know, in a sense, what you're describing is your worst investment ever was really an inadvertent you know, commitment to societal norms. Exactly. You know, that society tells us, this is the way to do things. And as a citizen of a country as a citizen of the world. We don't want to fight against all that stuff. Number one, fighting ants, that stuff is we learn at a young age is a very difficult battle. And number two, we believe at a young age, that what we're being taught is the right thing. I mean, how could it not be? Right? So in a sense, what you're describing is an investment in the status quo that we all are invested in. And then what you're trying to explain sounds interesting, because what you're saying is that you had to break free of that. Now, I want to just ask one question before we talk about how you broke free and what it meant. But the question I have is, do most people break free? Is it common? Is it uncommon? What do you think?

Marcia Daszko 18:30
It is uncommon. I don't think most people break free. Because like me, I was being a good student, I was being a good worker, I was being a good contributor, a good citizen, uh, you know, I had the life plan, you know, to, you know, grow up and do this, and then this and then this and just follow that plan. And there is nothing, in a sense wrong about having that life. But I discovered that after meeting, Perry and Dr. Deming, my education started when I was when I met them when I was in my early 30s. And then, like, I had this, you know, it's not saying, you know, reading writing, arithmetic isn't bad, but it's like when I teach my MBA classes or I teach an executive team, and they go, Marsha, we've never thought like this or Marsha. You know, we've been in school for like 16 years or something. Why are we just learning this now? Why are we just learning we need to optimize not maximize the system? Why do why are we just learning a new vocabulary, new foundational things, and this is all about leadership. So it's about people studying leadership, but not the traits Not be the latest buzz and management fads. But instead, they really have to go foundational. That's why, you know, and even one of the first books that I share with everyone that I talked to, is the goal in that book is more than 30 years old, written by goldratt. But, and it's a fiction book. But it is powerful. And so I introduce, you know, to people read the goal, and then read my book, and, and then begin to study, but try to study with some other people that definitely want to challenge the way things are done. You want to let go of the status quo, just question everything and think about, what's our aim? What are we trying to accomplish? Who are we serving? And that method in the middle? That those systems and processes? Do they make sense? So you're always needing to be sensemaking? Does it make sense? Are we getting the results that we want? If not stop? Back up? question. Question. Question. Many, many people brainstorm ideas, no, don't brainstorm ideas, brainstorm questions, you have to start at the strategic level, not at the analytical. Those are the easy parts, like you mentioned, tools are easy.

Andrew Stotz 21:33
I was thinking about, you know, one of the things about Dr. Deming that I always found interesting was that he was kind of abrupt and impatient at times. And, you know, he was trying to, in a way, disrupt, using the word from your title, disrupt our thinking or interrupt our thinking, to get us to question because I think in some ways, you could argue that it would, it's hard to convince people to think differently, you've got to kind of jolt them into some reality. And he did it through stories, he did it through, you know, tough, you know, I can remember a question that somebody was raising at one of the seminars, and the person said, they they prefaced their question by saying, since you're the father of TQ, M, oh, quality management, you know, standing in, he said, What is t qm? And the audience was like, why has this guy lost his mind? And then, you know, he said, Well, you know, total quality management, I mean, you're the guy that No, I didn't, that's not mine, I'm giving you a different way of thinking about things. I'm giving you a scientific method of learning. I'm giving you something very different from whatever it is that you're labeling and all that. And it was those kind of disruptive ways of speaking, that I never forgot. And it made me question, you know, much more of everything that I heard. And that's, that's what makes his teaching out of all my different teachers in my life, that his teaching really turned so many things upside down. And I just wonder, you know, from your own thinking, now, as you've developed over the years, what things have been turned upside down compared to the conventional norms.

23:31
My life

Marcia Daszko 23:34
I mean, totally, like I said, My path was, you know, pretty mellow. And my life since learning about Dr. Deming and feeling now that my job I have a responsibility to make a difference to help people to learn to question. It's like, what, you know, if a, if a business owner says, Marsha, I want your help to take us from 30 to 40 million, can you do it? And they don't even have a management team that will speak to each other. And we go off site, we turn that around in two days, so that when they leave, they're hugging each other. And then we shift to Okay, I don't, I don't want to have an arbitrary numerical goal, because I have no idea where we're going to go. I'm thinking, yeah, you know, 40 million, that's, that's fine. But the minute I hear numbers, they, I know you're a finance guy, but they're, they're out of my mind. And with that one plant, we went from 30 to 300 million. And the thing is, don't limit yourself, keep learning and Building and having fun together, Dr. Deming was all about, you know, joy and learning, joy in life, having fun, and, and I think we need to be a whole person from the heart and helping each other.

Andrew Stotz 25:22
I mean, it's interesting because I've brought together my thinking on Dr. Deming with my experience in finance. And whenever I teach finance, I always tell my students, right from day one, my first thing I say is finance adds no value. And it's a little bit shocking, like Dr. Deming did a lot of shocking things, you know, said things that were shocking. What I mean by that is that the creation of value is through products and services, the creation of value is by satisfying the desires of the needs of the customer. And finance is just a tool to measure the outcome of management hypothesis, a management team thinks, okay, if we really focus on x, y, z, it's gonna produce great results, customer is going to be satisfied, they're going to buy more. Well, the financial measures are a way to ask to answer the question, Did it work? So in a way, Dr. Deming teaches this plan, do study act cycle. And finance can be a very good tool that's testing the outcome of that now, the testing takes longer, and you can't, Dr. Deming was very, you know, key on saying that, you know, it's not about quarterly results. And it's not about monthly numbers. It's about the endless opportunities that we can create. But finance can provide us a tool, one of the tools in our toolbox to understand what's the impact, and you just used it by saying that that revenue grew to 300 million. Finance allows us to measure that and see it and identified significance. So I think that's a major thing that I learned that the Dr. Deming, you know, said that the most important things in life are measurable. As I always tell my students, can you measure the value of a hug? In a time of mean? Yes, who would want to do that? Who would want to measure that? They'd be crazy. So I just want to now go through an ask you the next question, which is, as you look back now, on your life, you've told us about your experience, your development, and your transformation in your thinking and the way you think Now, my question is, as you look back on this, what lessons did you learn?

Marcia Daszko 27:57
There's so many thousands, and they're in every part of life. Whether it's to let go of so many things, like the grades and the performance appraisals, and, and those things, but more importantly, it is, what were we trying to accomplish before we let all of those things get on in our way. So for example, when I was teaching a MBA class at UC Berkeley, and the first night of class, I told the students that if they did these few things, everyone would get an A. And it took them three weeks to believe me. But once they did, they put aside the thinking about the grade. And then I taught a class at another university. And the first night, I said the same thing to them. And I said, Well, if we're not going to focus on the grade, what should we focus on? And when young guys kind of quietly said, learning, I said, Wow, this is crazy. We can focus on learning together. And I also told them to put their computers away. We don't need those. That's a tool that we didn't need. And the learning that we went through was experiential exercise after exercise, I would put them in the exercises. And and I wouldn't use the PowerPoint, I wouldn't say you're going to learn this. After the exercise, I would ask and ask and ask, what did you learn? And then I would say, Okay, how can you apply it? How can you apply it to Your work, because they were all working in industry at that time. Ah, it's overshot.

30:08
Yeah. So they were shocked that

Marcia Daszko 30:10
there was something new. It's like, this is my last class of what my MBA program Why am I just learning this now? I don't know. I'm sorry.

Andrew Stotz 30:21
It's it's interesting that in some ways, if you look at artists, and people who have worked that is expressing themselves, performing arts, other types of, of education, it's like, they say about business that they don't, they don't like it, because they can't express themselves, you know, it's a, you're like in a box? And when did we ever get to the point where business has to be in a box? Why are we at that point, you know, where human potential is now, limited by the fact that you have to get a certain KPI or else you're not going to get your bonus, and that bonus is limited. So you're going to be taking it from someone else in the company. So internal competition is one of the things that we've created, that takes away from the joy of learning that takes away from the massive potential that we have. Because now you just got to hit this item. This numbers. And that's the thing, you know, when I listen to what you have to share about it, you know that that's some of the stuff that I take away. And I think the other thing that I take away, is, you know, what, I teach ethics for CFA for financial analysts. And, you know, we have a code of ethics, and it has a bunch of words in it. And one of those words is independence. And it says that we should be independent and objective on behalf of our clients, when we're looking at investment idea. We are trying to be independent, and not be biased in the way that we look at it. And, as I explained to most people is that if you come into the CFA program, chances are you aren't independent, you're a young person who has got, you know, things in your mind that you've developed over the years, and those things of structuring your way of thinking about life. But now, you've signed an agreement that you're going to take this exam and try to become a Chartered Financial Analyst. And what it says in this code of ethics is that you need to become independent. And I always tell them that consider this your independence day. Because the true independence is independence of thinking. And a lot of the young people think that what I'm saying is to be a contrarian, to disagree with what other people say. And then investing sometimes, you know, that can work. But I say, it doesn't mean you have to oppose every idea. It means you have to think for yourself, as you form, you know, your way of thinking. And the gift that Dr. Deming gave to me, was the gift of being able to allow myself to think in question. And as a result, my thinking changed, you know, dramatically and influenced me from those early days until today. Anything you'd add to that?

Marcia Daszko 33:25
I might add a quote, actually, by the chairman and CEO, now retired, a Ford Motor, Don Peterson. And his comment was, that I love was everything we do. We do through people. It's from an independence, which just which doesn't work, and keeps us having silos and barriers, to interdependence, where we work together to achieve great, great things that we don't always even know about today, but will help us create a better future.

34:09
Hmm.

Andrew Stotz 34:11
It's interesting, it's a great quote. And the idea of working together if you think about the ultimate opposite of that is war. And war is when two sides, you know, decided they're going to fight and how many great things came from war. Great things don't come from that great things come from working together. So that's a big lesson. Now. I want to go back and ask you this question, which is there's young people out there listening, who are in the development stage of their life. They've never heard of Dr. Deming, they, you know, this is all new to them. What one action would you recommend that they take to avoid suffering the fate of just going down the convention Route a never question.

Marcia Daszko 35:04
Yes? Like you said, just to be a contrarian isn't the result that we want, either. I mean, it's important to question. But question as a system, for example, if you have an aim or a purpose, what will? What are we trying to accomplish? And what do we stand for? What are those values? By what method? Will we get there? So, it is there is strategic thinking and questioning that has to happen, it's not just go out and question everything, for the heck of it, understand where you're coming from, I think the, I think one of the greatest things that students can do, and we're all a student of lifelong learning, is to get some do some foundational study. And that can be if you love to read books, if you love to watch videos, you can find plenty about you know, Dr. Deming or Dr. Russell, a cough who's a systems thinker. On YouTube, you can look at my website, and there are many resources there. I've got a bibliography podcasts, research papers, not a lot of them, but they're focused, they're about transformation or innovation. Begin and one thing that I learned when I was first learning about Deming and so forth to and of course, I had the good fortune to be able to go to the seminars and hear directly from him. But really look at when you're studying something. And it's it's foundational, it's, it's a concrete, you know, what, say book or something, go back and look at the index, who are the people that are referenced in the index, or in the biblical Bibliography in the book that will lead you to continual learning, that is a foundation. So when people want to transform their organizations, for example, transform themselves? I say you need a theoretical foundation. So Otherwise, you'll be grabbing at tools and management fads all the time. And, for example, Lean Six Sigma, that's, yeah, it's crazy. One thing after another, got to get rid of tools that don't work. Hmm,

Andrew Stotz 37:58
yep. Fantastic. And it, you know, this questioning of thinking reminds me of a book I read by Eckhart Tolan, which is the book called practicing the power of now, which I, in it, he has this exercise that I've read this book many times now, but the exercise of, you know, to observe your mind and imagine that you're just observing the thoughts that are coming out, you know, and as you're doing that, you know, then try to observe it, and then see if there's any gaps, and then you try to make the gaps a lot wider. And then, but the point was, was that by asking me to observe my mind, He then asked, Who is what, what is observing your mind? And when he asked that question, I thought, well, do I have two minds? I didn't, I couldn't really grasp that. But it was a great question to make me think about the thoughts that are coming out of my head, in a dairy different way. And I think that Dr. Deming, was another person who presented questions and challenges to me, that made me think about that. And I think, you know, I want to I want to wrap up at this point, but I want to, you know, close it out from my side by saying, the questioning of conventional wisdom was the main gift that I got from Dr. Deming, and I wonder if you could just share what you would say what is the number one thing that you can say that you gained from your opportunity to experience the man and his methods?

Marcia Daszko 39:41
I learned that beliefs and assumptions and practices that I saw in life we're so harmful and we are our we're not Aware. It's not that we were doing something bad, or that any leaders or managers are doing bad things. It was just that we didn't really think about them. We just grew up going through this flow, and we never questioned it. And so I think, what are the most powerful things he gave me? There's so many, but I know one of the biggest is, my son was about five years old when I met Dr. Deming. And my plan was that, you know, he'll go to school, and you'll get the A's and the awards and whatever is normal, just like I did. But when I met Dr. Deming, and I learned very quickly, his focus on the joy of learning, and to take away barriers that impact that joy of learning, the way that I raised my son, and the influence that I had on his school was a transformation. Beautiful, my son didn't even experience grades until he was in junior high. But by then I didn't care, because his foundation was loving learning. And to this day, he loves learning.

Andrew Stotz 41:48
And that there is a beautiful gift. So as we conclude, Marsha, I want to thank you for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status, for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. And I think you taught a lot today. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Marcia Daszko 42:12
Thank you, thank you very much for the opportunity. And I want to thank the audience for being open to listening and thinking and hopefully rolling around in bed at night wondering questioning and and I would also invite them to reach out ask questions. Even you know, send me you know, an email when if you're struggling or so I guess that's my recharging. thing is I want to be here for people and really helped them through challenging times.

Andrew Stotz 43:04
Great. Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth, but we also learn to protect our mind and protect our health. Fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.