Management responsibility took on an almost moral role for Deming. Failure in business and the resulting unemployment could be blamed almost entirely on leadership. Leaders, he believed, should commit to their employees, not hop around from job to job. He would likely have eschewed today’s renewed climate of zealous private equity buyouts and an increasing trend toward mobile management.

In the introduction to his 1983 book “Out of the Crisis,” Deming called hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts “a cancer in the American system.” “Fear of takeover, along with emphasis on the quarterly dividend, defeats constancy of purpose,” he wrote. He also derided a focus on short-term profits that comes with traditional benchmarks used by many corporations.
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“Back in 1980 when he talked about working with your suppliers, people would just back up against the wall. That was heresy,” Orsini said. “Now we’re teaching courses in supply chain management, and most people have no idea the roots of it are in Deming’s thinking.” Deming opposed protectionist laws and policies, calling trade between nations “an essential component of peace and prosperity.” Deming’s influence on managing people’s skill was built on a solid foundation of quantifiable fact.