S3 E 1 - Damon Edwards - Profound Knowledge

In this episode Damon Edwards interviews me about my upcoming Deming book. Damon and I have been DevOps partners in crime since the beginning of DevOps. We were both down in Boca Raton recording for the Techstrong Predict conference. Techstrong let us use their facility to record the podcast. Damon does a great job of pulling knowledge about my book. 

Resources:

1. "Profound" - The book by John Willis about W. Edwards Deming and his system of profound knowledge.

2. W. Edwards Deming's work, particularly his "system of profound knowledge"

3. Theory of Constraints and Eliyahu Goldratt's work, including the book "The Goal"

4. "Working Backwards" - A book about Amazon's operating model

5. "Beyond the Goal" - An audio book mentioned as a great resource on Goldratt's ideas

6. Michael Lewis's book "Moneyball"

7. Bill Bryson and Malcolm Gladwell were mentioned as influential authors for storytelling style

8. DevOps, Agile, and Lean methodologies, which are described as building on Deming's ideas

9. The NBC documentary about Japan's economic success and Deming's role in it (likely "If Japan Can... Why Can't We?")

10. Mark Burgess's work on physics and statistics in relation to systems thinking

11. Eric Ries's book "Lean Startup"

Transcript:

Damon Edwards: 0:01

Hello, everybody, I'm here with author John Willis. Want to talk about your new book? Profound all about all about Deming? How are you doing, John?

John Willis: 0:09

Good, good. Yeah. Thanks, Jamie.

Damon Edwards: 0:11

so profound. It's a pretty profound, full fun and full pun intended. You know, why? Why did you go that route?

John Willis: 0:20

Yeah. You know, there's there's something, you know, thinking about this question, the there's a point at which somebody asked Deming about his experience in Japan. And there's always been this debate about, you know, what's it Duran was this guy was it that guy, and it's sort of a stupid debate. It was an error when you bow but he made this comment. And it said, he said that, but I'll tell you this, there was only one person who had profound Japan. And they got Deming is he was always very specific about the words he choose. Now, one interpretation of that is, is the egotistical son of a gun, right. But like me have these, like, 10 years of understanding this guy. What he meant was, he wasn't saying he was the smartest guy in Japan, he was the only person who understood this thing called profound knowledge. And the reason why this book, you know, as I started learning more and more about how I wanted to tell this book, Deming has this thing called a system of profound knowledge, just this was his, you know, sort of his Capstone. He basically codified this idea with like 90 To put it in his last book, at 93 years old, was published, the world got to see his sort of manifesto of this idea of system and found out, one of the things I learned is sort of going into researching damning and like, it's like this, you know, peeling an onion, like you just keep learning more and more that is that, that I wanted to, I knew profound knowledge. And it took me many years to really understand what the system profound knowledge was. And it's really again, something that he would call early in his career, profound knowledge. And, and basically, profound knowledge is made up of four pieces. It's made of something called the Theory of Knowledge. It's made up of something called the Theory of variation. And it's made up theory of psychology, and then what he called, for some reason, he didn't call it theory of systems thinking called appreciation of system, but systems thinking. And one of the things I wanted to do in this book was, first and foremost, figure out his journey of how he accumulated this knowledge to be in his 90s. To feel like it was excuse the pun, so profound that he had to write about it. And so I wanted to track his journey. And in what I found was the journey was far more interesting than the system and found out because it glued together all the ideas that we think about in DevOps and Agile and Lean. These are the fundamental principles. And so there's twofold. One is I wanted to have a book that told you why those were important, not only in 1930, but in 2023. And I wanted to figure out what was the DNA behind him understanding and learning and getting to the point where he felt he had to express it.

Damon Edwards: 3:22

So I mean, for those that don't fully may have heard the name, you know, W. Edwards, Deming, Edward Deming, but what? Why is this so important? Right? I mean, I think it's kind of like, oh, okay, there's a lot of people that talk about, you know, business improvement and operational improvement and things like that, like, what, what's so profound about about him, and sort of what's the impact that he's had, you know, to where we are today, right? I mean, if you say, well, what's the lasting impact? I would say, yeah, what was impacted? What was his lasting impact?

John Willis: 3:55

And the thing was that, you know, so like, one of the things that Demings started expressing in the middle and late his career is this notion of complexity. So today, we have all our complexity sciences. Yeah. And but he started expressing that the only way to really understand complexity was it was like, I used an analogy. I think I got it from something that he had wrote, but was that if you think about, like, the perfect picture, and a camera, right, and how do you know what is the picture when you see a picture that's done by a real photographer, an artist, there's notion there's speed, there's lighting, there's all these variables. And depending on how you adjust those variables, you get a different picture. You know, one of the things in the book I use the perfect picture of as a story as an analogy for some of this, which is the seller grabbing the woman in Times Square and kissing her. Yeah, like that's a perfect that picture, like done differently by a different photographer, or the motion, the speed the lighting, it's would have been lost. So well, just a different story. Now and so Deming saw this idea of profound knowledge, much like that, to figure out complexity, like you have to sort of dial in these four principles, and to be able to understand complexity. And so like, you need to understand theory knowledge, which is really just scientific thinking, and scientific method, its epistemology. It's the things that Mike Rother writes about, it's what we know of what Lean was very good at what Steven spear writes about. So that's one of the that maybe that's the speed or the aperture. And then there is the theory of variation. So let me step back to the theory knowledge is basically at its core is how do we know what we think we know? Like, do we really like, like, let's question what we know. Yeah, we see that as PDSA and and then the theory of variation people call it just statistical, what it really is, how do we understand what we think we know? Like he becomes like, he defined this term that drove all the sort of classic statisticians. He called it analytical statistics versus enumerated right. And like, I can go deeper into that, but I won't right now. But the point is, it wasn't just a simple process control. It was this idea of like, how do you take the sort of the shutter speed of knowledge, and then use the lighting of, of the sort of understanding in this case, its statistical and analytical statistics. And then even if you get all that, right, the third lens, so third piece of this sort of perfect lens, is psychology. The psychology which is every human is unique, Deming famously from earliest in his career was a unionist. He so always saw solution to how do you make the sort of betterment of humans. And like that whole all the body of work that we espouse, you know, the Cengage all that stuff is all around sort of cognition, intrinsic motivation. And, and so again, that's, that's the third, let me just say, the shortcut, which is, so you got to hold that. And this sort of brilliance to add the psychology into those first two. But then the last piece is you have to have an appreciation for systems thinking, like you like all this sort of knowledge, we know that this is all absolutely 1,000% relative to how we're trying to solve these complex problems today.

Damon Edwards: 7:22

Right? Well, I think that's, those are going to ask us, you know, how, how revolutionary? That's correct. Terminal was that kind of thing. It feels like a lot of things that we take for granted. Today is sort of the DNA of, you know, modern business practices, or you know, how you think about managing modern organizations. How much of a radical departure was that in Demings? Time from what the standard, conventional wisdom? What? Well,

John Willis: 7:51

I mean, you know, if you go back to what I said, in the original, when the reporter asked him about just experiencing Japan, he said, there was only one person with profound knowledge in Japan. Again, he wasn't saying he was the smartest person in the room. But what he was saying is, this is how I helped Japan, become the phoenix from the ashes. Right? And what happened? What was profound is the results of the miracle in Japan. Yeah, what Japan did what Toyota did what all those companies did to the American economy, for decades, starting in the sort of late 70s 80s, and 90s.

Damon Edwards: 8:26

And one things I found very interesting about the book is, it's it's part biography, but it doesn't go into a lot of biographies go into a tremendous amount of detail. It's more like stories about Deming, and about sort of how, you know, or I guess, activity, the stories you picked, that show sort of the genesis, or either the inaction or the genesis of some of these some of these ideas. You know, how intentional was that? And, you know, how much do you think that that experiential growth is important to understanding the system system of profound knowledge versus just an encyclopedia explanation of a system of profound knowledge?

John Willis: 9:11

No, so what happened was, you know, sort of early on, you know, that it was the DevOps days in not Mountain View, it was the one that was the third us DevOps days I think the one we ran in Santa Clara got by and Ben Rockwood ran this open space on go rat in theory constraints and then door and I was all in at that point like we had all read early copy of The Venus Project gene had given us the backdrop of Elliot go rats and those so that we got started and me pontificating about color at this and, and Ben sort of, he doesn't do this, but sort of Pat's, me on the head. Oh, John, John, this all this comes from Deming. What who's this Deming guy, right? And it started me on this like crazy journey. And what I found in this journey, I was fascinated from day one, like, in fact, everybody I interview on my podcast has been sort of the Deming that like, they all have this like hooked moment. Right. And, and but what I started hearing is these interesting side stories I like, and I started reading all the Deming books, right. And if there's I just recently sort of codified all the books, it's like 15, reasonably, books that I would say are good Deming books, some are great, some of his good. They all have the same pattern, a little bit about his bio, a little bit, sort of some impact. And then all about his sort of management theories. They're almost all identical. I mean, some a little more bio, but like, and none of them tell, like storytelling, right? There. None of them are like, they're like, they're all overloaded, which is good, right? Like people need to understand the principles, that sort of Deming methodologies. But I was also always been a big fan, you know, a couple authors I really like, which is Bill Bryson. And, and I love Michael Lewis. And I love what Michael Lewis does, with like, like he tells, it's actually a biography, right? But you don't know that it's about Moneyball is a classic example. It really is a biography about Billy Beane, but you don't like it or it's a story about, you know, sabermetrics and baseball. But like, it's like, you get storytelling. And Gladwell is like that. And these are some of my favorite authors, you know, which, like, some people would say, you know, they all know that. Those are sort of not the intended intellectual versions, but like, I love the way they tell stories. And when I, you know, one of the first stories I found was, I have a whole chapter on this woman named storage Quinn. And she's just fascinating story all to herself. She started out as a nurse at like, MD Anderson, you know, in Houston. And she, she made some breakthrough about time and usage and just just and I've interviewed her like, she's like, Yeah, no, I got lucky, but, but she's sort of got on his path to becoming and by the time that she's in the, by the time we get to the late 1980s, she's one of the top healthcare quality experts on the planet, right? So she gets herself to get a PhD, a doctorate, she becomes a professor, I mean, she'd be accomplishes every. So one of the things along the way was they sent it to a Deming seminar. And, and so Deming heard her talk about some stuff and was just fascinated, I cover what my opinion is, and my interview with her of what that fascinating was, basically, it was a theory of psychology thing that she'd done in New Guinea. Right. And so he in this meeting, pulls her over and invites you to dinner, and a credit friendship of where the last year of Demmings life, she travels as a travel part. So she's going to GM. And he's just fascinated with just like, she would say that if she showed up for a plane ride to go to sort of General Motors or something like that. And she didn't have like three or four questions, which, by the way, which isn't working backward. They say that Bezos was exactly like, you get in trouble. If you showed up on that flight, you didn't have a whole lot of content to work on going to play with him. Yeah. She said, Man, you he would get so mad at me. And so there was just that was an incredible story. And I kept finding these, like Hawthorn works. I found all these like Forrest Gump in like, weaving around. And I was like, that's the way I'm gonna write a book of untold stories, that storytelling, but teaches you profound knowledge

Damon Edwards: 13:41

and support, it's something that makes it very, it's accessible, and it makes it you know, it's very impactful, because you can make you think, I guess, what, is there a story or two that that impacted you the most that you didn't really think about before or in, in retelling it or in researching it? Or you know, that that changed your mind or, you know, or added to your, to your system of knowledge? You know,

John Willis: 14:06

it's funny, because it's just, it just, every time I dig deeper, I get a deeper understanding of what he was trying to say. And I think that's why a lot of people say yes, to me, seems great, but I don't know what it is. There's so many. But I guess the you know, one of the things I didn't know, because like I said, I went back and I wanted to understand where to get these sort of pillars. Yeah, the for that. knowledge and knowledge is pretty simple. It comes from the will to show it, you know, like actually invented at Hawthorn work. So I knew the heart. So I had three chapters. Like for years before I got serious about, you know, almost the doors when I knew that had to be a chapter at the hawthorn works where they had the Hawthorne effect and like it was this was an interesting interview guy wrote a book about he's a librarian library science that wrote a book about Hawthorn and in he said that he said that you know, back basically 1920 520 60s was when Deming intern there, that if you were basically talking about cars, you were talking about Detroit. If you were talking about steel, you were talking about Pittsburgh, if you were talking about electronics and telephones, you were talking about offline. Like, it was, like, imagine what's going on in Silicon Valley, telephones, this like amazing, new thing. And it's all the sort of the, the place the foundation is there. He's there. There's these experiments that invent sociality. There's Walter Shu, it creates this thing. So Hawthorne was another story. And then by hook story was always been the, you know, why Japan? If Japan can Why can't wait. So I start the book off with that. And when I, my spin on that was a lot of people have told that story. It's a documentary Demings 80s is old. Japan's beating the crap out of us, right. And now we find out in an NBC documented reason, they're beating the crap out, it's

Unknown: 15:59

time for primetime that documentary. But what

John Willis: 16:01

was more fascinating about that story is that one of the things I found that like his grandson was, and they're all sitting around, like, why is my dad grandma not going to be on TV? And he wouldn't say a word. And they're all listening to this. And then, you know, the, the CEO of Ford calls him and invites him in. But um, you know, put it what I wanted to build this sort of crescendo of like, what it was like, in it next I was I was there, right? Like, I was getting my driver's license driving, right? Like, and, like, it was like you didn't you feel like America last, we got out of the Olympics, where gas prices is everything is just terrible. And I said, So in the book, I said, you know, like, this is what it looked like in 1980. But, you know, we got one last thing in America, I sort of an American Graffiti, like, we love our cars, Don't screw with our cars. And then we get like, the Japan is now screwing with our like our apple pie and cars. And in this documentary that tells us that the reason why our cars are getting screwed with is because some American help do it. So that's the hook. But the thing I found the most fascinating

Damon Edwards: 17:10

question, what do you think Americans felt like? Do you think you feel worse? Because we have the knowledge and we let it get away? Or do you think people feel better because they, we can do this? If there was an American behind the scenes? Like, there's American behind the scenes, after all,

John Willis: 17:28

I think the former is, like, they just didn't, they were clueless, they just didn't know what had happened. I talked about what he did pre war, ya know, and then they just throw it all away. So I don't think that was on anybody's mind. I think there probably was an element of like, oh, we could do this. It was an American Horse. It was American. Yeah. Like,

Damon Edwards: 17:48

so it's interesting. I think starting the book that way is because it is such a compelling story. Yeah, it brings along so you may have seen as a kid, or, like, it brings something that, that it's a cultural and, you know, phenomenon at the time that was like that was was going on, but it's not a history book. I mean, it's kind of interesting about this, right? So, you know, it's a lot of history, history stories. But, you know, to me, it felt like it's serving the end of explaining business today. Right? So I mean, how in your mind, how do you draw the connection between the historical storytelling of you know, where these ideas came from? But what's the value today? Like? How do you draw that connection to what's going on today, and the things that, you know, you hear about, you know, kind of the evolution of, of lean, right, and agile DevOps and, and then you've got the digital transformation. And really, all of this stuff is all sort of building on the modern digital knowledge work factory is all evolving and improving based on the seeds of ideas. But, you know, like, why is the relevance of the history in learning about this? How do you apply it to today? How do you draw those connections? Yeah,

John Willis: 18:56

no, you you actually helped me, you know, because one of the things I did early on, which was, you know, I've worked with this consultant, and he's helped me write the book. And, and we're working on another book together. But I, I said, you know, there's three people I have to show the outline of this. Yeah, a few it was my friend Curtis and Ben Rockwood who was the target, one of the target readers, and you basically working backwards to just come out. And in the, you know, you were like, you know, what, if there's a way for you to sort of show that connection,

Damon Edwards: 19:29

because when you read working backwards, and you understand, that's the right Amazon, it's about, it's about how Amazon, their operating model, I guess we say, for inside their company for making decisions and, you know, and how they manage, you know, to the outcomes they get, but you read about it's like, oh, it's it's it's a pull based model, right. Yeah, the other person he goes, Oh, it's let's leave, right. It's like it's all so it's all in so it's me. I was like, wait a minute, like, this is just like this thing hanging out there in the world like Amazon. Does this Yeah. But it's like, but where did that come

John Willis: 20:01

from? It's even better. So like, you know, in the beginning in the prologue, I had this line that said, you know, I pulled the thread I found the tapestry, right. So from that, I started researching and probably Jeff Bezos said the most significant person in all of Amazon is a guy named Jeff Wilkie. So Jeff Wilkie is basically part of like, he's six sigma, he's, he's documented on lean, he's an expert. And also what is Amazon getting to a point they've got to change the game and distribution? And one of the things that, you know, good or bad Bezos side, you know, I don't care what you think of him like that his one of his strongest qualities is to know what he doesn't know. And he knew we had to find somebody she brings in Wilkie. Wilkie basically redefines distribution, for retail, you know, the distribution, the distribution centers, the model, all that stuff. It's all in that book. What's interesting is as I'm pulling that thread, you just got hired at the same exact time for a very similar problem for shipping computers. Tim Cook. So Tim Cook is a supplier that goes to art with Auburn, but he's he's a sort of genius supply chain guy. Yeah, all lean and all that. So if you look at what Apple and Amazon have been sort of the paved road, what's happened there? Undeniably goes back to Deming, right? I mean, I can't find the right coach Wilkie saying I read Deming and did this but like, if you look at his background, and you look at Tim Cook's background, right? And so like, and so like, I think we've talked over and over and over about, like, you know, blowing up my Deming to DevOps presentation, right, which is, like, you know, it starts with Deming, it turns into Toyota 30 becomes lean, agile. So that becomes a sort of a drafting of that. And DevOps is all the above put together. So it all goes back to Deming, but when I was able to thread and so the last third of my book is all about the sort of future, like the stuff that a Deming set the seed for, which changed everything, you know, and again, we I can tell more stories, I still have to cut more pages out of my book, but but, you know, right now, 350 pages, but the, so I even cut down on the Tim Cook story, but like, like, like we could use just those two as poster children for like, Oh, my God, look what happened there. But then. So part of that last section of the book is his impact, how it can directly relate to profound knowledge. But then more importantly, what I started realizing that sort of thread, the tapestry to get built was, how relevant his ideas with a cyber. So the end of the book is all about what what Deming do. Yeah, like, if you're the executive order, and Biden said, Hey, I thought he was still alive. And he could actually, you know, respond like what would you like? What if they brought him in? What would he tell them? And I, I compiled enough knowledge about Deming to feel comfortable to say this is how he would have answered these questions. And then I use examples like Josh Corman on Operation warp speed, who directly attributes to me you on the coal and jazz that operation Wapsi, which was the cold chain for the vaccines now, that's just, that's what Josh was doing. Okay. And he literally and I got a podcast with him on this. He literally says it came full circle, what he learned about DevOps from us, he then applied back to sort of non software supply chain, like, right, that's what that means. Yeah. So you, you were involved in the cold chain. But here's an operation once you get the point is, like, undeniably, Joss is telling me the guy who basically his one number one project, which was to secure a temperature for those vaccines and a cold chain, he attributes back to what we what is the lineage of DevOps, agile, lean Deming, or Toyota?

Damon Edwards: 23:53

You know, only things that really kind of struck me about when you're why I think it's important to go back to these stories, fictional stories, because you think you've pulled out the evolution like you pulled out the like the Genesis or some of these some of these things where the problem is trying to be solved. Because I think why these chains exist and why it's true is I don't think any of us are no one's really invented anything, right? I think Demi is just a great. Oh, yeah, he's a great observer. And it's all like physics and psychology, right? Like physics mean, like flow and queues. And those sort of things in psychology mean, how humans respond to the brain, how they think, right? How do you get large or how to get large groups of people to do anything, right. And I feel like since the beginning of time, whether it's warfare or you know, our business or politics or whatever, it's all physics and psychology, right? And I feel like it's there's these sort of human truths about these truths about human beings. Yeah. And observational truths, and they don't always go with what you think sometimes are countered or counter. And, you know, they're counterintuitive. Right, right. And, you know, I think it's interesting because scenes sort of like such a foundational observer of dynamics, through those stories, helps you kind of spot these patterns as you go, right? It's almost like I'm one things I loved about the lean, you know, the the folks that came after me and and really, you know, kind of tried to try to describe it better, right? is sort of the lean lens. Yeah. Right. It's about developing a vision, lean vision. And then when you see problems, it's how you understand the lens through which the, you're gonna, you're gonna break down the problem to the physics and the psychology behind it, and come up with solution. And I feel like, you know, building that lens is not as easy as like reading an encyclopedia, it explains it to you. You have to, I think, the experiential side, yes, toe right click to him back to DevOps, the, the culture and the sharing part of the sharing part of it, right, you have to kind of go through that, by seeing the stories by seeing the tales you develop, that your lens gets gets gets get stronger. And so it's very interesting how that that, you know, it's another reason I would say, hey, it's great to really understand the stories because we'll give you a better appreciation for that lens to understand how the lens was developed. Yeah,

John Willis: 26:04

and you know, there's two things right one is, you hit on it and like it, like, I think this is a really good book. Like, I think it's gonna be perceived as really good work. If I'm successful in making it a great book, or procedures, great book, it's that I've, after five drafts, and a lot of help from people like you and friends of like, why don't you do it this way. So like, the sort of my network of friends had been amazing, is I wanted to make the thing I learned about my book, which was that like, nobody invented anything here. Like there was this notion of profound knowledge. It was just sitting out there waiting to capture it

Damon Edwards: 26:41

doesn't here's my point. Yeah, as human beings and nature and human

John Willis: 26:45

and he put it in his manifesto called Systeminfo knowledge. The other point that like, how I got into this mess, really great maths, right. But is, you know, when I started reading goal rat, you know, and started really felt like, like, go rat was like, totally in tune with him. And he is like, you know, with all this, I remember listening to beyond the goal. And there's a point and beyond the goal and a great, great audio book, great, like awesome audio in the partner were correct talks about Deming. Yeah. And he says, you know, even like, almost like he's giving you a little tip. He says, you know, want to know something different. Deming, myself, Oh, no short, we're all physics majors. Deming was a mathematical physics. He got his master's. And then I started thinking, the whole reason I got into the whole,

Unknown: 27:38

I mean, physics is observing the world around you.

John Willis: 27:41

Yeah, you know, and they asked me one time, they said, how does a mathematical physics guy become, you know, a statistical analysis guy. And he's like, you know, I always love the theory of IRAs, and theory of errors, which again, and then like, he's lovely squares like, so he saw the world very much like, if you ever get to hang out, Mark Burgess you like, you see a world in a way, like physics and statistics. Now, Mark Burgess has told me recently, this is really cool. I was trying to get him to tell me like his view of statistics and analytical statistics versus a numerator. And I told him what I've learned about Deming, and he said, You know, I try, you know, in my undergraduate work, I took all the statistics and stuff, because I didn't, I realized when I went into physics, I didn't understand what statistics were. So there's some beauty in these physicists looking at the world, you know, and go right says this is we look at the world differently. Because we have a physics background. And that was, that was the original thread I was pulling on is why are these guys so counter to everybody else? Yeah. And the threat my theory was because they came out. And not only that, they came out of the second scientific revolution, which is the quantum physics so that there's so they would light in a time when this sort of Newtonian ideas will be in sort of breaking apart. They're all getting a physics degree when the world is changing, which is like and then you're almost can make the comparison of like Newtonian management and quantum math. Well,

Damon Edwards: 29:14

it's interesting because it's, if you look at physics is basically trying to describe how the world works. That you said it's gonna layer deeper, because classic sort of management theorists, whatever, they have their conventional wisdom built on top they weren't really saying how do we fundamentally look for the truth and how this works? Right and this fast and I was laughing when you said about you know how physics in the work in the business world reminded that movie margin call when they asked the guy I can't remember his name, the actor who played the young Spock guy, but he, you know, is describing how we figured out this the this giant financial problem they're in, he's like in it and somebody asked him what his background was exactly some math genius, whatever, blah, blah, blah. He's like, so you're a rocket scientist. He was like, I guess so. Yeah. propulsion is like, Well, how'd you end up here? It's like, Well, that's all just numbers deposited. He goes And the pay substantially the pace of the pay is substantially better. Right. So, you know, think about that, that diaspora from, you know, from education to physicists to, to business. So you know that that poll is fascinating. But still, it's about how do you describe the systems as it were? Why

John Willis: 30:17

is Bezos a genius, right, he was a quiet little he was a quiet that read this paper about the future of bookselling and dropped everything moved out to Seattle and created a bookstore in his garage. Right? And because he had that math, go on and on about this, but John Henry, when he buys the, the Red Sox, why did they the first team to implement? I mean, Oakland A's did it, but like, they didn't scale it. Right. John Henry scales it like brings in, he was a quad? Yeah, like, it's the same narrative. They see the world differently than the average person.

Damon Edwards: 30:53

Yeah. So one more one more question for you here. And then we gotta we gotta wrap up. You know, I always felt like the system of profound knowledge has a bit of a marketing problem. It sounds like hubris. Yeah, you invented something and you documented something. And you called it the system of profound knowledge. Like, you know, like, okay, genius, right, like, so I just wonder, like, you know, how much of that is? Is it a thing where it's, there's a barrier to entry for people into it. Because, you know, they don't realize he's not saying I'm profound. He's saying, when you can see the world in this way, you have a better understanding of the world than most people. I like that, like, this is how you build you. This is how you build your like, this is how you the the other person on their side of the table, this is how you are going to build profound knowledge about the world that you're operating in. Not I'm profound. And I'm coming to give you this profound knowledge. It's a funny, no, it's a funny marketing

John Willis: 31:54

project. Exactly. Of there's two problems. One is that don't go back to that person asking him about his experiences ban. I mean, nine out of 10 people who heard their responses, what a jerk. Right, right. And what you had to know, and you wouldn't know, that, like, what he really meant was there was this ether of this profound knowledge, right? And you had to sort of pull it together. So the names is terrible. Because you're right. I mean, I know how many people you know, they know. I'm a damning guy. And I tell

Damon Edwards: 32:23

him like, so he's a physicist, but not a marketer. Yeah.

John Willis: 32:27

But the other problem, which is again, another fascinating thing about this guy, which is so like, he's 50 years old, when he goes to Japan, and he wants a 15 hour day, like, how can I get on that boat? Like, you know, we're down at poker right now, just to let you know, we've gotten some business going on, but we're like taking advantage of some really good stuff like 50, you're already thinking about that. Yeah. 50 is like the midpoint of his career. Yeah, he gets to where he's at. And for tenure decade, the most Scuse the pun, profound work that he accomplishes this from like, 1980 to 1993. He's literally going into every fortune 100, Coca Cola, Pfizer, GM for that, for 10 years, he is like non stop at 80 to 90, and at 91 or two, he sits down and figures I'm going to put this in a book, everything I learned, like your capstone, like is it like 91 years old, you're going to end the last decade of your life has been the most significant work that you've done with a career that included helping us win the war with setting, you know, the Census Bureau and doing all these things, which are on the books. But then he dies the year that the book comes out. And so not only is system profound knowledge, sort of a terrible name that gets misinterpreted. But it also never had a profit who, who creates a movement? Yeah, well, they're not think about every Eric Ries, for example, magic, Eric Ries writes his book, Lean Startup, and he got it. But yeah, there's there's gonna be like, that's not gonna be the same story. It's

Damon Edwards: 34:15

fascinating. Well, that is true, John, it's a great book. I can't wait for other people to read it and see all the conversations that are going to come that are going to come are going to come

John Willis: 34:26

down. So I mean, again, I think the biggest takeaway that I like I said earlier, if I can convince people of this transition from this sort of profound knowledge that was waiting to be captured in a career that turned that into his last manifesto that had nothing to do hubris, but it was about improving humankind. Then, like then if people can see that in the book that I've done a great job. I think you have so yeah.

Unknown: 34:53

Excited Yeah, good. Good. As always, buddy. Thanks a lot. Bye.