The rest of the story, as Dr. Deming told it, is that he never did them
again without getting paid for it, The intrinsic joy was gone! For more
info, see my book *Deming: the Way we Knew Him*, St. Lucie Press, 1995.
[Host's Note: here is the previous msg to which Frank is responding...]
>The comments mentioned in Jack Latimer's post reminded me of a story Dr.
>Deming told in his four day seminar which I attended in 1988. It
>obviously had an effect on me since I remember it to this day. In fact, I
>remind my children now and then that it is rewarding to do for others
>without expecting anything in return, maybe even not letting anyone know
>that you did something nice(that's a hard one).
>
>Anyway the story as I remember it was about a little boy who did the
>dishes for his mother without being asked to do them. He loved to do it
>and his mother really appreciated it but she never gave him anything for
>doing it there was just the internal joy of it all. One day she told the
>boy that if he would continue to do the dishes she would pay him 25 cents
>each time. The little boy never did the dishes again. (At least that's
>how I remember the story).
Frank Voehl (FVoehl@aol.com)
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>