Without theory, experience has no meaning.
Without theory, one has no questions to ask.
Hence, without theory, there is no learning.

W. Edwards Deming

I

The writing was dense and Tuco's head began to ache.
Academic management books did that to him, but there were jewels in this one:
"Management's failure to plan for the future brings about loss of market...."
Old jewels, but jewels none the less.

Deming had discussed the fine line between a focus on cost and one on quality.
The part often missed was his advice to "appreciate a system"
rather than some corner of it... say... your corner of it.

One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.

Oscar Wilde

II

In that appreciation rests the not leading.
One comes to be a shepherd and the system the flock.
One's life rests within the flock.

That Tuco understood.
"You can lead a horse to water, but..."
Yes one becomes one with the system, adapts to it
then nudge it toward a more perfect form.

Knowing perfection is transient, incomplete in the whole,
yet awesome in the moments of transcendent perfection.
Theory improved, learned and made real.

The cycle goes on.