Replying to LO29266 --
Dear Organlearners,
Dick Webster <webster.1@osu.edu> writes:
>The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming has been quoted as
>saying: "TQM? Hmph, there's no such thing as TQM!"
>Hope this is true--does anyone have the citation? Even
>if it's not; attribution to those no longer with us has it's value.
Greetings dear Dick,
The above made me smile -- thanks.
I was thinking of quality as part of otherness ("quality-variety"), one of
the 7Es (seven essentialities of creativiety). This made me wonder whether
such a thing is possible in any of the other 7Es, say wholeness
("unity-associativity:). How would a thing like Total Unity Management
(TUM) appear to be? As you have said it:
>And, from my experience: "Total" is a somewhere between
>a dream and a joke; rarely part of the commitment in most
>corporate cultures.
I think that you have pointed out a crucial issue with your
>In light of these realities, how about replacing "TQM" with
>"Continual Quality Improvement, CQI?"
There has to be improvement in quality (or unity for the same reason ;-)
from time to time. Such an improvement cannot be continuous because it
requires a feedback loop with a finite rather than infinite small delay
time. Unfortunately, management is often inclined to make that finite into
an infinite large delay time ;-)
>.....continual ("continual" is constant / continuous effort,
>with victories often enough to keep the effort alive) .....
I like this because improving quality (or unity for the same reason ;-) is
indeed a challenge. Unfortunately, management often shies away from
challenges, leaving it up to their subordinates to face such challenges
;-)
>What else is needed?
Let us think of wholeness. Jan Smuts considered holism as "increasing
wholeness". When asked to define holism for the OED, he described it as
the "whole is more than the sum of the parts". This is only possible when,
bringing the parts together as a sum, a novel emergence is sought to make
the whole more than the sum.
The same can be said of your "Continual Quality Improvement -- CQI" When
putting all the qualities together, the "total quality" (how about novel
usage of "total" rather than "sum" ;-) has to be more than putting them
together. It means that a new integral quality has to emerge, something
which the TQM people neglects seriously. It is also something which
management often shies away from -- bringing any novel, integral quality
into play. Stay with the familiar past rather than move with the unknown
future.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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