Every era brings its own jargon and colloquialisms to the business world. There are also lots of established maxims that remain forever young and applicable in all types of situations. Most of these sayings are simple things that everyone already knows, but it needs someone else to point out the obvious and get the things noticed. In the eighties and nineties, the term defined by Deming and Peters - Total Quality Management or TQM; ruled the business world. Then there was Six Sigma which was closely followed by the quality audit series of ISO 9000.

The book on TQM remains relevant event today. The Total Quality Management book can be purchased used cheaply nowadays. At the same time, it is important to purchase the right book because there are a large number of books on this subject with similar names. Read more…

“Total Quality Management” implies action and efforts to improve quality and service. Many of these efforts are simply ineffective. Canada’s Conference Board conducted several international studies of Total Quality Management - one study showed a total of seven companies out of every ten in North America fail to provide an effective “total quality strategy”. Don’t assume that TQM is another short-lived fad though - not many North American companies have even tried Total Quality Management. Many speak of utilizing TQM, but only actually implement PQM (or Partial Quality Management).

Lou Holtz, a football coach for Notre Dame has observed that people often say and promise more than they will actually accomplish. In spite of all the things actually “said” and promised in the form of catchy slogans, impassioned speeches, clever advertising, well-marketed videos, pressing sales pitches, pretty brochures, quality and service provided by most companies and organizations still suffers a great deal.

How can your company become more action than talk and make the jump from PQM to TQM? It’s very difficult. Here are a few helpful pointers: Read more…