In search of True North

Out Of The Box

 When a company signs up for Total Quality Management (TQM), an air of freshness shimmies over it. The shop-floor sparkles, the materials yard spruces up, signs and slogans spring up everywhere, and the humblest corridor gets a smart lick of paint.

 The glow of experimenting with something good beams off the top management team as well as the lowliest employee; everyone feels smarter, leaner, and meaner. In the early days of TQM, the body corporate struts, stomach in, chest out, chin up.

 It is not hard to understand why. By bringing organisation, order, and control to management processes, TQM almost magically turns the madness of running a company into near-scientific, predictable method.

 That is particularly true of the early TQM years, when every iota of input (ideas for continuous improvement) yields a quantum increase in throughput (quality improves, costs fall, and processes get streamlined).

 But what happens when a company