The quality revolution ‐ in retrospect

Abstract

Edited excerpt from John Macdonald’s latest book Calling a Halt to Mindless Change ‐ a Plea for Commonsense Management by Amacom. The article looks back at the “changeling children” of the quality revolution and opines that they were comparative failures. The origins of the term TQM and fallacies about BPR are explained. The overall theme is that improvement is better viewed as a revolutionary process than a revolutionary event. Beware gurus and prescriptive solutions.