Re: (esp 4 BMJ) "Fad Surfing" and buzzwords

BMJ wrote:
Straydog wrote:



Those of us a little more savy than average already know this, but

in the WSJ of June 26, 2006, monday, page B5 is the following article"

"Why Management Trends Quickly Fade Away"
by Phred Dvorak in his column "Theory & Practice"

subtitle: "'Fashion Surfers,' Who offer service when idea is hot, tend to be less qualified"

and it shows a literature search result for frequency of ocurrence of the buzzword(s) "Total Quality Management"

And the curve looks something like this:





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|
| |
| | | |
| | | | | | |
'89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01


Peaks in '93, and if you look at the curve with all of the bars, the half-life looks like about 3 years (half peak in '96, quarter peak in 00).


And, the article gives references to studies, books (and titles), and the observation that the half-lives are getting shorter and shorter (the BS evaporates faster? Or, the "BS-outcomes" are recognized sooner?)


Well, maybe if you can come up with super-buzzwords, you can sell them to all those filty-rich CEO-types, eh? And, get similarly rich?


The place where I used to teach went ga-ga over CQI/TQM/whatever just before the peak. There a few people like me who saw it for the Grade-A marlarkey that it was, but the majority who worked there were sheeple and went along with all its works and all its ways.

That opened the floodgates. Some used that balderdash as a way of advancing themselves in the organization. Others took part in it just for something to do.

Then there were the die-hard true believers who took to it like zealous converts to a new religion. Many of them were absolutely insufferable. Everything they did or said was done in accordance to CQI/TQM/whatever, so their speech was laced with choice phrases and terminology, such as "closing the loop", "quality", and "we're each other's customers".

Along with all that came the "consultants" who offered courses and "training". I'm sure many of them were peddlers of serpent lubricant.

By the time I started my Ph. D. residency leave, all mention of it had disappeared.

I once worked for a company that practiced TQM, but rarely used the acronym - or any other buzz words.
Control charts were actually used and not stuffed into draws. The quality engineer (and I do mean engineer- not quality hype, manual writing person) said her job was to be an expert on the company (procedures, products, and processes). They formed product management groups that made business decisions on products/markets and capital expenditures etc.
The folks on the production floor were very well paid and very knowledgeable (and well trained).
I thought they were in a lousy business - their products were purchased when everything else failed. The raw material supply was squirrelly and one of their processes dealt with large quantities of HF and produced a lot of waste product.
However, they managed to stay profitable and keep salaries high and had the best quality and quality system of anyplace I ever worked. - OH, and they were NOT ISO certified ! - They didn't want to spend 30K so some moron could tell them how to run their quality systems

Everywhere else I worked they used buzz words - that was it - TQM, lean manufacturing,etc...... - just bull***.
Nothing was put into practice. The thing to remember is that TQM etc develops naturally from good management trying to make a company profitable and responsible to it's stake holders - no need for buzz. TQM buzz develops from incompetent managers looking for the quick fix and the consultants who pray on them.

Gregg
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