Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1259453
JUNE 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 13 as I mentioned earlier, it's interesting when we all started talking about TQM recently, or I heard TQM being mentioned in some of our meetings, I thought, "I haven't heard that term in over 15 years." Johnson: Given what you've seen in the past 15 years, what's your perspective? Has TQM stuck around, gone invisible, or have we lost sight of what TQM was trying to accomplish? Feinberg: There are a lot of great things about TQM, but it's becoming invisible. It has be- come a way of doing business and manag- ing a business. If you're good at setting goals and objectives, and have a good management team, it can become invisible. I haven't seen the companies that I've consulted for and the companies I've worked with who are success- ful slip into lousy management—and there were some pretty bad management practices in the '60s and '70s. For example, I remember the phrase "three- martini lunches," and that was kind of true. One of the things that TQM wouldn't let you do would be to go out and party at lunch. You have stuff to do, and you must stay focused, and a three-martini lunch wouldn't let you do that. I'm not saying everybody did that, but it did happen. I don't see that much today. However, are there other key things that may have slipped? Maybe. Sometimes, you meet with senior executives, and they're wearing jeans and T-shirts. That doesn't feel right, but is that anti-TQM? I don't know. It's a case of respect for those with whom you're working. Again, I'm not saying everybody does that, but I do think many of the aspects of TQM have become ingrained in good management prac- tices and habits now. Johnson: Does it make sense now to revisit Deming's work in 2020? Feinberg: You'd have to talk about that depend- ing on the status of the individual company. Some companies could revisit it, but others may not need it. If you have a great engineering group, would you want to go back and study engineering 101? No. If you have a lousy en- gineering group, would you? Probably. That's a pretty elementary statement, but companies have all kinds of extreme differences between them; each company may need something dif- ferent. TQM means not just following a TQM process but having a high-quality management team that respects those that work with them and for them. It's about setting goals and meet- ing those goals on a constant basis unselfishly and without trying to gain power. If you set