The press has carried many stories about a phenomenon called TQM. TQM, Total Quality Management, is reported to be the answer to the many ills of every community from Information Technologists to Hospital Administrators. The tenets of Total Quality Management, TQM, seem innocent enough. After all, who would be against quality?

One of the chief tenets of TQM is the idea of continuous process improvement. This means tireless effort towards maintaining a never ending dissatisfaction with the quality as it was and as it is, always looking for improvements, even before the present has solidified into a stodgy status quo. In practice, this deep dissatisfaction means that a practitioner’s work is never done. The work to improve the work continues even after crossing the finish line. There might be a finish line for the customer, but there can never be one for the practitioner.

For the practitioner, TQM might be better described as Totally Questionable Motives. Why would anyone choose to work in a context where there are no finish lines? What kind of relationship is possible where one party’s job is to never accomplish anything without looking upward to the next accomplishment?

Another tenet of TQM is that customer expectations are to be exceeded. If the customer asks for one scoop of ice cream, give them two for the price of one. This rule seems dishonest. If I ask my customer what they want and then take it upon myself to ignore their wants and give them something else instead, am I creating a more satisfied customer or am I merely satisfying some personal need? What happens if I simply satisfy my customer? I have failed. This tenet guarantees that the practitioner loses if they manage to “only” satisfy the customer or the customer “loses” because the practitioner decided to ignore the requirements and exceed them instead.

A real concern with the exceed customer expectations rule is that the definition of customer in TQM terms leaves out the practitioner. A practitioner must be their own customer, too, or risk compromising their best intentions to the cruel whim of the other constiuenticies. This fosters a master/slave relationship, where what happens to the master (customer) is always more important than what happens to the slave.

“Commerce between master and slave is despotism.” Thomas Jefferson.

Somewhere in between continuous quality improvement and exceeding expectations lies a no-man’s land. A place unfit for human habitation. This is a mine field filled with double binding rules. For instance, to (just) meet expectations is to fail to meet the expectations that you would exceed expectations. Meeting these expectations is impossible. How does one manage to meet the expectation that you’ve exceeded expectations? The expectation that the search for quality improvement is never-ending creates a journey without end for the hapless practitioner. You cannot arrive if the purpose is endless journeying.

TQM is better understood as a set of Totally Questional Motives. I can want to provide a high quality experience without expecting that quality will “continuously improve.” I can never satisfy myself if I must ignore what works for me in pursuit of exceeding your expectations. These objectives seem purposeless, meaningless, banal, and self destructive.

I’d rather have the sort of relationship with my suppliers that does not rely upon me being a despot or them being my slave. I understand that my expectations are often easily exceeded simply because I set unrealistically low expectations for myself, not because I set reasonable expectations for myself in the belief that someone will magically exceed them; giving me what I would not (or could not) give to myself. I can improve the quality without expecting to continuously improve. Nothing in this world is continuous, and expecting continuous can only guarantee my failure to achieve anything.

Why would anyone engage in such relationships? These motives seem at root dishonest. They set the practitioner up as slave , but also require that the practitioner be smarter than their slave master. If my job is to exceed your expectations, I must be able to understand what would exceed your expectations. If I am to continually improve, I must accept eternal mediocrity as both my birthright and my legacy. To require continuous improvement requires continual devaluation of what I have already accomplished. It is a recipe for destroying your own good works.  Under these conditions we both become slaves.

I believe that individuals innocently embrace these deadly notions, never suspecting the poison lurking within them. Many IT professionaly now find their jobs depressing and their customers despotic. Many customers of such misguided practitioners find their suppliers inept. How could they be otherwise if baseline capable is defined as continuously improving and exceeding expectations? These goals are aspirations, anyway, not useful targets.

Those who pursue the North Star in a sailboat are lousy navigators. Mistaking bearing for objective is a subtle but enormous error. Progress in this world is never continuous. Discontinuous progress is more useful, allowing some stasis between the chaos of change. Excessive targets merely inflate reasonable expectations. The result is unreason masquerading as reasonable. This cannot help but insure the insanity of both the practitioner and their customers.

Real relationships require more realistic expectations, and more forgiving conditions. Real relationships could never survive on a diet of continual excess, even if the excess came in the most loving and caring guises. Real relationships navigate a path that well tolerates discontinuity. Sometimes things are better, sometimes worse. Only fantasy relationships do anything continuously. And those continuously degrade until they must either get real or end.

Be wary of any practitioner that sells the TQM snake oil. Look for expectations that seem reasonable. High flying stocks inevitably slump. Bubbles burst. Cookies crumble. The real foundation for lasting relationships is paved with a variety of experiences. The best relationships have decided at some point to stick with it anyway, even though it didn’t seem to be working so well at that moment. It is this essential discontinuity that preserves and sustains us. Not the endlessly alluring expectation of continually bigger, or better, or best.