[The following article appears in the March, 1994 edition of
_TQM_in_Higher_Education_, page 7.]

                 TQM: A PASSING FAD OR A NEW STANDARD? 

                  [by] Robert Cornesky, Editor, TQM/HE

     Often I'm asked to speak on TQM and its applicability to
education, particularly in the classroom. The question I hear
most often: "Is total quality management a passing fad of dubious
practical value, or does it improve performance and productivity
so much that it will become the standard way of managing our col-
leges and universities?"

     From my experiences with nearly 20 colleges and universi-
ties, I offer the following observations:

     Critics argue that TQM might not be as effective as they
were initially led to believe. Some say that they believe that
the performance of several areas of their institution actually
suffered when TQM was implemented experimentally. In each of
these cases, without exception, I've found problems concentrated
in three areas: top management, middle management, and lower
management.

     Techniques that include continuous quality improvement tools
and techniques, teamwork, benchmarking, statistical process con-
trol, and employee participation are helping increase TQM efforts
at virtually every higher education institution.

     The majority of institutions have started their TQM efforts
only within the past two years, so actual long-term results
aren't available. Preliminary results have shown improved perfor-
mance from the classroom to the boardroom. When the results
haven't been as good as expected, the CEO--the professor in the
classroom or the president--does almost all of the talking and
very little of the listening.

     Not every institution trying TQM will achieve progress on
each problem it tackles. The success in adopting TQM appears to
be related to specific combinations of techniques. For example,
central to TQM is the use of teams and certain tools and tech-
niques. Institutions using TQM tools and techniques in conjunc-
tion with teams appear to do much better than those that simply
establish teams to examine problems.

     I haven't seen a negative impact on an institution that has
implemented TQM. By the same token, in certain instances, I
haven't observed a positive effect either. In these cases, it
appears that long-range planning is surviving until Friday after-
noon, and then it's business as usual.

     When implementing TQM resulted in tremendous and exciting
results, the principal driving force was management's leadership.

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