Criminally Improved
TQM on the Wrong Side of the Law

by R.Q. Teasdale

Hello to everybody from the wheat fields of Walla Walla! I’ve been driving my solar-powered RV around the highways and by-ways of the evergreen state to spread the message of process improvement to unenlightened organizations.

I’ll be 98 on Thursday! The government wants to take my drivers license away - for some reason they think a 98 year old man driving a 4-ton hunk of steel at 85 miles per hour is dangerous. Balderdash, I tell them! I’ve still got partial vision in one eye, palsy, and a keen sense of smell. They’ll have to find me first. But… back to business.

We all know it’s human nature to want to improve things and make them better, and embracing these changes in business organizations is good for morale, productivity and profits. But, even as balanced scorecards, strategic mapping, and QI principles become the norm rather than the exception, there are still some organizations that just will not change.

This obstinacy can be a bit frustrating to employees and often has negative impacts on the bottom line, but for some well-intentioned but extremely misguided organizational radicals, this is not enough. They have begun to take matters into their own hands.

The Process Improvement Liberation Front, or PILF, is an underground process improvement organization that has vowed to use “any means necessary” to make these needed improvements. Members of PILF, or PILFers, have committed such brazen acts as kidnapping a bank president and forcing him to memorize the five quality principals, accosting an accounts payable manger in a parking lot and making her sign a contract for a new A/P system, and circumventing the signal on a corporate closed-circuit TV network to broadcast Edward Deming lectures.

PILF’s leader, a shadowy figure called Barney Clark, was last seen carrying a white board and dry erase markers through a suburban office complex. He should be considered very dangerous, especially if you don’t have a dry eraser.

The newest and most disturbing plot that the PILFers are planning has come to be known as Process Hijacking. Nothing has happened yet, but the internet is abuzz with warnings about this upcoming endeavor. It could happen at any time to anyone who is operating in an office that doesn’t practice continuous process improvement.

PILF will strike early in the morning and plans to capture an entire office or department before they’ve had their coffee. These unfortunate souls will then be blindfolded, put in an unmarked van, and driven to an all day retreat. The team will be then forced against their will to perform a rapid process improvement on a major business function. PILF will NOT serve doughnuts!

Obviously, this type of behavior is contrary to all that we hold dear. The authorities have said it’s unlikely they will ever be able to break up this subversive group and business organizations feel powerless against the reckless onslaught of PILF. The only solution seems to be the obvious. By continuing to improve the way we do business, we can keep PILF at bay. Like rats to rotting garbage, PILF is attracted to rotting processes. The clean, efficient processes created through TQM render PILF powerless!

Oh! I’d better sign off now; I think I hear a siren.