Putting It All Together

A breakthrough improvement in quality never happens by itself. Neither is it the result of incremental learning from your past experience alone or because everyone works harder and faster. As Deming said, "The fact is that management cannot learn by experience alone what they must do to improve quality." It is invariably the result of fundamental and irreversible changes directed by the CEO and the top management team. These changes are planned and transformative as opposed to haphazard and incremental. At the end of all the talk, it is all about leadership. We have emphasized Deming and Kurt Lewin's models for introducing and leading change. If you have more effective models, use them. GE, for example, has its Operating System and other models that are very different from what Deming preached all his life. But it works for GE's culture. We believe that Deming and Lewin offer formidable models to lead change systematically. These are time-tested and proven and can be adapted across organizations, industries, and cultures.

All organizations embarking on DFTS should understand the magnitude of the tasks ahead, especially if they are seeking transformative and lasting results. As Fujio Cho, President of Toyota Motor Company, said in a recent interview,^[14] "Some people think that if they just implement our techniques, they can be as successful as we are. But those that try often fail. That's because no mere process can turn a poor performer into a star. Rather, you have to address employees' fundamental way of thinking." The DFTS model and its methodology can be deployed successfully only alongside a broader change process to produce desired results.