TQM is a Gestalt (4/12/2009 by TQM Doctor)
A basic premise of total quality management (TQM) is that scholars and practitioners increasingly consider it a holistic business strategy (McAdam, Leonard, Henderson, & Hazlett, 2008) encompassing the entirety of an organization rather than only the individual components. Recent literature suggests that TQM—including lean and six-sigma—may serve somewhat as an umbrella theoretical framework for many of the concepts in organizational and leadership research. For example, Lenka and Suar (2008) identified several ideas central to recent TQM literature many of us will recognize. These ideas include: (a) transformational leadership, (b) customer focus, (c) human resource management, (d) organizational culture, (e) continuous improvement, and the (f) use of objective metrics for managerial decision-making.
Lenka and Saur (2008) concluded that TQM is a gestalt because it is more than the sum of its parts. I believe what they mean is that—although we cannot refer to TQM as a single concept—TQM is more than a collection of ideas on a list. For example, the combination of lean and six-sigma do not make a lean six-sigma system. It is the holistic idea and approach to the organizational components working together in a well-honed system that creates synergies where 2 + 2 > 4.
References
McAdam, R., Leonard, D., Henderson, J., & Hazlett, S.-A. (2008). A grounded theory research approach to building and testing TQM theory in operations management. Omega, 36(5), 825(813).
Lenka, U., & Suar, D. (2008). A holistic model of total quality management in services. ICFAI Journal of Management Research, 7, 56-72.