It is generally recognised that TQM (Total Quality Management) has its roots in Japan starting in 1960 15 years after the end of World War 2..
This was a showstopper for many in the West. Japan being diametrically on the other side of the world, the widespread impression was and for some still is, that all Japanese sing the company song every day, eat little raw fishes do physical exercises every 1 or 2 working hours and live on a bowl of rice a day. This encourages the belief that there is little that the Japanese might do that would be acceptable in Western society.
The big surprise for those visiting modern Japan for the first time is that whilst you can if you look hard, find all that I have just mentioned notice that most things look surprisingly ‘normal’! ‘Normal’ that is if you overlook the amazing politeness, mutual respect, incredible cleanliness everywhere and obvious empathy for all visitors and a desire to please.
Another surprise to almost everyone who has not read the blog that I am writing now is that were it not for World War 1 (not WW2!) the likelihood is that the management system in the UK and probably most of the rest of Western Europe would have been much closer to what you will find in modern Japan than you might imagine.
Prior to World War 1, (I am talking about the UK, but it possibly applies equally to Germany and France plus others,) our business culture was surprisingly similar to what you will find in Japan today.
Up until WW1 (not 2!), the UK had a Craft Based labour force. A craftsman by definition, is responsible for the Quality of his or her own work and he/she would carry out self-inspection. There was no need for armies of inspectors. In order to become a craftsman, the individual would have to complete a 5 year and in some rare cases 10-year apprenticeship which would have included learning the tools of the trade, and to strive for perfection in their work and demonstrate their craft ability before being awarded their ‘indentures’. Often the leading craftsman was the foreman or supervisor in the department and his or her reputation amongst the workforce would have been enviable. For an apprentice, just to live in the same street as the foreman, would have been thought to be lucky. The foreman’s reputation with Management usually the owners would also be high as he/she would have been the main means of contact with the workforce.
Sadly, that system came to a fairly abrupt halt between 1914 and 1918 when we put almost our entire craft based workforce into Khaki Uniforms and buried them in the killing fields of France!
To maintain high volume military production, unskilled people often the wives of the soldiers, would replace the Craftsmen. Because they were unskilled it was necessary for their work to be inspected by others. Consequently, the Inspection activity became a function in its own right and these were mainly military personnel.
Immediately following WW1, a number of these Military Inspectors got together and formed what was named ‘The Institute of Engineering Inspection’. The was the forerunner of what is today the Chartered Quality Institute. I will develop this history in another blog another day, but the point that I want to emphasise here is the fact that before that war we did have a Craft based Labour force not so different from the Quality Circles based workforces in Japan, China and India etc. and possibly still would to this day were it not for that war.
Now in Japan, things worked differently. Until post WW2 it is not clear whether the Craft principle was so clearly defined. It certainly existed as can be seen in their beautiful art and pottery. However, post WW2 for 6 years Japan was under the direction of the Occupying Forces ‘SCAP’, led by General MacArthur.
At that time the USA was the most powerful country on Earth because of the Management system it had developed in the years prior to the War. In this system, work is broken down into its smallest elements and totally deskilled (reference the work or Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Frederick W. Taylor et al) and all decision making and problem solving to be carried out by functional managers. At face value this might have appeared like what had happened prewar in the UK but it was far more sophisticated than that. The Japanese had no option but to do what they were taught by the Americans and initially were happy to do so but it did not last long.
Early in the 1950s, this all began to fall apart. The workforce, resentful at being treated like robots became restless and disputes broke out. In desperation and in 1954, the Japanese invited Dr Juran, a management scientist with a huge reputation to come over and spend some time in their Companies and to suggest a solution.
In a conference following his plant tours, he said that he was not surprised at the reaction of the workforce, it was similar in the USA post war. He also suggested that Quality was Top management’s responsibility not that of front-line supervision. Dr Juran’s front line main observer was the President of JUSE (The Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers) Professor Kaoru Ishikawa.
Following Dr Juran’s visit, Professor Ishikawa developed 36-day Quality related educational courses for Chief Executives. Following this, courses for each layer progressively down to front line supervision by 1960.
It was at this point that Professor Ishikawa contemplated how to take this process down to the workforce when he made this statement:
We have copied the American system of management, and it is alien to our culture!
(Personally, I think that it is alien to the whole of human life!)
But we cannot go back to the Craftsmanship approach because it is uneconomic! But!!! Maybe we can bring it back to groups of people? It was then that he suggested calling such groups ‘Quality Control Circles’ which is true to this day.
So, let us review the situation.
Before WW1 The UK had a Craft based labour force. It was in our culture!
We only changed it because most of our craftspeople had been killed in the war. We can recreate it. We do not have to continue following the American system. ‘Management Manages and people do’
We do not have to segregate people into ‘management and workers’! Everyone from the CEO downwards can be classified as ‘staff’. They just have different responsibilities.
It is not so different from what we had in the days where people refer back to ‘British is Best’. It can be like that again. It would be a lot of work, nationwide but easily doable and once started the growth is likely to be exponential if! Done correctly. It would not require huge investment in fact if it is implemented correctly, it could be self-funding right from the start.
You can if you are interested, see first-hand everything that I have in mind by attending one of our Japan Study Missions, the next is in February 2026 centred close to Hiroshima. Check the relevant pages on this website.
Check out my bio notes in my profile on LinkedIn or a range of specifics by using Google UK and going to David Hutchins Quality. Beware there are other non related David Hutchins's in different fields