John, I was very recently at a workshop presentation here in England by
John Warfield, a member of this list. One of the very refreshing and
powerful things that he did is distinguish what he did and not claim for
it more than he was actually producing. (What he is working on may very
well have larger implications.)
He did not claim to be doing all organisational work. He said, "This is
an intermittent approach to problems that existing organisation can't
solve." (or words to that effect) He claimed specific ground and then
took it with rigour.
TQM and LO both have much to contribute. But neither of them is
*everything* which unfortunately too many champions of each claim. And
both together are not everything either.
The power, I think, is to take the time to understand what a valid domain
has to offer and then to develop your own synthesis, your own
recombinations, your own approaches which integrate them into a coherent
whole or inter-relate them as interdependently effective tools. That will
leave room for new distinction and whole new domains.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk