TQM, the feminine principle, and social change: the importance of principled implementation

W. Edwards Deming/s management philosophy of continuous improvement, TQM, has gained attention in the public and private sectors as a means of resolving the "crisis" in modern American organizations. TQM's effectiveness is dependent on its principled implementation. As an imbalanced perspective, the hyper-rational masculine conventional management wisdom has thwarted real organizational innovations by limiting methods, techniques, and actions to its frame of assumptions. A radically different set of assumptions or world view, the feminine perspective, is needed to provide balance and to create the possibility of true innovation that can lead to resolution of the crisis faced by American organizations.

Jungian psychoanalytic understanding of psyche structure, development, and the dynamics of repression provide the theoretical framework for understanding the importance of a principled implementation of TQM. This principled implementation will avert an masculine warping of TQM and will provide a means of balance between the masculine and feminine principles. Critical analysis of documentation and literature reveals clear evidence of TQM's congruence with the feminine principle and its potential for radical change in organizations and society.