The main reason that so few organizations fully utilize quality improvement methods is because they have a short-term focus in their business. For the quality profession to meet its full potential and play a strategic role in organizations, it needs to listen to its customer-top management-and start developing and offering quality improvement methods that show short-term results.
Based on my experience in the quality profession, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the root cause in the vast majority of quality issues-and performance issues-is a short-term focus on profits by top management. This isn’t new insight because Deming named “Emphasis on short-term profits” the second item on his
list of seven deadly diseases that affect organizations.