Total Quality Management (TQM) is a theory that focuses on quality of management and the management of quality control within a company in order to gain a competitive edge. This theory was first brought up by Deming who was a statistician working at Western Electric Company. Since the 1930's, Deming has not only taught Americans, but he has also been invited to Japan to teach the Japanese what Total Quality Management (TQM) is all about. Based on Deming's theory, Total Quality Management is a continuous improvement process on which a company must take its position (Dean & Evans 1994).
According to Deming's theory, there are 14 different managerial approaches to Total Quality Management, such as create a vision statement, learn new philosophies, enrich the importance of inspection for improvement processes for cost reduction, encourage employees to improve and be innovative, and many others. However, the most important approach to Total Quality Management is to fulfill the requirements for significant changes in design, work process, and company culture. For example, management must redesign the work process, change the company culture so employees are encouraged to be innovative, and empower the employees to create new approaches toward their jobs (Dean & Evans 1994).
Creativity in general and in business.
Creativity involves something that is new, useful, and innovative. For example, according to Plsek (1997), "Creativity is the connecting and rearranging of knowledge v/s in the minds of people who will allow themselves to think flexibly v/s to generate new, often surprising ideas that others judge to be useful" (p.28). However, creativity also means thinking outside the box, which includes breaking any subjective or formal boundaries that have been set by personal opinion. Therefore, in order to be creative and keep coming up with new ideas, people should not judge their own ideas or let others discourage them from being creative and come up with ideas that are outside the boundaries.