The Control Theory Manager: Combining the Control Theory of William Glasser with the Wisdom of W. Edwards Deming to Explain Both What Quality Is and What Lead-Managers Do to Achieve It (William Glasser, M.D.:1994)
There is on the surface and in first review nothing apparently wrong with this Dr. Glasser other than a rather dated photograph which reveals his glasses to be about a quarter of the size of his actual head. Here writes an American, with a certain appreciation for the quality patron the "Indominatable Deming". In addition to whatever fortune it pertains, this is an eloquent psychologist foisting a new fangled theory (New? Well only a dozen years published anyway). I have no great fear of these theorists other than a painful memory of a conference session in Seoul where it seemed a psychologist turned ESL instructor seemingly repeatedly dazzled my retinas with laser pointers and power point presentations that seemed to take all the art of the art of teaching. Does Glasser glaze the retinas in similar fashion over the issues of quality? No, he is readable and sparingly written. Did I mention his glasses? The larger thus perhaps to perceive and thus lead?
His book is a mere ten years or so out of business fashion. Quality is no longer of key concern. It seems the latest buzz-words to punctuate the monotony of slogans (who said they were to be abolished, eh?) are multi-skilling, flexi-jobs, down-sizing and "ring around the shrinking insurance tax base abasing welfare rosie". So? Where did quality go?
It just seems Deming took some of the gleam from the glare of latest fads and while customers rumble over Krispy Cremes and Walmartization of their employment options the latest fads just seem paler and paler versions of more divine paths, taken by thinkers like Deming and followed along by Glasser. His book hooked me with its title so I wanted to know this man's take on Deming as there appear to be, so far, too few who could even heave themselves up out of the bowl of plastics beads (through which he would demonstrate the impossibilty of leading quality through inspections) and actually to the prows, bows, or sails, any part of a company that might move it in some perceivable, progressive direction and actually lead innovation and creativity trails. Deming still seems like he had it right even having been a living member of one of the world's least well organized mass consumer societies in terms of how necessarily to sustain itself.
Glasser attempts to explain the reasons for his book other than getting people like me to read a book which has such a high percentage of its total word length encapsulated within its title. He continues to rail American leaders with their mediocrity which in itself is highly uncharacteristic of the typical methods of management supposedly espoused by American leaders. Apparently to some, Americans make great use of humour to cajole workers, and then use incentives as a secondary measure thus "tricks or treats". In contrast it would appear Glasser believes the Japanese are better managers due to (far less than recent) results in Japanese business cases. However certain studies reveal Japanese managers to be far more authoritarian in their general methods of management than Americans. Why is that?
In the Korean case, which also reveals high variation from American management norms, a correlation could be made. Simply, conformity to authoritarian hierarchical patterns of leadership is easier to attain in many Eastern Asian nations simply due to full national conscription into military training and thus opportunities to exercise leadership and associated self-discipline, cooperation, group responsibility, initative all possibly absent from the "office space set" of dog eat dog underwear wearers present and accounted for in many leading American business models. Dilbert included.
For these creatures of habit and pattern, expansion of a business model is similar to the expansion of one's waist. The greater the intake of profits seemingly the farther a business leadership gets from the edges of its inseams and customer base. Thus these companies so horrendously lose touch with ethics and profitability, morality assundering and crashing down from time to time in horrendous enrons and fiascos. A proliferation of catberts thus running the show.
Currently the stop gaps for real goods or services quality is evident in the bottlenecks. These would include powering up nearly robotic call centres and firing and hiring (whole seemingly ants) regiments of workers to work and chatter about in them in an attempt to prove that Frankenstein, the corporate messiah, is really listening, that Frankenstein, despite his drooling and moaning, really cares, not only about its workers but its constantly "Pacabell cannoned to Hades" service inquirers. Quality has been rooted under, rotted from its very piers, and is thus measured in resolutions of problems rather than more humanely the eliminating of them from a product or service at the point of conception. Thus wooden eared engineers might have benefited from a few Deming mantras themselves but no one thought to invite them as they were not managers and might not know what to do with beluga caviar after the speeches anyway. 
In some ways, the business world of America would have customers believe service takes weeks upon weeks rather than a few dodgy minutes with a waving soldering iron, a lick of concentration and a few quick surge checks. So the dinosaurs roaming around the buffet tables gathering to congratulate each other on the quality of their products or services, these Glasser wishes to shame back to the potato cellars. All you could eat seemingly appears to be nearing the point to soon eat no more. These soldiers of quality have seemingly gorged themselves upon the gilded meats of the concept and pitched the valuable bones and marrows of it all into the vast wastelands, cesspools, and environmental pitches of one or another stalled in development developing nations (or backpedallers like Mother Russia) where not even a handful of workers can afford to purchase even one hair of the fleece they now sew, the whole industrial engine of the modern world so stolen from the Gorgon herself. Given over to Glasser to resolve? No. Cyclops.
Quality as you might not know, is always carved in stone. It reads - "W. Edwards Deming."
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