What Leading Management Practitioners Say About Four Practical Revolutions in Management

"The methods of Shoji Shiba and the Center for the Quality of Management have leapt forward to meet the needs of managers who must master rapid change. With this work, TQM is no longer some dinosaur of the old economy. Instead, Shiba and CQM have given birth to an new integrated management system for a world forever changed by power of the Internet and the speed of truly around-the-world, around-the-clock organizations."
--Joseph B. Lassiter, III
   MBA Class of 1954 Professor of Management Practice
   Harvard Business School

"I think the approach outlined in the book is the best and most comprehensive I have seen for managing a company's operating practices. I used the Four Practical Revolutions of Management to guide our management approach while I was CEO of ADAC and, now, as private equity investors, we use it to help our portfolio management teams formulate and deploy their business approach. This is a textbook, not a cookbook; it assumes parallel training and practice necessary to turn concepts and models into business skill and describes how to mobilize this training and practice."
--David Lowe, partner Friedman Fleischer & Lowe

"During the last ten years I have applied many of the convincing methods of Shoji Shiba described in this book. It is his focus on the quality of management processes [vs. the narrower management of quality issues] that makes practical application so rewarding and productive."
--J. Menno Harms, Chairman of the Supervisory Board
   Hewlett Packard GmbH.

"This books provides a framework to revolutionize your thinking about how to manage in an era of rapid change and increasing complexity. Its wealth of wisdom is based on methods of Shoji Shiba which have evolved from three decades of studying best management practices in America, Europe and Japan."
--Ray Stata, founder and chairman of Analog Devices, Inc.

"The authors of this book have a vivid understanding of what it takes to survive and compete in a rapidly changing world."
--Bob Barbour, Director & Chief Executive, Centre for Competitiveness
   Former World-Wide Manufacturing Executive, Digital Equipment Corp.

"Four Practical Revolutions in Management combines the powerful quality ideas perfected and proven by the Japanese with a practical American approach to creative implementation. What results are the principles and tools for an integrated management system that can form a timeless foundation for any company that wants to thrive in the 21st century."
--Sherwin Greenblatt, President, Bose Corporation

From Amazon.com:
"The Definitive Book of Improvement Management"
"I have read many hundreds of book on management, on quality improvement, and on other more specific business-related topics. But I have never read a business book as comprehensive & thorough as the new Shiba/Walden edition. The authors have amply demonstrated what improvement is all about by taking their original book and seamlessly integrating 10 years of their active learning on related and new topics. This masterful work will be of particular importance to senior and middle managers who need quick access to the definitive reference manual for improvement thinking and practical, proven methods. This book towers above all others in the field ... a "must-have" for anyone who is serious about improvement work."
--Reviewer: Goodloe Suttler from North Andover, MA, United States, May 21, 2001

Book review. Design Research News, Volume 6, Number 7, Jul 2001 ISSN 1473-3862:

* Shiba, Shoji, and David Walden. 2001. Four Practical Revolutions in Management. Systems for Creating Unique Organizational Capability. Portland, Oregon and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Productivity Press and the Center for Quality of Management.

The success or failure of the design process depends on the organization within which it is embedded. An individual or group may bear the title "designer," but design responsibility is located in a team. Design teams include managers whose responsibilities cut across and link the comprehensive range of functions in an organization. These range from sourcing, supply, engineering, and operations, to logistics, marketing, and customer service. They may even include finance or advertising. Successful designers participate in a managerial process and understanding the flow of work through an industrial organization is the key to successful design.

This book offers a structured overview of a total design process. The process identifies and solves problems to create or improve goods and services. The total design process incorporates and transcends the limited process of designing a functional artifact or service. Shiba and Walden address the challenge of shaping organizational knowledge, skill, and behavior to account for the total design process. This necessarily includes designing the systems that implement design. This is a managerial task, and this book addresses design process from a managerial and engineering perspective.

The book is divided into five parts. The first considers the evolution of business and the way that organizations today must work to meet social needs. The next four sections address the four practical revolutions that make this possible. These are customer focus, continuous improvement, total participation, and societal networking. The authors operationalize the four revolutions through specific tools and useful approaches. They give careful, effective descriptions of dozens of methods for management, problem solving, and skills development.

Specific tools and approaches described here include the 7-step reactive approach to problem solving, the 9-step project planning method, and the Hoshin Management system, along with strategies and tactics for specific applications. The approach is methodically pluralist and action-oriented, supported by a rich series of case studies and a 315-item bibliography.

This book is highly recommended. It should be in every design school library.

Book review. American Library Association CHOICE

There is no dearth of panaceas from business experts to improve an organization's competitive position. The gamut runs from total quality management to business process reengineering. The irony of most of these cures is that no sooner is a new one introduced than the death knell is sounded for one or more old cures. To redress this situation, a group of companies supported the authors of this book (and other collaborators) to set up the Center for Quality of Management. The Center disseminated its ideas in a well-received 1993 book, New American TMQ; this current work is the updated edition. It centers on what the authors term the four revolutions in management--customer focus, continuous improvement, total participation, and societal networking. The tools and techniques for business improvement described in the chapters and case studies make a laudable attempt at integrating various remedies in terms of these revolutions. The authors provide both a rigorous theoretical explanation of why businesses underperform and what can be done to improve them, as well as a practical workbook that delineates the tools and techniques that managers can use. Recommended for research, faculty, and professional collections.

Personal communication:
"A fantastic book!"
"Just last week I received a copy of Four Practical Revolutions in Management. This an absolutely wonderful book!! Especially as I have taken a few CQM classes and studied various of the methods, this the reference. Thank you Shoji and Dave and all the others that have contributed to making this real."
--Andreas Fassbender, executive, HP Germany

What They Said About the Previous Edition (1993)

"The authors integrate the essentials of quality in an uncommonly effective way. The people factors--customer, teams, and society--blend with time cycles, processes and expectation levels relevantly and practically."
--Robert W. Galvin, Chairman, Executive Committee
   Motorola, Inc.

"In the Commonwealth of Massachuestts, we have begun to demonstrate that the ideas in the book can make enormous differences in productivity and moreales in the public as well as the private sector. This is rich terrain for anyone who wants to make government work."
--William F. Weld, Governor
   Commonwealth of Massachusetts

"For any executive serious about learning and initiating contemporary quality improvement disiplines, this book should prove exceptionally helpful....It's unlikely that anyone can read through this without finding several 'gems' that can be adapted quickly...."
--Louis E. Lataif, Dean
   Boston University School of Management

" . . . provides a combination of tools and techniques with numerous company and case examples, [and is] a valuable resource for anyone attempting to implement total quality management."
--William F. Glavin, President, Babson College
   For Vice Chairman, Xerox Corp.

"Separating the hype from the substance in TQM is an ongoing challenge for serious managers. Shoui Shiba has taught many of us at MIT invaluable lessons and methods, which have become integrated into our research and teaching."
--Peter M. Senge
   Director of the Learning Center, MIT