Even Joseph Juran, one of the two American post-war germinators of the quality idea (the other was W. Edwards Deming), considered that quality circles were pretty useless if the company's management was not trained in the more general principles of total quality management.

ECONOMIST: Idea

The success of quality circles has been found to depend crucially on the amount of support they get from senior management, and on the amount of training that the participants are given in the ways and aims of the circles.

ECONOMIST: Idea