John Byrne, in the June 23, 1997 issue of Business Week, said TQM was a dead duck. I know journalists are always facing deadlines, and they sell sound bites, not always sound thinking. But...c'mon. Read on.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a US federally administered award program which tries to identify companies who are practicing total quality management the way it is supposed to be practiced. For you skeptics out there, over the nine year history of the Baldrige award, winners have outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 3:1. Even companies who did not win the award, but who received site visits from Baldrige examiners, outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 2:1.

At a 1997 Baldrige award press conference, William Daley, US Secretary of Commerce, said,:

"The fact is that quality pays. It pays in satisfied customers. It pays in motivated employees, who are committed both to their jobs and to their communities. It pays in an improved bottom line."

Get all the detailed results on the web site of the National Institute for Standards and Technology .

John Byrne should have been telling you to get on the phone to your broker.