A champion racer or swimmer needs more than just staying healthy and free from sickness. They have to train and build up their skill, mental and body strength, etc. Such training has nothing or little to do with the healing of sickness or staying healthy. TQM is a necessary but insufficient condition for success, to speak in mathematical language.
In Tom Rath's "StrengthsFinder 2.0" pg 19 "Instead, we have discovered that the most successful people start with their dominant talent - and then add skills, knowledge, and practice to the mix. When they do this, the raw talent actually serves as a multiplier." In short, success comes from using and building up your strengths and not just fixing your deficit.
In the corporate world, in your business, you need to discover your strengths, go for innovations, and do not just rely on TQM for your success. TQM alone is not enough for success in the long term.
Building on your strengths, innovating, and then being augmented by TQM are the surest ways to success. For those who are interested in looking at things from the strength point of view, please see the literature in Appreciative Inquiry .... http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/default.cfm
The key is then:
Develop your strengths, outsource your weaknesses, and you can become champions.
If you just focus on your weaknesses, even if you can fix them, you are just a mediocre average.
(Note: Outsourcing is about getting others to help you manage and do for you what they could do better than yourself.)
Let me re-emphasize the need for studying your success.
Quoting from Andy Stanley's Leadership Podcast, "If you don't know the reasons for your success, then if you fail, you don't know how to fix it".
Lim Liat (c) 5 Jan 2008
[Update 6 Apr 2018]
Just found a story that testifies to building from your strengths to succeed in life.
See Design for Your Strengths
Asking ChatGPT for Comments:
🧩 Commentary: “The
Mentality & Danger of TQM”
Lim Liat’s essay pinpoints a
subtle but critical flaw in the Total Quality Management (TQM) mindset:
it often trains people to think that removing errors equals achieving
excellence. While TQM, Six Sigma, and similar systems are powerful for
ensuring consistency, reliability, and defect reduction, they can
unintentionally produce a maintenance mindset — focused on avoiding
failure instead of pursuing greatness.
🔍 1. The Core Message
“Success does not come from fixing
weaknesses; it comes from building strengths.”
Liat reminds us that eliminating
flaws is not the same as achieving mastery. A healthy, mistake-free
organization isn’t necessarily an excellent one — just as a healthy person
isn’t necessarily an Olympic athlete.
Excellence demands growth, creativity, and strength-building, not just error
prevention.
🧠 2. The Danger of the
“Defect-Fixing Mentality”
The TQM mindset assumes that
success = absence of failure.
But this mindset:
- Keeps teams reactive rather than proactive.
- Trains people to detect and repair rather
than envision and create.
- Prevents risk-taking, because innovation always
involves deviation and uncertainty.
It’s like trying to win a race by
making sure you don’t stumble — you may finish cleanly, but you’ll never lead
the pack.
🚀 3. The Positive
Counterbalance: Strengths and Innovation
Drawing on Tom Rath’s
“StrengthsFinder” and Appreciative Inquiry, Liat shifts the focus
from defect elimination to strength amplification:
- Find what you’re already good at.
- Develop those strengths through deliberate
practice, learning, and creativity.
- Use TQM as a support system to maintain
standards — not as the engine of progress.
This echoes the earlier principle:
“You don’t learn from fixing
mistakes alone — you learn by doing things right and repeating success.”
Innovation and excellence require
learning from success — understanding why something worked and building
on it.
💡 4. Wisdom in the
Formula:
“Develop your strengths, outsource
your weaknesses.”
This is a pragmatic and strategic
formula.
It recognizes that time and energy are limited resources — every hour
spent patching weaknesses is an hour not spent amplifying unique advantages.
Just as in business strategy, individuals and organizations thrive by
concentrating resources on their core competencies, and collaborating
with others for what they lack.
🧭 5. The Final Insight:
Study Your Success
Liat’s closing quote from Andy
Stanley hits the heart of sustainable growth:
“If you don’t know the reasons for
your success, then if you fail, you don’t know how to fix it.”
This reverses the typical
problem-solving logic: instead of always dissecting failures, analyze why
you succeeded.
Because repeating success — consistently and intentionally — is what builds
mastery, not just avoiding errors.
🪞 Summary of the
Commentary
|
Aspect |
Traditional TQM Mentality |
Balanced Success-Oriented
Mentality |
|
Focus |
Fixing defects |
Building strengths |
|
Approach |
Reactive |
Proactive |
|
Goal |
Consistency |
Excellence |
|
Learning Source |
Mistakes |
Success |
|
Risk Attitude |
Avoidance |
Innovation |
|
Result |
Stability |
Growth & mastery |
🌱 In Short
TQM can keep you safe — but only
vision, strength, and innovation can make you great.
Fixing mistakes prevents failure; repeating success creates excellence.
