Redesigning a square peg: Total quality management performance appraisals

Nearly 40 years after the successful implementation of total quality management (TQM) in Japan, Deming's principles were finally embraced in the USA. However, performance appraisals continue to be the proverbial square peg that we are attempting to fit into a round organization created by the principles of TQM. This paper categorizes traditional methods of performance appraisal, enumerates aspects of TQM and conceptualizes a framework for performance appraisal. The performance appraisal process, TQMPA, is a major revision of a traditional process, designed writ with the philosophy of TQM. We specify the redesigned process, step by step. Further, we resolve the TQMPA process with the main principles of TQM. Thus, we have reshaped the performance appraisal process to one that will be consistent with a TQM organization. In other words, the square peg fits into the round hole.