ABSTRACT
Many management fads appeal to managers because of the means of intervention; managers like to think of change as something you do with training and projects. I gained an antipathy to change by tools training and projects in the early 1980s while studying TQM programs that failed. Of course, people do get improvements with tools, but they are insignificant when compared to the benefits from changing the system. I took the view that it is better to teach perspective-how to think-and if tools help, people will ‘beat a path’ to the door. For example, it is more important to teach the value, importance and issues associated with managing flow than teaching how to map a flow. I am still of that view. What’s more, teaching tools very rarely results in a change to the system.
