Yeah, I think we did that in '91. Hired one of the leading firms to do it for us. Perhaps the most damaging force is the presence of managers rather than leaders in the senior ranks of U.S. business. The United States' B-schools have made a profitable science out of producing technicians who have risen to positions of power while having little, if any, association with nonmanagement folks. Asking these executives to trust a degreeless junior employee with a decision that might impact the bottom line is akin to asking them to trust a Martian.
Leadership requires people skills, and leadership and quality are inseparable.
Bad beginnings also grow from emphasizing numbers. While it's true that a journey of a thousand miles starts with but a single step, if that first step lands in the wrong direction, then the trip will be a long and frustrating one. The American quality journey began with a combination of quality circles, W. Edwards Deming and a few large consulting firms. Deming's statistical mastery is taken to define who he was. In fact, he was much more.