Quality can be achieved but not implemented. By the same token, I am less than impressed with the over-reliance on graphs, charts, and statistical processes, often referred to as the metrics. At meetings with management, I often hear talk about the importance of measurability. Measurement certainly is important, although I often feel that the progress of Deming's principles would have been served better if he had majored in poetry. Quality is not the implementation of statistical tools.
People make quality possible.
You cannot espouse quality without believing that people are capable of achieving it. The tools are useful, but they are not magic. Hidden in that adversarial paradigm is a certain view about human beings and relationships, and it is that view that underlies the paradigm and translates into the thinking and behavior of the labor and management relationship. To me, it captures the essence of what the goal of TQM is all about. Quality is not the state achieved when profits are maximized by selling more widgets because the widgets are the best obtainable in global markets.