A company that does not manage all of these factors in addition to quality, cannot expect success. While there have been many successes in quality management, there are also a great many failures of attempted TQM programs. In starting and failing, they may have damaged the organisation. At the very least, they diverted resources from more productive use. Exponents of TQM commonly characterise these as a failure of implementation and commitment by management rather than a possible unsuitability in the intended approach to quality.
Religious exponents tend to be uncompromising.
Yet management inevitably requires compromise or at least a balancing of competing demands, each with some important impact on business performance, in a context of constrained resources. Advocates of TQM typically insist that a TQM programme requires the complete commitment of top management. That sets up unrealistic demands because of the inevitable trade-off between various aspects of the business. If there should be a total commitment of top management it is to Total Performance Management, ie to TPM rather than to TQM or any other individual factor contributing to business results. TPM requires professional attention to multiple aspects of the business and to performance improvement.