Business leaders are as a rule pretty short-sighted, and don't do a good job of long-term business mgmt. The Japanese learned this in the run-up to WWII, and their excellent economic growth is a result of govt planners forcing long-term and 'quality' thinking onto their industrialists. So, the Japan story isn't about 'Japanese manufacturers' discovering Deming and saying, "Hey, this guy's got it going on, let's all do what he says." The guiding hand of the Japanese state was critical to forcing Deming's ways onto the Japanese.

I think the story in very general is quite similar in the post-war Western Europe economic success story.

fairleft