In businesses of all types,whether they deal in manufacturing or services,the most urgent need is to eliminate all management information that encourages people at any level to manipulate processes in order to achieve accounting results.1 The above quote from Tom Johnson’s Relevance Regained captures one of Johnson’s recurring themes,namely, that accounting-based targets should not be used to control people and processes. While all organizations want to achieve better results, the crucial question becomes “By what methods?” Johnson and other quality advocates are telling us that failure to focus on
the right methods can lead to more serious problems. Brian Joiner, in his poignant book Fourth Generation Management, makes the case for process improvement by indicating that there are essentially three ways to get better reported results: (1) improve the system