“TQM...if”

Revisits Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”, finding therein many ingredients of total quality management. Suggests that, once put into context, there is much for us all to learn from the past. As Shakespeare said: “Your ‘if’ is the only peacemaker, there is much virtue in ‘if’”. Rather than the longing for different circumstances, expressed in the oft‐used “if only”, we might find more currency in the positive “if”, showing us what needs to be achieved.