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The age of innovation is here. In most business organizations, creativity is a means to an end, which is innovation. Creativity is the process of generating something new that has value to an organization, group or individual. Innovation is the process of generating a new mindset to produce something that has significant value to an organization or an individual or to society in general. The operative word that distinguishes innovations from creativity is significant. Innovation is the successful implementation of a new concept or product. Innovation is the sustainable process that provides a significant competitive advantage. Research has turned innovation from a haphazard, random occurrence into an understood process that anyone can benefit from. This paper reveals how this new exciting problem-solving and product/process development methodology has become the cornerstone of our Innovative Problem Solving model and the promise of exciting new things to come.

Managers are people who accomplish tasks through others. For the twenty‐first century, managers should be defined as people who accomplish tasks through their effective use of processes and enablers. This paper defines what the new manager will look like in the twenty‐first century. It is the second of a two‐part paper.

Points out that we have accepted on faith many of our improvement tools without really understanding their impact on the performance of the organization. Challenges some of the basic principles on which total quality management was founded. Presents data from the International Quality Study performed over a three‐year period by Ernst & Young and the American Quality Foundation, which, with over two million pieces of information in its database, is the largest, most complete management practice benchmark resource in the world today. Highlights similarities and differences between countries. Defines best practices based on the statistical analysis of the business results achieved internationally.

Describes the origin and growth of the Asia Pacific Quality Control Organization (APQCO) from its inception in 1981, its formal initiation in 1985 and its development to the present. The APQCO is a federation of national quality organizations within the Asia Pacific region. It is patterned after the highly effective European Organization for Quality (EOQ). As the nations of the Asia Pacific region continued to industrialize, it was both timely and appropriate that their national quality organizations should form a federation to exchange information and to work together for their mutual benefit. Contains some speculation about the future of the APQCO.