Homer Sarasohn

Homer Sarasohn was one of the lesser known quality 'gurus' who were sent to Japan after the second world war to help them re-establish their businesses. It was he who recommended that, after he returned to the USA, that Deming should be sent out to replace him.

He promoted Participative Management, which he said "demands of each person:

Commitment to the defined goals and spirit of the enterprise.
A personal sense of ownership of and in the organization.
Feedback, up, down and across the lines of the organization, of the information needed to do the job right the first time; of the kind that keeps the sense of commitment and ownership alive and well."

As Deming after him, he emphasized the responsibility of managers for quality, saying "Quality is much more than statistics. It is the hallmark of the worthiness of a company and its management. Management may delegate to statisticians and engineers the responsibility for implementing the quality control function, but it is management that retains full accountability for the success of the function."

Showing a mature understanding of leadership, he notably said 'The leader must himself be the finest example of what he would like to see in his followers'. His book 'Fundamentals of Industrial Management' is still in print in Japan.

Homer Sarasohn

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