Quality circles and continuous improvement using statistical methods were introduced decades ago in the hope of making the American workforce more competitive. Some worked; many were abandoned leaving a lot of questions for workforce management. When Bruce Snell refers to "quality" he means People Quality! Essential to People Quality is doing what is morally and ethically correct and treating others as you want to be treated. It doesn't matter if you are the CEO or the front-line worker; these values form the foundation of a quality organization. He calls these the Base Values and in the book he makes the case for People Quality leading to Organizational Quality.  Snell writes this book from the perspective of addressing the human elements that targets the 4 Barriers to Quality, Fear, Lack of Communications, Lack of Procedures, and the Lack of Training. He includes philosophy, psychology and process to make his points. This book is easy to read, easy to apply and makes sense.