Essentialism is a trimmed down, action-oriented, user-friendly approach to Total Quality Management (TQM) in education. This book explores the concept of essentialism to describe strategies for implementing TQM in community colleges. Chapter 1 examines the history of the TQM movement and reviews experiences of community college practitioners involved in continuous quality initiatives. Chapter 2 discusses management theories and change, TQM's pioneers, and the importance of TQM in community colleges. Chapter 3 explains the two guiding principles of essentialism, constancy of purpose and consumer satisfaction, while chapter 4 reviews the theory's three basic elements: accept regulatory requirements; attend to current customer needs; and anticipate the needs of future customers. Chapter 5 describes four essential elements to create a receptive environment for implementing essentialism, including strategic planning that continuously renews the college mission, environmental planning, leadership, and support for empowered teams and individuals. Chapter 6 describes the use of such traditional TQM tools as flow charts, Pareto charts, and fishbone diagrams, while chapter 7 presents eight new tools, including stairsteps analysis of the number of steps in a given goal; wallpapering, or a physical display of all paperwork necessary in a process on a wall; and the repetitive "why." Chapter 8 examines implementation strategies including teambuilding, project selection, and common pitfalls, while the final chapter summarizes the principles and elements of essentialism and suggests that since few colleges have the human and financial resources necessary to implement a full-blown TQM plan, essentialism provides a viable alternative. (Contains 57 references.) (KP)