Tqm Only As Effective As Managers
Every business worth its salt is struggling to maintain a competitive advantage. Many companies have tried to gain distinction by offering superior quality, using the Total Quality Management (TQM) technique as their model. But even the firms that have succeeded with this tool don’t always feel secure.
Q. When I introduced TQM into my company I thought it would put us head and shoulders above the competition. Now, it seems that everybody is doing it. How can I keep my advantage?
A. The answer lies with your management team. The only sustainable advantage you can attain these days is offered by total quality managers. These are the managers within your organization who, with a little help and leadership, can hone their abilities to innovate, take calculated risks, exploit change, and make quick and effective decisions.
I’ve dubbed the technique for tapping into these talents the TQ/2 Program since it constitutes the next logical step beyond TQM in performance refinement.
While traditional TQM efforts have focused on the systems an enterprise utilizes, TQ/2 is primarily concerned with the human factor. TQM is concerned with establishing systems, structuring a teambased organization, and creating definite team responsibilities in order to attain specified performance standards.
TQ/2, on the other hand, aims to enhance this process by making sure that the right people are involved. The human composition of teams, the qualifications of each member, and the individual and collective motivation that is provided are the primary focuses of TQ/2. With this overlay of “people patterns” a firm can achieve a distinct advantage. After all, no two people are alike and, if arranged and tasked properly, they can provide an enterprise with a one-of-a-kind edge.
The goal of TQ/2 is to refine existing talents and discover latent ones. It finds and enables entrepreneurial leaders who are able to work productively within an organization. In previous articles I’ve referred to these folks as “MetaManagers,” people whose talents and potentials go beyond “merely managing.”
This is especially significant today since the pace of change is accelerating exponentially. While Disraeli once observed, “change is real; change is constant,” it was Bertrand Russell who delivered the most telling message: “Change is one thing; progress is another.”
It is the responsibility of the MetaManager to use a TQ/2 type of an approach to produce meaningful progress for his or her enterprise. Your MetaManagers must initiate constructive change as well as anticipate it and exploit it. The recent experiences of some of the largest firms in our nation have demonstrated that those who cannot manage change will be overcome by it.
Even slight, gradual changes pose a threat. The parable of the frog in the frying pan makes the point. If the fire under a pan is turned up suddenly, a frog sitting in it will naturally jump out. But if the heat is increased constantly in ever-so-small increments, the frog will crouch contentedly until dinner time.
Dr. Fred Jervis at the Center for Constructive Change has observed that, in our Western Culture, we grow up with the expectation that “natural forces” exist which tend to move circumstances and events progressively forward. Aggressive intervention is required only if something goes awry. In business this is referred to as “management by exception.”
Today, this kind of reactive behavior is not good enough. By the time a response is mounted it is probable that a competitor has been proactive and seized the initiative… . as well as a winning market share.
All of the talents on any team must be, at the very least, currently relevant. Experience is important, but awareness, adaptability, agility, and the ability to learn and synthesize quickly are even more important.
The singular talents of each individual in an enterprise or on a team must be carefully assessed, enhanced, and applied in order to gain a sustainable performance advantage. In every firm it is prepared, proactive people who provide the winning edge.
xxxx Paul Willax is the Sandifur Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Eastern Washington University.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Paul Willax The Spokesman-Review