The
Executive Course
on
Quality
" building blocks to successful environmental management."
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The
Executive Course
on
Quality
" building blocks to successful environmental management"
\
UJ
O
-------
The Environmental Protection Agency has printed this material under a licensing agreement
with Organizational Dynamics, Inc. (contract number 68W1-0036).
First Printing: May 1991
EPA Quality Advisory Group
Office of Human Resources Management
401 M St., SW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 382-6241
©1991
by Organizational Dynamics, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved
The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without
the written permission of the publisher, Organizational Dynamics, Inc. (ODI), Twenty-five
Mall Road, Burlington, Massachusetts 01803
-------
Introduction The EPA Executive Course on Quality
EPA is faced with mounting challenges, not only nationally, but
also worldwide. The pressure on our agency to perform its
mission is increasing dramatically, from funding requirements, to
public expectations, to competition from environmental groups
and other federal agencies. We need not look far to see how
numerous laws enacted by Congress have a direct effect on
EPA—from the Great Lakes, to coastal initiatives, to the Clean
Air Act, to pollution prevention, and many more. New challeng-
es spark hopes and fears in all of us. These times provide us
with an opportunity to crystalize and capitalize on our hopes and
to communicate and work openly with our fears. Through top-
down commitment, bottom-up support, and effective communica-
tion side to side across functional areas, our environmental goals
can be met. The harnessing of the collective wisdom of all
people who are a part of EPA is what The EPA Executive
Course on Quality is all about.
Addressing new challenges requires planning, prevention, and
continuous improvement. Planning can help us sharpen our vision
and mission in order to more clearly guide our everyday actions.
Prevention of pollution is the preferred approach, while total
quality management (TQM) can provide an effective delivery
system to make these objectives happen. Meeting new challenges
means understanding, on an ongoing basis, what we do and how
we do it. We cannot afford the status quo. If we are going to be
the leaders in protecting our environment, we must together
continuously seek a higher ground.
TQM is not meant to be a process or end in itself. It is meant to
be a way of life, a journey in which all employees actively
participate in decision making in order to achieve the goals of
EPA, increase job satisfaction, and provide results that will
maximize environmental health. It frames a context within which
people can use a common language to design work processes
based on the requirements of both internal and external cus-
tomers. We need to assess whether each activity we as in-
dividuals engage in is adding value to accomplishing our mission.
Doing so will help to ensure that the right things are being done
in the right ways the first time.
It is people who make our mission successful. Within an
environment that stimulates their self-motivation, creativity, and
thoughtful sharing of information, employees can take ownership
of the processes that will enable us to meet our environmental
goals.
i Introduction
-------
Quality must be seen as an actionable strategy for achieving the
goals of the agency, from preventing pollution, to benefiting from
cultural diversity, to fulfilling the agency's overall mission and
vision. To that end, we are providing this course on quality. As a
result of this course, participants should acquire
• An understanding of the meaning and fundamental concepts
of total quality
• Experience in applying several models or blueprints for
implementing TQM
• Practical experience in applying a core set of problem-
solving tools required for successful implementation of TQM
• An analysis of their current leadership style and identification
of changes necessary to empower employees to participate in
the continuous improvement process
• Clarity about their role in TQM implementation and leading
the quality effort
• An understanding of the evolutionary phases of quality
improvement as well as the interdependent strategies
necessary for planning comprehensive TQM implementation
ii Introduction
-------
Contents The EPA Executive Course on Quality
Module One: The Meaning of Quality
Module Two: Identifying the Cost of Quality
Module Three: You and Your Customer
Module Four: Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
Module Five: Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
Module Six: Leadership
Module Seven: Promoting Total Involvement
Module Eight: Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
Reference Readings
iii Introduction
-------
Module One The Meaning of Quality
-------
Contents The Meaning of Quality
Overview: The Meaning of Quality 2
Questionnaire: The Meaning of Quality 3
Presentation: Approaches to Quality 4
Video: "The Quality Advantage" 6
Presentation: The Foundation and Pillars of Quality 7
Exercise: Rediscovering Core Values 8
Presentation: The Five Pillars of Quality 9
Exercise: Rating Your Organizational
Pillars 12
Key Points: The Meaning of Quality 13
1 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Overview
The Meaning of Quality
This module introduces us to the meaning and foundation of total
quality management. We shall examine the differences in
approaches to quality in a little-q versus Big-Q organization. We
shall also learn a new definition of quality that incorporates the
five pillars on which a quality organization is built.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Identify the differences between little-q and Big-Q ap-
proaches to quality
• Use a common language to talk with others in your organiza-
tion about quality improvement
• Compare your understanding of the core values of the agency
with that of other participants
• Use the five pillars of quality to analyze how well your
organization is currently functioning
2 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Questionnaire The Meaning of Quality
Quality is the most important topic of discussion in organiza-
tions today. There are probably as many different ideas about
quality as there are organizations.
To begin, let's look at what quality means to you. Respond to
the following statements:
1. Compared to French gourmet cuisine,
McDonald's food is not high quality. T F
2. If we want our products and services to
be high quality, we have to spend more
money and more time on that goal. T F
3. Quality performance must be supported
by financial rewards. T F
4. Eighty-five percent of quality improve-
ment does not depend on workers. T F
5. Cost of quality can be calculated as accurately
as cost of production or a person's income tax. T F
6. Doing things right is more difficult than
deciding what the right thing to do is. T F
7. My boss is my most important customer. T F
8. Knowing the requirements of my customer's
customers is not really useful. T F
9. The goal of quality is to meet the
customer's needs—no more, no less. T F
10. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." T F
11. The highest quality performance is achieved when
everyone in die organization follows SOPs
(standard operating procedures). T F
12. Quality will improve if workers are encouraged
to figure out what's wrong and to make
improvements. T F
3 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Presentation Approaches to Quality
Most organizations say that they are committed to quality. One
way to determine the actual level of commitment is to examine
the organizational approaches that are reflected in people s
behaviors and beliefs. The matrix on the following page shows
behaviors and beliefs that will differ between little-q organiza-
tions and Big-Q organizations.
4 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Approaches to Quality
The definition of quality is || product oriented
customer oriented
Quality priorities are
Business decisions
are based on
Emphasis is on
Costs are
Errors are understood
to result from
Responsibility for
quality belongs to
Organizational culture
tends toward
Organizational
structure is
Problem solving is by
HI less important than cost, |||
III schedule, and volume ||;
|i short-term goals iff
jSgS :|£;:
III detection of errors |||
;|| raised (when quality |f:
III is emphasized) 11
111 special causes |||
||| (workers making |||
III individual mistakes) Iff
§| quality control/ f||
III quality assurance, |||
|f| inspectors, and |||
HI specialists III
III finger pointing, blame |||
f| finding, and punishing |||
HI risk takers |||
III hierarchical, |||
11; bureaucratic, and static |||
III those in authority, if!
Hi top of pyramid f |
first among equals: "the driver"
of business decisions
balancing short-term
and long-term goals
prevention of errors
lowered (when quality
is emphasized)
common causes
(ineffective systems and
management practices)
everyone
continuous improvement,
innovation, and permission
to fail
flat, integrated, and fluid
teams, all employee levels
5 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Video
"The Quality Advantage'
So far, you have considered your assumptions and beliefs about
quality as well as the characteristics of a quality organization.
This video introduces a model you can use to build characteris-
tics of quality into your organization.
Discussion Questions 1. How has watching the video changed your view of quality?
2. What values do the best organizations have in common?
3. The video describes quality as doing right things right. What
does this mean to you?
6 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Presentation
The Foundation and Pillars of Quality
A quality organization has five elements called the pillars of
quality. These pillars are based on organizational values such as
honesty, commitment to customer satisfaction, and commitment to
creating an environment in which employees can do their best
work.
The Pillars of Quality
The Quality Advantage
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Organizational Values
7 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Exercise
Directions
Rediscovering Core Values
The five pillars are based on a foundation of organizational
values. In this exercise you will discuss what you believe to be
the core values of your organization.
Step 1. In subgroups, discuss and list what you believe to be the
core values of the organization.
Step 2. Reduce your list to the five core values you believe are
the most critical.
Step 3. Select one representative to present your five core values
to the larger group.
8 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Presentation
The Five Pillars of Quality
Definitions
Before you can assess how well your organization is working,
you need to understand what each of the pillars represents.
Customer focus (meeting requirements). Within an organization,
employees supply products, services, and information to one
another. These exchanges link coworkers as internal customers
and suppliers. An organization can better meet the needs of its
final, external customers when it also works to meet the require-
ments of its internal customers.
Total involvement (taking responsibility for quality). Quality is
not just the responsibility of management or quality control.
Everyone in the organization must be involved in achieving
quality.
Measurement (monitoring quality). An axiom of quality is, "You
can't improve what you don't measure." An organization can't
meet quality goals unless it establishes baselines and charts
progress against them. Deciding what to measure should be
heavily influenced by customer requirements.
Systematic support (leading and reinforcing). All systems in the
organization, such as planning, budgeting, scheduling, and
performance management, need to support the quality effort.
Continuous improvement (preventing and innovating). An
organization needs to do tilings better tomorrow than it did
yesterday and be constantly on the lookout for ways to correct
flaws, prevent problems, and make improvements. Through
continuous improvements, organizations foster creativity and
breakthroughs that increase their credibility with their customers.
Dimensions
Each of the five pillars has been further divided into three
component parts, for a total of fifteen specific dimensions, to
provide a working model of a total quality organization.
The fifteen dimensions are summarized on the following pages.
Each dimension includes a capsule description of its essential
elements.
Pillar: Customer Focus
1. External customer orientation. Everyone in your organization
knows who uses your products and services, and what
customers do with your products and services.
9 The Meaning of Quality
-------
2. Internal customer orientation. Everyone in your organization
understands that he or she is a customer and a supplier to
others within the organization. Everyone understands that
satisfying internal customer-supplier requirements affects the
quality of the products or services provided to external
customers.
3. Trends in customer satisfaction. Because they understand that
the final judge of quality is the customer, employees are
concerned with trends in customer satisfaction. The organiza-
tion places a high priority on being close to the customer
and responding to the customer's needs. Employees deal
quickly and effectively with customer problems.
Pillar: Total Involvement
1. Top-down leadership. A total quality organization is driven
by senior management and administered by middle manage-
ment. Management demonstrates its commitment to quality
by educating itself about total quality, providing resources
and support to quality activities, and visibly using and
supporting the process in its own work. Quality is as
important as budget or schedule on the scale of organiza-
tional priorities.
2. Bottom-up employee involvement. No organization can
achieve total quality without extensive employee involve-
ment. Employees at all levels are encouraged to take part in
organized quality-improvement activities. Suggestions for
improvement from lower levels are given serious considera-
tion.
3. Side-to-side integration. There is coordination among work
units and across functions. Teams composed of people from
different areas tackle common problems collaboratively.
External suppliers are part of the quality effort.
Pillar: Measurement
1. Self-measurement. Employees are expected to verify the
quality of their own work rather than depend on others to
inspect for quality. In addition to monitoring their own
performance, they also receive regular feedback from their
managers. Their teams keep records on their efforts to
improve quality.
10 The Meaning of Quality
-------
2. Measures of work. The organization has a consistent set of
quality-measurement standards that are reevaluated periodical-
ly. Work groups monitor how well employees follow work
procedures. They also track indicators that can give early
warning of problems. The organization collects information
on the extent to which people make timely corrections.
3. Measures of user feedback. Groups measure how well they
meet the needs of those who depend on them. They receive
regular feedback from their customers. Problems are reported
back to them quickly enough to allow for speedy correction.
Pillar: Systematic Support
1. Training and resources. The organization provides the
resources and education needed to improve quality. Employ-
ees are given the time to be trained, and also the tools and
support necessary to apply their new skills to their jobs.
2. Recognition and reward. The organization demonstrates its
commitment to quality by recognizing and rewarding those
who work to improve the quality of products, services, and
work processes. Employees who strive for quality have a
better chance for advancement.
3. Policies and procedures. The rules and procedures by which
the organization operates help to produce quality. Obsolete
policies, redundant approval steps, and other structural
barriers are removed in the interest of customer focus.
Pillar: Continuous Improvement
1. Prevention and problem solving. The organization stresses
prevention rather than temporary quick fixes, and seeks to
learn from mistakes.
2. Participative management. All employees are encouraged to
discuss work problems in an open way and to participate
actively in decisions on how to do things better.
3. Initiative and risk taking. Even when things are working
well, people are encouraged to make improvements. All
progress requires taking calculated risks and creative
initiatives. Management fosters a climate in which initiative
and prudent risk taking are an accepted and necessary part of
organizational life.
11 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Exercise
Rating Your Organizational Pillars
Directions
In the previous presentation, you examined the characteristics of
the five pillars of quality. Now you will rate the strength of
those pillars in your organization and suggest ways to make
improvements.
Step 1. For each of the pillars below, mark a line from 0 to 5
(0 = low, 5 = high) indicating how strong you feel this
pillar is at present in your organization.
Step 2. Present your responses to the group for the creation of
combined ratings.
Your Pillars of Quality
The Quality Advantage
1 II II II II 1
1 II II II II 1
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Organizational Values
12 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Key Points The Meaning of Quality
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Quality means doing right things right.
• People behave differently and have different beliefs in
organizations with little-q versus Big-Q approaches.
• The five pillars that support quality in an organization are
customer focus, total involvement, measurement, systematic
support, and continuous improvement.
• The pillars rest on a foundation of core values.
• Everyone in the organization must be responsible for
strengthening the pillars of quality.
13 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Module Two Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Contents Identifying the Cost of Quality
Overview: Identifying the Cost of Quality 2
Presentation: The 1-10-100 Rule 3
Exercise: Using the Cost-of-Quality Iceberg 4
Presentation: Necessary and Avoidable Costs 6
Video: "The Cost of Quality" 7
Presentation: The Quality Grid 8
Exercise: Estimating Your Cost of Quality 10
Key Points: Identifying the Cost of Quality 13
1 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Overview
Identifying the Cost of Quality
In the previous module, we explored what quality means and
why it matters. In this module, we will discover the true costs of
not doing quality work. Any time the wrong things are done or
things are done wrong, there is a cost to the organization. These
costs include such things as waste, rework, unnecessary overtime,
and job dissatisfaction.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Recognize the cost to your organization whenever quality
work is not done
• Break down the cost of quality into two categories: necessary
costs and avoidable costs
• Estimate your own avoidable cost of quality and its impact
on your work
2 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Presentation
The 1-10-100 Rule
It makes a difference when a problem is fixed. The 1-10-100 rule
shows that if a problem is not anticipated or fixed in your work
area when it occurs, it will only become more costly to fix later,
in terms of both time and money.
Prevention
Catching and fixing
problems in your work area
Inspection
Catching and fixing problems
internally, but after they have left
the work area
Failure
Repairing the damage of
problems caught by external
customers
3 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Exercise
Using the Cost-of-Quality Iceberg
The cost of quality is like an iceberg: A small part of it is
visible, while the larger part is hidden from view.
Directions
Step 1. On the next page, place a check next to any of those
costs that apply to your work area.
Step 2. Write any additional cost-of-quality items in the blank
areas.
Step 3. Circle the five most significant costs in your work area.
Step 4. Be prepared to present these five costs of quality to the
group.
4 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
The Cost-of-Quality Iceberg
Obvious
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5 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Presentation
Necessary and Avoidable Costs
The cost of quality is composed of two types of costs: necessary
and avoidable. Necessary costs are required to achieve and
sustain a defined standard of work. Avoidable costs occur
whenever wrong things are done or things are done wrong.
Necessary costs include prevention and inspection. Avoidable
costs include some inspection (or appraisal) costs and failure
costs.
The Cost of Quality
Prevention costs
are the costs of any
actions intended to
make sure, in
advance, that things
will not go wrong.
Prevention costs also
include the costs of
on-the-spot corrections.
Inspection costs are
the costs of finding
out if and when
things are going
wrong so correction
or prevention
actions can occur.
Some inspection is
necessary, while
other inspection is
redundant and does
not add significant
value.
Failure costs are the
costs you incur when
a customer is or will
be dissatisfied and
you have to pay the
price in damaged
reputation, rework,
waste, legal penalties,
special charges,
or loss of pride.
Identifying the necessary and avoidable costs of quality is the
first step toward reducing those costs. An organization's
managers and employees are the people close enough to the
action to know where the waste really is.
6 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Video "The Cost of Quality"
You have identified some costs of quality in your work area. In
this video you will learn what you can do to reduce your
organization's cost of quality.
Discussion Question If all the employees in your organization did exactly what they
were supposed to do, and did their jobs perfectly, would all your
cost of quality disappear?
7 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Presentation
The Quality Grid
Every job has two dimensions: what you do and how you do it.
1. What you do falls into one of two categories: right things
and wrong things.
Right Things
o
o
o
2. How you do it also falls into two categories: things done
right and things done wrong.
How You Do It
Things
Done
Right
8 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Both dimensions (what you do and how you do it) can be
combined to create what we call a quality grid. You can use the
grid to evaluate your work. The example below shows the
categories for various work activities.
The Quality Grid
How You Do It
Right Things Wrong
Wrote grant proposal as
requested and on
schedule, did not seek
input from those affected
Filled out correct form,
information inaccurate
Right Things Right
Completed necessary
report correctly and on
schedule
Provided information as
requested, in an accurate,
timely manner
Wrong Things Wrong
Scheduled unnecessary
meeting, poorly run
Sent bill to wrong person,
calculation incorrect
Wrong Things Right
Held meeting seeking
input on decision already
made, ran meeting well
Completed unnecessary
report, written well, and
submitted on time
o
o
9 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Exercise Estimating Your Cost of Quality
Now that you understand the importance of doing right things
and doing things right, it is time to examine your own work.
Directions Step 1. In the space below, list the major work activities you
have been engaged in during the last two weeks.
Examples: wrote memo on department absenteeism,
attended meeting on budget variance, filled out standard
requisition form, wrote recommendation for revising an
SOP, listened to an employee's complaints.
10 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
The Quality Grid
Step 2. Review your list. Write each of the activities you listed
in the appropriate box below.
How You Do It
Right Things Wrong
Right Things Right
a
o
Wrong Things Wrong
Wrong Things Right
11 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Step 3. Estimate the percentage of time you spent doing the
activities that you listed in each square of the quality
grid. Write your estimates in the grid below.
Step 4. Subtract your right things right (RTR) percentage from
100 percent, and you will have your avoidable cost of
quality.
Total
-RTR
= Avoidable
Cost of
Quality
100%
12 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Key Points Identifying the Cost of Quality
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Quality means doing right things and doing things right.
• An organization can improve quality while reducing costs.
• The cost of quality includes two components: necessary costs
and avoidable costs.
• Necessary costs are required to ensure quality work.
• Avoidable costs are the result of not doing right things right.
• Whenever employees don't do right things right, they add to
the avoidable costs of quality.
• Everyone is responsible for reducing the avoidable costs of
quality.
13 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Module Three You and Your Customer
-------
Contents You and Your Customer
Overview: You and Your Customer 2
Presentation: Work as a Process 3
Exercise: Identifying Customers and Suppliers 6
Video: "You and Your Customer" 8
Presentation: The Customer's Expectations for Quality 9
Video: "Moving toward Alignment" 10
Exercise: Aligning with Your Customer 11
Key Points: You and Your Customer 15
1 You and Your Customer
-------
Overview
You and Your Customer
This module introduces us to a new way of thinking about work.
We will see that everyone in our organization is both a customer
and a supplier. And we will see how establishing and meeting
agreed-upon customer requirements and building positive relation-
ships between customers and suppliers are critical to doing right
things right.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Recognize how everyone in a quality organization is part of
a customer-supplier chain
• Identify your key customers and suppliers
• Understand the importance of first aligning customer needs
and supplier capabilities and then meeting agreed-upon re-
quirements
• Use three simple questions to help build positive and
productive working relationships with your customers
• Use the PRIDE elements—product or service, relationship,
integrity, delivery, and expense—to guide the development of
customer-supplier agreements
2 You and Your Customer
-------
Presentation
Work as a Process
In order to integrate quality into everything he or she does,
everyone in an organization must understand the following:
• All work is a process in which employees are both customers
of and suppliers to each other, forming a chain.
• You are a customer when you get material, information, or
services from others in your organization or from an outside
source.
• You are a supplier when you provide material, information,
or services to others in your organization or to external
customers.
• The materials, information, or services you receive from
others as a customer are inputs.
• The materials, information, or services you provide to others
as a supplier are outputs.
• When you are doing right things right, you add value to the
inputs you handle.
• Adding value is a key concept of TQM. Everyone in the
agency should examine all of his or her activities to
determine whether each creates an output that adds sig-
nificant value to the input received.
The Customer-Supplier Chain
3 You and Your Customer
-------
You can create a flowchart of any work process in order to
identify the customer-supplier chain. Below, you'll find a
simplified flowchart illustrating the process of publishing a book.
Publishing a Book
Author writes
book, sends it
to editor.
Input i
Output
r
Editor makes
corrections on
manuscript, sends
it to production.
Input i
Output
r
Production supervisor
has manuscript
typeset, sends
it to printer.
Input i
Output
r
Printer prints book,
sends copies
to warehouse.
Input i
Output
'
Value Added
Value Added
Value Added
Warehouse
manager
ships books
to bookstores.
Value Added
Although this flowchart does not show all the steps required to
get a book into print or all the customers and suppliers involved,
it does illustrate essential customer-supplier links. In this chain,
the author is the supplier of the manuscript, and the editor is the
customer. The editor adds value to the book and produces output
(the edited manuscript), which he or she then supplies to
production, the next customer in line.
4 You and Your Customer
-------
In the process of turning the manuscript over to production, the
editor moves from the role of customer to that of supplier. In
fact, in the customer-supplier chain, everyone is at one time or
another both a customer and a supplier. We all wear two hats.
Identifying your role at any given point in the customer-supplier
chain helps you improve your customer-supplier relationships and
determine whether you are adding value; it also makes the work
flow more smoothly.
Summary
• In an organization everyone is both a customer and a
supplier.
• The handoff of work from suppliers to customers creates the
customer-supplier chain.
• Your work is part of a process of inputs, added value, and
outputs moving through the customer-supplier chain. It is not
an isolated activity.
• Your boss is both a customer of and a supplier to you, and
you are both a customer of and a supplier to your
employees.
• When the requirements of every customer in the chain are
met, your organization can reach its quality goals.
5 You and Your Customer
-------
Exercise
Directions
Identifying Customers and Suppliers
In this exercise, you will identify your role in the customer-
supplier chain.
Step 1. Think of yourself as one link in a chain of activities.
Step 2. On the worksheet on the next page, write three of your
most important outputs in the appropriate spaces.
Step 3. Write the names of key customers who use these
outputs.
Step 4. Write the most critical inputs you need to complete your
outputs.
Step 5. Write the names of the key suppliers who give you
these inputs.
6 You and Your Customer
-------
Worksheet
Identifying Customers and Suppliers
Supplier
Input
My
Value-Added
Activity
Output
Customer
7 You and Your Customer
-------
Video
"You and Your Customer"
This video emphasizes the importance of listening to your
customers. By focusing on what your customers want, you are
more likely to do right things right.
Discussion Questions
1. What are the "lettuce and tomato rules" in your organization?
2. Are the employees in the restaurant doing right things?
3. How could the restaurant and its customers be better aligned?
8 You and Your Customer
-------
Presentation
The Customer's Expectations for Quality
You've just seen a video in which well-meaning suppliers were
not aligned with the needs of their customers. The concept of
PRIDE was introduced as a way of identifying the key elements
that must be aligned between customers and suppliers. Let's take
a closer look at PRIDE.
Elements
Product or service
Criteria
1. Is it what my customer
needs?
2. Does it do what my customer
wants?
Relationship
1. Do we trust each other?
2. Have we talked about how
we will work together?
Integrity
1. Can I provide the support that
my customer needs?
2. If requirements are not met,
what will I do?
Delivery
1. Do I ensure that the product
or service is delivered on
time to the right person or
location?
2. Do I see that it arrives in
usable form?
Expense
1. Does the customer believe
that the product or service is
a good value?
2. Do I provide the customer the
product or service in a cost-
effective manner?
9 You and Your Customer
-------
Video
"Moving toward Alignment*
Discussion Questions
Discussions between customers and suppliers must be based on
understanding and mutual support. To create this kind of
relationship, it is often necessary to remove barriers that separate
customers and suppliers. In this video, you will see how three
key questions can help you remove these barriers and begin to
build positive working relationships with your own customers and
suppliers:
1. What do you need from me?
2. What do you do with what I give you?
3. Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you
need?
1. Could any of your existing customer-supplier relationships be
improved by asking the three key questions? Which ones?
2. Are there any other questions you think suppliers and
customers should ask each other?
10 You and Your Customer
-------
Exercise Aligning with Your Customer
The PRIDE concept is helpful in specifying the requirements that
you as a supplier need to meet. In this exercise, you will have an
opportunity to practice using the three alignment questions to
establish requirements with a customer.
Directions Step 1. Read the PRIDE reference page.
Step 2. Form a customer-supplier pair and complete the
worksheet, "Aligning with Your Customer."
Step 3. Summarize the agreed-upon requirements in the
worksheet, "Agreed-Upon Requirements."
11 You and Your Customer
-------
Reference Page PRIDE
The three questions that can help you align with your customers
are
1. What do you need from me? This first question can help you
use the PRIDE elements to understand different facets of
your customer's requirements.
2. What do you do with what I give you? This second question
can help you understand how the customer uses your input
so that you can make additional suggestions that may not
have occurred to the customer and better meet customer
requirements.
3. Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you
need? The third question can give you an opportunity to
make explicit your capabilities with respect to customer
requirements so that both you and your customer are clear
about what is and is not possible. This alignment between
customer requirements and supplier capabilities is what
solidifies agreed-upon or valid requirements.
12 You and Your Customer
-------
Worksheet Aligning with Your Customer
1. What do you need from me?
Product or service
Relationship
Integrity
Delivery
Expense
2. What do you do with what I give you?
3. Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you need?
13 You and Your Customer
-------
Worksheet Agreed-Upon Requirements
Product or service
Relationship
Integrity
Delivery
Expense
14 You and Your Customer
-------
Key Points You and Your Customer
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Work processes link employees as customers and suppliers in
a chain.
• Your work is part of a process of inputs, added value, and
outputs moving through the customer-supplier chain.
• It is important that all employees determine whether each of
their activities adds value to the overall mission of the
agency, and, if not, that they help redesign work processes to
ensure that each activity is value added.
• Aligning customer needs with supplier capabilities helps
ensure that you are doing right things right.
• Three key questions can facilitate alignment between
customers and suppliers:
1. What do you need from me?
2. What do you do with what I give you?
3. Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you
need?
• PRIDE is a way of identifying key elements that must be
aligned between customers and suppliers.
• Customer satisfaction is the result of meeting agreed-upon
requirements.
15 You and Your Customer
-------
Module Four Continuous Improvement—Doing
Right Things
-------
Contents Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
Overview: Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things 2
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint 3
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint—Step One 6
Tool: Brainstorming 7
Tool: Multivoting 9
Tool: Selection Grid 10
Exercise: Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step One 12
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint—Steps Two, Three,
and Four 15
Exercise: Applying the Quality Blueprint—Steps Two, Three,
and Four 16
Key Points: Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things 19
1 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Overview Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
We have completed the first three modules of The EPA Executive
Course on Quality which cover essential quality concepts and
techniques. Now it is time to apply this information for the
purpose of continuous improvement. In this module we shall
present a seven-step blueprint for managing quality implementa-
tion. We shall complete the first four steps that focus on doing
right things. (The last three steps will be discussed in module 5.)
Objectives By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Review cost-of-quality and customer data along with your
assessment of the five pillars to identify improvement
opportunities
• Apply several problem-solving tools to select one process-
improvement opportunity from your list
• Determine the key customers of this process and, using the
PRIDE model, establish their requirements and identify the
gaps
2 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Presentation
The Quality Blueprint
The quality blueprint is a disciplined way to undertake quality
improvement efforts that will make a difference in your
organization. The first four steps are a guide to doing right
things. The last three steps are a guide to doing things right.
7. Measure
and monitor.
6. Develop and
execute solutions.
1. Identify
improvement
opportunities.
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
3 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Doing Right Things
Steps
1. Identify improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish agreed-upon
requirements.
4. Identify the gaps.
How
Listen to your customers.
Look at your current measures of the
five pillars.
Identify avoidable costs of quality.
Set priorities for critical improvements.
Ask, "Who gets my output?"
Ask, "Whose input do I need?"
Determine critical customers and
suppliers.
Ask your customers
"What do you need from me?"
"What do you do with what I give you?"
"Are there any gaps between what I
give you and what you need?"
Establish performance measures.
On the basis of your data, identify the
gaps between what your customers
need and what your work process
can supply.
Ask, "What data do I have to
confirm gaps?"
4 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Doing Things Right
Steps
5. Describe and analyze the current
process.
6. Develop and execute solutions.
7. Measure and monitor.
How
Flowchart processes to understand
how things work now.
Focus on bottlenecks, nonvalue-added
steps, and rework.
Analyze \\\Q root causes of breakdowns
using the vrfiy technique and other
quality improvement tools.
Ask, "Does the current process consis-
tently meet customer requirements?"
If the current process can meet
requirements, fix it so that it
meets them every time.
If the current process cannot meet
requirements, develop a new process.
Use contingency diagrams and
prevention checklists to anticipate
and eliminate problems.
Execute your action plan for improving
the process.
Establish comprehensive measures and
feedback systems.
Document results.
5 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Presentation
The Quality Blueprint—Step One
The first step in the quality blueprint is identifying improvement
opportunities. Several tools can help you in this process. They
include brainstorming, multivoting, and the selection grid.
Step One
7. Measure
and monitor.
6. Develop and
execute solutions.
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process.
1. Identify
improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
4. Identify
the gaps.
6 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Tool Brainstorming
What It Is A technique for generating a list of ideas about an issue.
What to Use It For • Generating lists of
Problems
Topics for data collection
Potential solutions
Items to monitor
• Obtaining multiple ideas and/or more group energy
How to Use It Step 1. Decide on a topic (such as "problem ideas" or "ideas for
solutions").
Step 2. Have each member in turn offer an idea about the topic.
Other members should refrain from any comment, listen
carefully, and build on each other's ideas.
Step 3. Have one person record all the ideas on a flipchart.
Step 4. Continue the process until the team feels it has ex-
hausted its ideas on the topic.
Step 5. Discuss and clarify the ideas on the list.
7 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Example A cross-divisional work group was given the task of coming up
with a "wish list" for the new agency lunchroom. Six people got
together and generated the following list of ideas:
Running water and sink Soft drink machine
Relaxing music High-capacity coffee maker
Tables and chairs Refrigerator
Microwave oven Toaster
Chandelier/candlelight Linen tablecloths
Full-time attendant Fruit-juice fountain
Food delivery service Free bagels and cream cheese
Massage lounge chairs Multi-beverage dispenser
Recycle containers
Keep in Mind • Set a time limit for the brainstorming session.
• Offer ideas only when it is your turn. Between turns, write
down ideas so you do not forget them.
• Any idea is acceptable, even if it seems silly, strange, or
similar to a previous idea. Some of the best ideas are simply
variations on what somebody else just said.
• Say "pass" if you do not have an idea on your turn.
• Never criticize, question, or even praise others' ideas during
the brainstorming session.
8 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Tool
Multivoting
What It Is
A technique for narrowing down a list of ideas or options. It is
used in conjunction with brainstorming.
What to Use It For
Selecting a problem, topic for data collection, solution, or item to
monitor
How to Use It
Step 1. Use brainstorming to generate a list of topics. Have one
person record the ideas on a flipchart. Review and
clarify each idea. With the consent of the group, similar
ideas can be combined.
Step 2. Have each member assign ten points to one or more of
the ideas (e.g., team members can assign all ten points
to one idea, five to one and five to another, one to each
idea, or any other combination).
Step 3. Ask team members to record their points for each idea
on a separate Post-it note and to place the Post-it note
next to the idea on the flipchart, or have team members
call out their votes in turn.
Step 4. Tally the votes for each idea. Narrow down the list to
the four to six ideas that received the most votes.
Example
The cross-divisional work group who brainstormed a wish list for
the new agency lunchroom wanted to narrow down their list of
ideas from seventeen to five. Each group member was assigned
ten points with which to vote for the topics. Here is the resulting
list.
Running water and sink (4)
Relaxing music (1)
Tables and chairs (11)
Microwave oven (7)
Chandelier/candlelight
Full-time attendant
Food delivery service
Massage lounge chairs
Recycle containers (10)
Soft drink machine (8)
High-capacity coffee maker (10)
Refrigerator (15)
Toaster (4)
Linen tablecloths
Fruit-juice fountain
Free bagels and cream cheese
Multi-beverage dispenser
Keep in Mind
• Feel free to distribute your votes in any way you like.
• To preserve anonymity, multivoting can also be done by
written ballot (sometimes called nominal group technique).
9 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Tool
What It Is
Selection Grid
A method for selecting one option from several possibilities. It
involves deciding what criteria are important and using them as a
basis for reaching an acceptable decision.
What to Use It For
Choosing a single problem from a list of problems
Choosing a single solution from a list of solutions
How to Use It
Step 1. Narrow the list of potential choices: Ask which items
are of special interest to the group (or use multivoting).
Step 2. Choose criteria, each with a scoring system (e.g. yes/no,
high/low, or whatever seems most appropriate).
Step 3. Make a grid with the criteria across the top and the
options on the left side. Fill in the grid to evaluate how
well each option satisfies each criterion.
Step 4. Use the information on the grid to help you select the
best option.
Here are two ways to think about criteria.
1. Worthwhile. Is the problem worth working on? This can
include quality (for the customer), cost (to the organization),
and hassle (for those who do the work).
2. Doable. Can we make progress on the situation? This can
include support (from management and others), time (for us
to see the work through to completion), knowledge (about the
topic), and interest (in working hard at it).
Example
The Pied Pipers were a quality action team from Local #256,
Pipefitters and Welders. The team, composed of six individuals,
was trying to decide among three problems they might work on:
(1) poor washer assemblies, (2) inadequate inventories of large-
scale pipes in the field warehouses, and (3) lack of coordination
between the Pied Pipers and other working teams. Each member
of the team voted once on whether he or she thought the prob-
lems were worth tackling, whether management support could be
gained, and whether he or she had sufficient time and interest to
work on that particular concern.
10 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Selection Grid
Problem
Poor washer
assemblies
Inadequate
inventories
Lack of
coordination
Selection Criteria
Worthwhile?
Yes: 3
No: 3
Yes: 5
No: 1
Yes: 6
No: 0
Mgmt.
Support?
Yes: 3
No: 3
Yes: 4
No: 2
Yes: 2
No: 4
Time?
Yes: 4
No: 2
Yes: 5
No: 1
Yes: 1
No: 5
Interest?
High: 3
Low: 3
High: 4
Low: 2
High: 5
Low: 1
Keep in Mind
While the selection grid did not answer precisely what problem
to work on, it was clear to the Pied Pipers that inadequate inven-
tories of large-scale pipes was something that most of the mem-
bers felt strongly about and for which there was time, interest,
and probably management support. The team chose this problem
on which to work.
• List your criteria without regard to the options.
• The selection grid may not give you a clear-cut decision, but
it does provide information. You must still make the final
judgment.
11 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Exercise Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step One
In this exercise you will complete step 1 of the quality blueprint
by choosing one process to improve from a list of improvement
opportunities.
opportunities
Directions Step 1. Take a few minutes to review the data from modules 1,
2, and 3—current ratings of the five pillars, avoidable
costs of quality, and customer-supplier gaps.
Step 2. Read the criteria for process selection on the following
page.
Step 3. Based on these criteria and your data, brainstorm a list
of process-improvement opportunities. The processes you
choose need to be existing processes for which you can
identify clear beginning and ending points.
Step 4. Use multivoting to narrow the list to four to six
processes.
Step 5. Use a selection grid to choose one process for improve-
ment. (You may use the worksheet, "Selection Grid.")
Step 6. Record the process you have selected for improvement.
Write a process statement that includes the parameters of
the process, i.e., where it begins and where it ends.
12 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Reference Page Criteria for Process Selection
The process you choose should
• Be relevant and important to the team or work group
• Be actionable, in that the work group has at least partial
control over its outcome
• Be repetitive, not a one-time or infrequently occurring event;
it must exist now as something that can be identified, stud-
ied, and flowcharted
• Be aligned with the organization's mission and strategies
(i.e., have a service or product-improvement goal)
• Be recognized as needing change and improvement
• Not have obvious solutions for improvement
• Involve^nultiple customers and suppliers who can be iden-
tified
• Have a high enough priority to secure the necessary commit-
ment of time to improve it
• Be a manageable size; if your process is too long or
complicated, use a part of it that fits the criteria above
13 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Worksheet
Selection Grid
Problem
Selection Criteria
14 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Presentation
The Quality Blueprint—Steps Two, Three,
and Four
Once you have selected a process to improve, you can identify
the key customers and suppliers in this process, establish the
agreed-upon requirements, and target the gaps.
Steps Two, Three, and Four
7. Measure
and monitor.
6. Develop and
execute solutions,
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process
1. Identify
improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
15 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Exercise
Applying the Quality Blueprint—Steps Two,
Three, and Four
Steps 2, 3, and 4 of the quality blueprint ensure that you arc
doing the right thing with respect to the process you have
selected for improvement. After you have identified your key
customers, you must contact them and ask them about their
expectations for quality. However, for the purpose of this
exercise, a member of the group will play the role of one of
your customers, drawing on current knowledge of this customer's
expectations.
Plan to meet with your actual customer to verify (or modify)
your assumptions and to negotiate valid requirements.
Directions
Step 1. Review the process you selected for improvement.
Step 2. Brainstorm a list of your key customers.
Step 3. Pick one of these customers.
Step 4. Have a group member play the role of this customer.
Step 5. Have the "customer" identify requirements and gaps by
answering the three questions in the worksheet on the
following page.
Step 6. With the rest of the group acting as the supplier,
negotiate your requirements using the PRIDE dimen-
sions.
Step 7. Summarize your agreed-upon requirements on the
worksheet, "Agreed-Upon Requirements."
16 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Worksheet Aligning with Your Customer
1. What do you need from me?
Product or service
Relationship
Integrity
Delivery
Expense
2. What do you do with what I give you?
3. Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you need?
17 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Worksheet Agreed-Upon Requirements
Product or service
Relationship
Integrity
Delivery
Expense
18 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Key Points Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• In order to improve quality, you must listen to your
customers and then remove the obstacles that prevent you
from doing right things right.
• The quality blueprint can be used by managers, either
individually or in informal work groups, to improve quality.
• The first four steps of the quality blueprint can help you
determine what the right things are for a process that needs
improving.
19 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^mmmm^^m^m
Module Five Continuous Improvement—Doing
Things Right
-------
Contents Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
Overview: Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right 2
Exercise: Snowstorm Survival 3
Presentation: The FADE Problem-Solving Process 8
Presentation: Integration of the Quality Blueprint and FADE 9
Video: "Introduction to QAT" 12
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint—Step Five 13
Exercise: Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step Five 14
Tool: Flowchart 15
Tool: Fishbone Diagram 18
Tool: The Why Technique 20
Tool: Pareto Analysis 21
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint—Step Six 24
Exercise: Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step Six 25
Tool: Force-Field Analysis 26
Tool: Contingency Diagram 29
Tool: Action Plan 31
Presentation: The Quality Blueprint—Step Seven 33
Presentation: Guidelines for Developing Quality Measures 34
Tool: Measurement Matrix 36
Exercise: Developing Quality Measures—Step Seven 38
Tool: Trend Chart 42
Tool: Specifications and Control Limits 44
Key Points: Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right 48
1 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Overview
Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
In the previous module, you used the quality blueprint to select a
process that needs improvement and to practice doing right
things. You asked your customers about their requirements and
about any gaps between what they need and what you provide. In
this module, you will apply the quality blueprint to your process
in order to ensure that you are doing things right in meeting your
customers' needs.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Understand the links between the quality blueprint and the
FADE problem-solving methodology
• Apply some specific tools to help reveal the possible root
causes of problems and to develop solutions
• Create an action plan to implement your solution
• Develop quality measures for your work process
• Recognize special and common (or system) causes of
variation in work processes
• Understand trend charts and specifications and control limits
2 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Exercise
Snowstorm Survival*
In this exercise, you will explore the notion of synergy. Working
first by yourself and then in groups, you will test your group's
power to enhance individual judgments.
Directions
Step 1. Read the story below.
It's 2:00 P.M. on a Friday and you look out your office window.
The sky is white and snow is lightly falling. The weather report
predicted snow, but not until evening, and you are surprised at its
early arrival.
You return to your desk to work on a project you've been
involved in all week, occasionally glancing out the window. By
4:00 P.M. the snow has considerably increased. Only one or two
inches appear to cover the ground, however, and you are anxious
to complete your project before the weekend, so you continue
working.
By 4:30 P.M. you realize you are looking out the window at a
fierce blizzard. You can barely see the building across the street.
You realize that if you're going to get home, you'd better leave
at once. You're not too worried, since you have a nine-passenger
Jeep with four-wheel drive, and you've yet to encounter terrain
that could stop it.
You get your gear together, grab some file folders, and on an
impulse you call your spouse to say you are leaving and expect
to be home by 7:00 P.M. at the latest.
When you get to the lobby, you meet several of your colleagues,
all of whom live forty miles north, in the same general area as
you. They are looking forlornly at the growing snowdrifts and
discussing the merits of staying at work or making a run for it.
You offer to take anyone who wants to come along with you;
four agree. After fighting the gale-force winds, you finally settle
in the Jeep, warm up the engine, and take off.
'Many of the details of this story are taken from situations
that occurred during a massive snowstorm in New England in the
winter of 1978, when hundreds of commuters were trapped in traffic
following the sudden and unexpected onset of a blizzard.
3 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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You put your vehicle into four-wheel drive and head for the
highway. At first, traffic is minimal and the Jeep plows through
the snow. But the highway is jammed when you arrive, so you
decide to detour via a special route you're familiar with. It is
longer and takes you through rolling farmland with empty fields
and few houses.
Within twenty minutes you are having trouble holding the road.
Within an hour even your sturdy Jeep is unable to make any
headway against the two-foot drifts. You push on as far as you
can go, then stop and give your passengers the bad news. There's
less than half a tank of gas left, you're at least five miles from
the nearest farmhouse, and all you have in the Jeep outside of
standard equipment are the following items:
• A collapsible shovel
• A dashboard-mounted compass
• Various maps of Massachusetts and New Hampshire
• A case of beer and one quart of scotch that you forgot to
bring into your house the previous evening
• Fifty feet of nylon rope
• Two three-pound cans of coffee, unopened
• A Swiss army knife
• Two weeks' worth of newspapers, which were headed for
recycling
• A flashlight with two good batteries
The five of you review all the resources in the Jeep that might
be useful and come up with an additional six items. They are
• The spare tire
• A collapsible fishing pole
• Flares
• A 20' x 20' canvas tarp
• The rearview mirror
• The gasoline in the tank
4 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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The weather report on the radio is dire. The news sinks in: You
are stuck miles from shelter in one of the worst snowstorms ever
to hit your area.
It is now 7:00 P.M. The temperature is rapidly falling, and the
snow has begun to drift to the level of the Jeep's roof. You
discuss your survival strategy.
You all feel the need to do something: stay with the Jeep, try to
reach a farmhouse or the highway, split up, or remain together.
Step 2. Work individually to complete the individual ranking
worksheet. Rank the fifteen items listed according to
their importance for survival. Put a 1 next to the most
important item, a 2 next to the second most important
item, and so on through 15.
Step 3. At the direction of your facilitator, break into small
groups. Using the group ranking worksheet, record a
group ranking for the fifteen items. Avoid voting; try to
reach consensus by sharing your rationales.
Step 4. Be prepared to interpret your results and to discuss your
group's decision-making process with the large group.
5 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Worksheet
Snowstorm Survival—Individual Ranking
Items
1. Shovel
2. Compass
3. Maps
4. Alcohol
5. Rope
6. Coffee cans
7. Knife
8. Newspapers
9. Flashlight
10. Spare tire
11. Fishing pole
12. Flares
13. Tarp
14. Mirror
15. Gasoline
Your Ranking
Expert Ranking
Difference
Individual Score
6 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Worksheet
Snowstorm Survival—Group Ranking
Items
1. Shovel
2. Compass
3. Maps
4. Alcohol
5. Rope
6. Coffee cans
7. Knife
8. Newspapers
9. Flashlight
10. Spare tire
11. Fishing pole
12. Flares
13. Tarp
14. Mirror
15. Gasoline
Group Ranking
Expert Ranking
Difference
Group Score
7 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation
The FADE Problem-Solving Process
In the previous exercise you compared working individually with
working on a team. In the rest of this module you will be
working in teams to complete steps 5 through 7 of the quality
blueprint cycle.
Here we introduce the FADE methodology, which is a team-
based approach to problem solving and continuous improvement.
The FADE methodology includes four phases and twenty-three
problem-solving tools to be used by quality action teams (QATs).
(Refer to "The QAT Problem-Solving Process" in the reference
readings.) Each phase has a distinct output or set of outputs.
It is important for managers to realize that workers are frequently
the most knowledgeable about how current processes work.
Therefore, QATs will be especially important to managers in
gaining valuable information from those who work closely with
key processes.
The FADE Process
Written statement of problem
Select one
problem
Generate
list of
problems
Vferify/
define
problem
Record of
impact
Decide what
you need to
know
Collect data:
baselines/
patterns
List of
most
influential
factors
Determine
influential
factors
Gain
Organi- \ commitment
zational
commit-
ment
Generate
promising
solutions
Solution for
problem
A plan for
implementation
8 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation
Integration of the Quality Blueprint and FADE
The quality blueprint is intended for managers to use, either
individually or in informal work groups, in order to continuously
improve work processes within their authority.
The FADE methodology is a more structured problem-solving
discipline within the process-improvement cycle. It is used by
formal QATs when criteria include:
• Process complexity
• Data-intensive requirements
• Significance of impact on agency goals
• Cross-functional or work-group team composition
The Quality Blueprint and FADE
7. Measure & monitor
Doing
Things
Right
6. Develop & execute
solutions
1. Identify improvement
opportunities
5. Describe & analyze the
current process
Doing
Right
Things
2. Identify key customers
and suppliers
3. Establish agreed-upon
requirements
9 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Doing Right Things
Steps
1. Identify improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish agreed-upon
requirements.
4. Identify the gaps.
How
Listen to your customers.
Look at your current measures of the
five pillars.
Identify avoidable costs of quality.
Set priorities for critical improvements.
Ask, "Who gets my output?"
Ask, "Whose input do I need?"
Determine critical customers and
suppliers.
Ask your customers
"What do you need from me?"
"What do you do with what I give you?"
"Are there any gaps between what I
give you and what you need?"
Establish performance measures.
On the basis of your data, identify the
gaps between what your customers
need and what your work process
can supply.
Ask, "What data do I have to
confirm gaps?"
Ill lift: I i • Illllllllllllllllillll
10 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Doing Things Right
Steps
5. Describe and analyze the current
process.
6. Develop and execute solutions.
7. Measure and monitor.
How
Flowchart processes to understand
how things work now.
Focus on bottlenecks, nonvalue-added
steps, and rework.
Analyze the root causes of breakdowns
using the why technique and other
quality improvement tools.
Ask, "Does the current process consis-
tently meet customer requirements?"
If the current process can meet
requirements, fix it so that it
meets them every time.
If the current process cannot meet
requirements, develop a new process.
Use contingency diagrams and
prevention checklists to anticipate
and eliminate problems.
Execute your action plan for improving
the process.
Establish comprehensive measures and
feedback systems.
Document results.
11 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Video
"Introduction to QAT"
In previous modules, you have been introduced to the quality
blueprint for continuous improvement The blueprint is intended
to emphasize the need for quality to be seen as a comprehensive
process that includes, but goes beyond, effective problem solving.
Paying serious attention to key customers and their requirements
is central to the success of total quality implementation. Once
those requirements have been established, gaps have been
identified, and an opportunity for process improvement has been
selected, it is equally important to engage in effective problem
solving. This video reinforces the FADE model. This model
provides the people in your organization with a common
language and set of problem-solving tools that they can use in
quality action teams to improve all your products and services.
Discussion Questions
1. What are some of the ways in which quality action teams
will be important to you and your quality improvement
process?
2. What seemed important to the success of the team's process
in the video?
3. What do you believe will be important in your role with
respect to the success of your quality action teams?
12 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation
The Quality Blueprint—Step Five
In step 5 of the quality blueprint we move from doing right
things to doing things right. Once you have a clear sense of your
customers' requirements and any existing gaps, you can describe
and analyze the process to target problem areas blocking
execution.
Step Five
7. Measure
and monitor.
1. Identify
improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
6. Develop and
execute solutions.
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
4. Identify
the gaps.
13 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Exercise
Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step Five
In this exercise, you will apply several problem-solving tools to
describe the work process you have selected and identify possible
causes for problems.
These tools include the flowchart, the fishbone diagram, the why
technique, and Pareto analysis. The following pages contain a
brief description of each tool along with more detailed instruc-
tions about how to use it.
Directions
Step 1. With your group, construct a flowchart of the process
you have selected for improvement.
Identify the problem areas, redundancies, or gaps in
the process as it currently exists, keeping in mind
customer requirements.
• Pick one of these problem areas or opportunities for
improvement on which you will work further to
determine root causes.
Step 2. Use a fishbone diagram to brainstorm possible root
causes of problems that appear in the flowchart.
Step 3. As an option, you may want to use the why technique to
uncover any additional root causes.
Step 4. Construct a Pareto diagram to help separate the root or
most influential causes from the rest.
14 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool Flowchart
What It Is A drawing that shows the steps of a work process in the
sequence in which they occur.
What to Use It For • Understanding and improving the work process
• Creating a common understanding of how work should be
done
How to Use It The main elements of a simple flowchart are
D Box — activities
^ Diamond — decision points
—^ Arrow — direction of flow from one activity to
the next
Step 1. Gather a group of people who represent the various
parts of the process you have selected. For the purposes
of learning how to flowchart, if you do not have key
players present, try to take the perspective of those
players and describe the current process as best you can.
Step 2. Decide where the process begins and ends.
Step 3. Brainstorm the main activities and decision points in the
process, writing each activity on a separate Post-it.
Step 4. Arrange these activities and decision points in their
proper order, using arrows to show direction of flow.
Step 5. As needed, break down the activities to show their com-
plexity.
15 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Example
The Clearwater Agency wanted to examine the steps involved in
working with the states to best coordinate the efficiency and
quality of the grant process. They decided to first determine the
process they were currently using. A team of four people
involved in different aspects of the grant process met to identify
the major steps in the process. From the master chart below,
individual departments met to establish more specific flowcharts.
Taking into consideration internal and external customer
requirements, they were then able to identify inefficiencies and
opportunities for improvement in the flow of the grant process.
Flowchart for Clearwater Grant Process
Agency gives
guidance
to state
Agency and state
negotiate and
complete
workplan
State prepares
and submits
application
if complete
Agency
reviews
Award
committee
determines and
prepares
award
Award letter
is signed and
sent to state
if incomplete.
Agency
makes comments
State
responds to
agency comments
16 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Keep in Mind • Flowcharts make sense only when there is a standard flow to
the work process.
• When the process is complex, draw a simple sequence of
events first; then make up additional flowcharts to show the
details within complex portions of the work.
• Flowcharts can be done from top to bottom or from side to
side.
• It is important to determine initially the beginning and end
points.
17 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
Fishbone Diagram
A diagram showing a large number of possible causes for a
problem. Detailed causes are attached to a small number of main
causes so that the completed diagram looks something like the
skeleton of a fish.
What to Use It For
Getting the big picture of a problem
Facilitating team members' use of their personal knowledge
to identify causes of the problem
Providing ideas for data collection and/or solutions
How to Use It
Step 1. Write the problem on the right side of a flipchart. Draw
a large arrow that points toward the problem.
Step 2. Draw arrows indicating the main types of causes (or
contributing factors) and pointing toward the central
arrow.
Step 3. Brainstorm for specific causes. Attach each specific
cause to an appropriate main cause.
Step 4. Break down the causes further by brainstorming for
subcauses.
The most commonly used categories of causes are people,
machines, methods, and materials. These categories usually apply
to a wide range of problems, and using them guarantees that
most of the relevant causes will be put into the diagram. Some
other possibilities include policies, procedures, and environment.
Example
At the top of the next page you will see an example of how
fishbone analysis was used at the Jefferson Health Services
Agency to identify the causes for the high turnover rate of
personnel. Using the categories of people, machines, materials,
and methods, a team of supervisors identified possible causes.
18 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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High Personnel Turnover Fishbone
People Machines
lack of communication
inadequate office equipment
\v N. phone system breakdown
no systematic training N. \.
X. \ High
"" Turnover
4 4 of Personnel
poor work areas 7 ^ ^uitmen, /
\ shared desk space / \ . ! ' . ... 7
^/ \ swport X inadequate trainino
procurement bottleneck / /poor recognition
\ \changing procedures/ 1oo much red lapy ^ " ^ ^^
\ /^.nnnhniMvinoi / lack of advancement / \ ' . .
\chan9.n9 budget / cppottuiSto / \ ""wsalanes
"7 diffused decision making
responsibility /\ \ ' ~ .
. r ' Sr \ \ lack o) employee involvement
too little / \ ' ' '
unclear direclion to employees
Materials Methods
The group decided to display their thinking in a very visible,
accessible area and invited others in the agency to add to or
change the categories and items. They determined that the
primary causes over which they had control were in the area of
methods. They were then able to gather further data to clearly
identify the primary causes of the problem and to work on
solutions.
Keep in Mind • The most commonly used categories of causes are people,
machines, methods, and materials.
• The fishbone diagram only shows possible causes. If in
doubt, check your ideas with data.
• In most cases, it is not of great importance where on the dia-
gram you put a particular cause.
• Fishbone diagrams are very useful when displayed publicly.
You can invite people to add causes, and you can show what
progress is being made in eliminating the causes.
• You may want to make a second or third fishbone diagram
based on the first fishbone diagram.
19 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
The Why Technique
The why technique is an alternative technique to the fishbone
method for uncovering the root causes of problems. If a root
cause is beyond your control, it should be brought to the
attention of others in your organization who can do something
about it.
What to Use It For
Identifying root causes
Probing for fundamental causes underlying more obvious
causes
Accessing causes in an uncomplicated manner
How to Use It
Step 1. Select a problem. Ask, "Why did the problem occur?"
First layer cause(s):
Step 2. Take the cause(s) that you uncovered in the first box,
and ask the why question again.
"Why did that happen?"
Second layer cause(s):
Step 3. Continue asking why until you believe you have
uncovered the most important causes.
"Why did that happen?"
Third layer cause(s):
"Why did that happen?"
Fourth layer cause(s):
"Why did that happen?"
Fifth layer cause(s):
20 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
Pareto Analysis
A bar chart (Pareto diagram) that visually represents the
distribution of occurrences being studied. The most frequent
occurrence is represented at the far left, with other occurrences
represented in descending order to the right.
What to Use It For
Identifying the one or two situation categories in which most of
your problems occur
How to Use It
Step 1. Define the categories to be used in your diagram.
Step 2. Sort the data into categories. Arrange the categories in
descending order as defined by the data.
Step 3. Make a bar graph based on the data, with the highest
category on the left.
Step 4. Check your diagram for a Pareto pattern (in which the
highest categories are responsible for most of the
effects).
Step 5. Use the Pareto diagram as a guide to action or to fur-
ther analysis.
Example
A division of Morton's Service Agency was interested in
determining the most frequent concerns expressed by customers
when they called the agency for information. The division formed
a representative QAT in which they determined what they needed
to know and developed a survey to gather the information. They
then polled a random sampling of customers over a one-week
period and charted the results on a Pareto diagram.
21 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Most Frequent Customer Telephone Complaints
120-
110-
100-
90-
80-
& 70~
£ 60-
i::
•5 3Q_
1 20-
^ 10-
43%
OJO/
JCO/
11% | 10%
Person Didn't get Nobody else Left message Not told
requested information tried to but call not that person
unavailable requested help returned requested
was
unavailable
for two
Cateaorv of Comolalnts weeks
The QAT found the results very helpful. The top category (43
percent) was that the person requested by the caller was unavail-
able. Realizing that the agency could not always control
availability, they combined that category with the second highest,
that the caller did not get the information requested (21 percent).
They decided that the callers who could not speak directly with
the person requested could at least be helped with necessary
information by someone else. Therefore, the QAT decided to
determine solutions for helping customers get the information
requested on the first call.
Keep in Mind
Find appropriate categories by asking the questions what,
where, when, who, why, and how.
Most problems require more than one Pareto diagram, each
exploring a different question.
Draw the diagrams you want before you begin to collect
data. Include the subcategories and a unit of measure.
22 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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The information in the Pareto diagram can tell you where to
focus in solving the problem. If the diagram does not give
you enough information to proceed to solutions, it may still
suggest what to investigate next. Typical next steps are a
fishbone diagram, a flowchart, or more Pareto diagrams
(based on new data).
23 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation
The Quality Blueprint—Step Six
When we have uncovered the root causes of our quality problem,
we can move to step 6 of the quality blueprint, developing and
executing solutions.
Step Six
7. Measure
and monitor
1.
Identify
improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
6. Develop and
execute solutions.
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
4. Identify
the gaps.
24 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Exercise Applying the Quality Blueprint—Step Six
In this exercise, you will apply several problem-solving tools to
develop a solution to the problem you have selected and then
implement the solution. These tools include: force-field analysis,
contingency diagram, and action plan. The following pages
contain a brief description of each tool along with more detailed
instructions about how to use it.
Directions Step 1. Brainstorm a list of possible solutions and select one
that appears most promising (multivoting and/or selection
grid may be useful here).
Step 2. After you have selected a solution, use a force-field
analysis to identify both the driving forces that will help
implement your solution and the restraining forces you
may face.
Step 3. Choose a restraining force over which your group has
some control, and use the contingency diagram to come
up with ways to ensure that the restraining force
worsens.
Step 4. Drawing on your force-field analysis and contingency
diagram, develop an action plan to implement your
solution.
25 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
Force-Field Analysis
A method for listing, discussing, and dealing with the forces that
make possible or obstruct a change you want to make. The
forces that help you achieve the change are called driving forces,
and the forces that work against the change are called restraining
forces.
What to Use It For
Determining if a solution can get needed support
Identifying obstacles to execution
Suggesting actions for reducing the strength of the obstacles
How to Use It
Step 1. Draw a force-field chart (a large T).
Step 2. Write the current situation at the top center of the chart.
Step 3. Write the desired situation at the top right of the chart.
Step 4. Brainstorm for driving forces (pushing toward what you
want) and enter them on the left side of the chart.
Step 5. Brainstorm for restraining forces (preventing you from
getting what you want) and enter them on the right side
of the chart.
Step 6. Discuss the chart and determine which factors can be
altered to increase the chances of success.
Step 7. Decide whether your solution is doable. If it is, make a
list of action items to alter the forces. If it is not,
develop another solution.
Example
In Morton's Service Agency, a division decided to try to resolve
the problem of customers not receiving information they
requested at the time of calling. The QAT working on the
problem decided that, while they could not always reach the
specific person requested by the caller, they could try to find out
the information needed by the caller and determine if someone
else was available who could help.
One solution they were considering was to develop a division
directory identifying key people in various areas of expertise as
well as back-up people in each of those areas. Before presenting
26 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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their solution to management, the group used a force-field
analysis to determine obstacles and to see how they could
increase the success of the solution.
Morton Service Agency's Force-Field Analysis of Caller
Satisfaction
Current Situation
Sixty-four percent of
callers do not get
information requested
Desired Situation
Directory to facilitate
information access
on first call
Driving Forces
Agency cares about
customers
Agency wants to practice
what it preaches
Low cost due to desktop
publishing
Management support
Restraining Forces
Difficult to keep directory current
enough to be useful
Questions will likely go beyond
information in the directory
Employees who receive customer
calls may not understand directory
The QAT decided that an important restraining force was
difficulty keeping the directory current. They decided to put the
directory in a format that could easily accommodate changes.
They also decided to come to their weekly meetings prepared to
do a quick update of any changes.
In order to address the restraining force of information that went
beyond the directory, the group decided to keep a log next to the
phone to be filled in any time the directory was insufficient to
help direct the caller to a person who could be of help. They
would then make necessary additions to the directory based on
the log.
27 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Keep in Mind • You should always finish a force-field analysis by making a
list of action items.
• If restraining forces are too overwhelming, consider a differ-
ent solution.
28 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It is
Contingency Diagram
A creative method to brainstorm and outline a list of oppor-
tunities for improving a given situation.
What to Use It For
Imagining worst-case scenarios and developing a prevention
checklist based on those scenarios
Generating creative solutions
Drawing on the creative, uninhibited energies of a group
How to Use It
Step 1. Draw a contingency diagram and prevention checklist.
(See the example on the following page.)
Step 2. Select a situation that you would like to prevent and
write it in the oval.
Step 3. Brainstorm actions that would cause the problem to
continue or worsen, and write those actions on the lines
next to the oval.
Step 4. Describe actions that would prevent the situation from
continuing or worsening (the opposites of the actions
you have written on the lines). List these actions as
specifically as possible on the prevention checklist.
Example
On the following page is a contingency diagram for a recurring
problem: too little time to respond to congressionals.
29 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Contingency Diagram
Problem
Too little
time to respond
to congressionals
Prevention Checklist
/ Develop a specific plan to educate people in Congressional
Control Office
/ Have signature authority as close as possible to where
answer resides
/ Have a QAT review SOP to ensure it is made useful
/• Allow for interim informational updates
30 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
Action Plan
An outline of who will do what, when, and by what methods. It
ensures that nothing is left to chance as you set out to implement
a new way of doing things.
What to Use It For
Planning the implementation of a solution
Coordinating data collection
How to Use It
Create a chart that shows your plans in an organized way. In-
clude answers to the six questions below.
Step 1. What needs to be done (i.e., specific tasks, arrange-
ments, etc.)?
Step 2. When does each task need to be done (do some tasks
need to be completed before others; when should each
task be finished)?
Step 3. Who will do each task?
Step 4. How will it be done (i.e., specific methods)?
Step 5. What resources are needed (i.e., materials, equipment,
expert advice, etc.)?
Step 6. Are there special circumstances or needs that should be
taken into account?
Example
A committee interested in a more efficient and productive system
for responding to congressionals decided, after doing a contin-
gency diagram, that one action they needed to take was to
educate the people in the Congressional Control Office about the
best procedures for responses. They developed the action plan on
the following page.
31 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Action Plan for Educating the Congressional Control
Office
Keep in Mind
Action to
Be Taken
Gather data
to determine
necessary
components
of training
Develop
training
program
Print
training
booklets
Provide list
of people
to be
trained
Arrange
for
training
logistics
Conduct
training
Date
Completed
10/30
11/30
12/15
11/30
12/5
12/24
People
Respon-
sible
Sam
Myra
Sally
Roy
Rita
Joe
Ralph
Martha
Sally
Roy
Method
• Develop
survey
• Pilot
survey
• Conduct
survey
Follow
model
used in
telephone
training
program
Publishing
department
Check with
Mark
at Control
Office
•Find
location
• Organize
supplies
• Coordinate
times
Experiential,
using cases
Resources
Needed
Desktop
publishing
Check with
Publishing
Help from
Sally and
Roy in
identifying
needs
• Flipcharts
• Markers
• Training
booklets
• Note paper
• Pencils
Special
Needs
•Data
analysis
assistance
• Advice on
survey
questions
• Editing
assis-
tance
• Lowest
possible
cost
Lowest
possible
cost
Correct
number
of chairs
around
tables put
into
square
Put the action plan in writing.
Do not worry about filling in the columns one at a time The
parts of the action plan can be filled out in any order.
You can use a flowchart to show the sequence of activities.
32 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation
The Quality Blueprint—Step Seven
In the previous step we created an action plan to improve one of
our work processes. In step 7, we develop measures to monitor
the results of these improvement efforts and to target new
opportunities.
Step Seven
7. Measure
and monitor.
6. Develop and
execute solutions.
1.
Identify
improvement
opportunities.
2. Identify key
customers
and suppliers.
3. Establish
agreed-upon
requirements.
5. Describe and
analyze the
current process.
4. Identify
the gaps.
33 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Presentation Guidelines for Developing Quality Measures
To implement quality successfully, we must know how to
measure whether we are doing the right things right. If we select
useful measures, we can learn whether we are getting better at
meeting customer requirements and where we need to make
improvements in our work processes.
Before you develop new quality measures or revise old ones,
review the following fundamental guidelines.
1. Establish a baseline. Establish a baseline for each of your
measures and refer back to it. Knowing where you started
tells you what progress you have made.
2. Keep it simple. Clear, relevant measures give you and
everyone else in the organization important information.
Measures that are too complicated or too numerous will
probably be ignored.
3. Use action-oriented measures. Choose measures that provide
information you can use to make decisions, take action, or
evaluate the success of a current activity. The data should let
you know where to focus energy and improvement efforts.
Measuring the number of complaints may present you with
important data, but measuring the number of complaints by
type will tell you where to begin addressing problems.
4. Look for frequent performance problems. Over time, your
measures should enable you to detect frequent variations
from agreed-upon performance. Frequent variations often stem
from common causes and, therefore, have a higher priority
for action than a performance problem that might happen
once. A manager may want to learn why responses to
customer inquiries take over an hour. The manager will not
gain much from investigating the one response that took over
two hours because of a major power failure.
5. Use both process and results measures.
a. Use process measures to make sure you are doing what
needs to be done to achieve your desired outcomes. To
develop process measures you must first identify the
desired result. Then ask, "What would we have to do to
be able to reach this result?" The process measure should
warn you when a result is in jeopardy. The process
measure may include tracking the use of quality
techniques.
34 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
For example, you may identify lower turnover as your
desired outcome. After talking with employees, you decide
that the way to reach this result is to involve more
employees in problem solving. A relevant process measure
would be the number of employees on problem-solving
teams.
b. Use results measures to verify and control the outputs of
your work process. These measures focus on outcomes,
deliverables, or accomplishments such as total services
provided, on-time deliveries, and number of new products.
6. Use both self-measures and customer-focused measures.
a. Self-measures are measures chosen to track work group
success that may not be important or visible to your
customer but are important to you. One example of a self-
measure is the amount of overtime required to complete a
production order on schedule.
b. Customer-focused measures are measures of what is
important to your customer and what you promise to
provide, such as percentage of on-time deliveries or
completion of work that meets customer specifications.
These last two guidelines will help you select a comprehen-
sive and balanced set of measures.
35 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Tool
What It Is
Measurement Matrix
A device to assist people in thinking about measures to help
ensure that they are doing right things right.
What to Use It For
Developing a comprehensive set of quality measures for a
work group, department, or individual
Establishing early warning signals to take advantage of the 1-
10-100 rule
How to Use It
Step 1. Develop measures to track your quality improvement
efforts. Use the following questions as guidelines:
Self-Process: What early warning signs will be
especially important to me in tracking how work is
done?
Self-Results: What will I accomplish that might be
invisible to my customer, yet critical to me?
• Customer-Process: What early warning signs will
concern my customer regarding how work is done?
• Customer-Results: What will I accomplish that is
chosen by, or based on feedback from, my
customer?
Step 2. Display your measures in a measurement matrix.
Step 3. Check that you have
• Included measures important to you as well as
measures important to your customer
• Considered measures as early warning signals as
well as a tracking device
36 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Example
Measures Developed by a Customer Service Group
Process
Results
Self
Customer
Instances missing
customer data
No. of sales
No. of rescheduled
service calls
Total calls
Recall and repair expenses
Repair commitments met
Total repair calls
Seconds waiting time
Call
No. of repeat trouble reports
Trouble reports
No. of service callbacks
No. of calls made
No. of service calls
Units sold
On-time service calls
Percent service manuals
accurate
37 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Exercise Developing Quality Measures—Step Seven
In this exercise, you will work on developing quality measures
that will help you track your progress in implementing the
quality blueprint in your work group.
Directions Step 1. Devise measures for the process you have chosen by
answering the questions in each of the four categories of
the measurement matrix. Record your measures on the
worksheet on the following page.
Step 2. Read the reference pages on process variation as well as
the measurement tools—trend chart and specifications
and control limits—which follow.
• Think about areas in which there is variation in the
work process you have chosen.
• Brainstorm examples of special causes and common
causes for that variation.
What data would you need in order to determine
whether to take preventive action?
38 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Worksheet
Measurement Matrix
Process
Results
Self
Customer
What early warning signs
will be especially important
to me in tracking how work
is done?
What early warning signs
will concern my customer
regarding how work is
done?
What will I accomplish that
might be invisible to my
customer, yet critical to me?
What will I accomplish that
is chosen by, or based on
feedback from, my customer?
39 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Reference Page Process Variation
We have looked at guidelines for determining what to measure. It
is also important to know how to measure the variation that
exists in all processes.
No violinist, no matter how highly skilled, can perform a
composition in precisely the same way he or she played it in a
previous concert. No machine, no matter how finely tuned, can
produce unit after unit of exactly identical output. The amount of
variation may be very small—perhaps so small that only the most
sensitive instruments can detect the difference—but there will
always be some variation. It is an inescapable reality.
Causes of Variation
There are many possible causes of variation in a work process.
For example, some of the typical causes of variation in a service
process are
• Design of the work allocation system
• Choice of equipment
• Maintenance procedures
• Change in source of information
• Environmental change (temperature, humidity, etc.)
• Accidents
• Employees' mistakes
• Supplier input
The causes of variation in any process can be divided into two
fundamentally different types—common (or system) causes and
special causes.
Common causes (or system causes) are the causes of variation
that are built into the process, that is, the ones that are usually
expected to occur, given the way the process or system is
designed.
Special causes are those causes that are not built into the
process, that is, ones that in fact disrupt the normal operation of
the process and are not expected.
40 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
A homespun example may help to clarify this important
distinction between common and special causes. Imagine that
someone is cruising along a New England highway on a beautiful
autumn day, admiring the changing colors of the leaves. Traffic
is light, the car is running fine, life is good. Suddenly the driver
feels a jolt and the car lurches to the left; then, just as quickly,
the car recovers and is once again running smoothly toward the
distant hills. This example demonstrates the type of variation that
arises from a special cause. Something unusual happened,
something quite different from the normal variation caused by the
running of the engine and the tires rolling on the pavement. Was
it a pothole, or a rabbit crossing the road, or the first sign of an
impending problem with the front-end suspension of the car? The
driver had better look into it and find out.
Suppose, on the other hand, that your car makes a rattling noise
when you accelerate quickly and that it has always done so. You
know that your make of car tends to do this as a result of its
catalytic conversion system. So you attribute the rattling noise to
a probable common cause, the catalytic converter.
You can eliminate variation that arises from special causes by
analyzing the cause and developing a solution. Finding and
eliminating the special causes of variation in a work process is
part of the job of the people who work in the process.
Because the variation arising from a common (or system) cause
is built into the process, the only way this type of variation can
be reduced is by changing the process. Consequently, the only
people who can affect the common causes of variation are those
who are empowered to change the process itself.
41 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Tool
What It Is
Trend Chart
A way to describe what is happening by summarizing quantities
of data in a simple visual display.
What to Use It For
Graphically depicting data over time
Depicting changes not only in raw numbers, but also in
percentages and averages
How to Use It
Step 1. Choose a measure and put it on the vertical axis.
The measure you choose will depend on the nature of
your solution. It could be number of errors, dollars
saved, percentage of instances, or whatever.
Step 2. Choose a time interval for taking measurements and put
it on the horizontal axis.
You may want to monitor hourly, daily, weekly, or
monthly. Again, the interval must be suited to your
solution.
Step 3. Enter your measurements—data points—chronologically
onto the chart.
Do this continually as data become available. If you
wait for a long time and record all your data at once,
you will miss opportunities for immediate action.
Step 4. Draw a line connecting the data points.
Once you have constructed a trend chart, you can look for
patterns. Comparing new data with old data will often show a
dramatic improvement. If you do not see the change you want,
check whether the procedure is being implemented correctly or if
modifications are needed. Find the causes for the problems that
the chart uncovers.
42 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Example
Temperature over a Seven-Day Period
70°-
o
U.
2
§ 60°H
50°-
40°-
I I I I
Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs.
Day
Fit
Sat. Sun.
By plotting the average daily temperatures in this format, it is
easy to see that temperature variations follow a consistent pattern.
Indeed, if we extended the trend chart over many weeks, we
would be able to determine what season we were in. One or two
unusual temperature readings (eighty degrees against a range of
forty-five to sixty degrees) would not necessarily signal the
beginning of summer. But a series of higher temperatures might
prompt you to begin shopping for bathing suits.
In a similar way, if managers plot various performance measures
over time, they can recognize normal versus abnormal patterns in
work processes.
43 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Tool
What They Are
Specifications and Control Limits
Specifications are indicators of the level of performance you want
or need.
Control limits are indicators of how the process usually performs;
they are calculated by applying mathematical formulas to the past
history of the process.
What to Use Them For
• Specifications can be used for monitoring your process so
that you can see at a glance whether it is giving you what
you want.
• Control charts can be used for monitoring your process so
that you can see at a glance whether it is doing something
unusual (i.e., whether it is "out of control").
Both specifications and control limits can be shown on trend
charts and can be used with other measurement tools.
How to Use Them
For specifications, use the following three steps:
Step 1. Construct a trend chart with lines drawn to show the
specification limits.
Step 2. Enter new data points on the chart as the data become
available.
Step 3. When you see a point outside the specification limits,
use the FADE problem-solving process to find and
remove the cause of the undesirable variation in your
process.
For control charts, use the following four steps:
Step 1. Follow the procedure established by your organization
for collecting samples, computing data points, and enter-
ing the data points on your control chart (i.e., a trend
chart with upper and lower control limits added).
Step 2. As each new point is entered, examine the entire se-
quence of points displayed on the chart.
44 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Step 3. Apply the guidelines below to determine whether your
process is behaving normally (is in control) or is doing
something unusual (is out of control).
The process is in control when the sequence of points
displayed on the chart meets all four of the following
criteria:
1. All points are within the control limits.
2. Most of the points are much closer to the process
average than to the control limits.
3. About half the points are above the process average,
and about half are below.
4. No clear pattern has emerged which would allow
you to predict where the next point seems likely to
fall.
The process is out of control when the sequence of
points displayed on the chart exhibits any of the follow-
ing conditions:
1. One point falls outside the control limits.
2. There are two consecutive points close to one of the
control limits.
3. The points have begun to fall predominantly on one
side of the process average.
4. A clear pattern has emerged which would allow you
to predict where the next point seems likely to fall.
Step 4. After determining whether your process is in or out of
control, take action as required. When your process is in
control, no action is required. When your process is out
of control, use the FADE problem-solving system to find
and remove the cause of the abnormal variation.
Example A team of office workers decided to tackle the long-standing
debate about whether the temperature in their office was too hot
or too cold. The temperature control system was supposed to
maintain a constant temperature of 68 degrees during working
hours. It had become an accepted practice, however, for anyone
who felt cold to adjust the thermostat upward. Usually, someone
45 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
else soon began to feel that the office was too warm and pushed
the thermostat down.
In an effort to resolve the dispute, the team persuaded everyone
in the office to leave the thermostat alone for a one-week period
so they could gather data on how the temperature control system
actually performed. They also got everyone to agree that as long
as the temperature stayed between 67 and 69 degrees, they would
be satisfied.
On Monday morning, the team borrowed a sensitive thermometer
from the lab, set it up in a central location in the office, and
started to take temperature readings every half hour, beginning at
11:00. At lunchtime two of the team members got some graph
paper, constructed a trend chart with specification limits drawn in
at 67 and 69 degrees, and began entering the data points. At the
end of the day, the chart looked like this:
Trend Chart of Office Temperature
71° -,
70° -
-69°
68°
•67°
66°
65°
I ' I I I I I I I I I I I
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00
Time of Day
3:00
I
4:00
I
5:00
46 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
On Tuesday afternoon, using the data already collected, the team
proceeded to calculate control limits and set up a control chart.
The chart for Wednesday is shown below.
Control Chart of Office Temperature
71° -
70°
69°
68°
.2
8 67° -
66°
65° -
UCL
A /\
V
/\ Process
\ Average
LCL
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiT—
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00
Time of Day
5:00
The control charts for Thursday and Friday looked very much
like the chart for Wednesday. After examining their control
charts, the team concluded mat the temperature control system
could maintain a temperature very close to 68 degrees—when it
was allowed to operate on its own, without human interference.
When the team shared their data with the other people in the
office, everyone agreed to leave the thermostat alone and put on
sweaters if they felt cold.
47 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
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Key Points Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Quality improvement involves doing things right along with
doing the right things.
• The FADE problem-solving model is an integral part of the
quality blueprint for continuous improvement.
• The people who are closest to working every day with your
organizational processes are most often in the best position to
identify and solve problems related to those processes.
• Working in teams to resolve critical issues helps people feel
committed to following through with the solutions.
• Quality measures are essential to the success of your quality
improvement efforts.
• It is important to pay attention to both process and results
measures as well as special and common (system) causes of
variation in work processes.
48 Continuous Improvement—Doing Things Right
-------
Module Six Leadership
-------
Contents Leadership
Overview: Leadership 2
Discussion: Great Leaders of Today 3
Exercise: Using the Applied Leadership Questionnaire 4
Presentation: The Effective Leadership Model 9
Exercise: Assessing Your Employees' Independence Level 11
Presentation: Effective Use of the Four Leadership Styles 14
Exercise: Selecting Appropriate Leadership Styles
for TQM 15
Exercise: Adapting Leadership Styles—Strategies 16
Key Points: Leadership 21
1 Leadership
-------
Overview
Leadership
Quality awareness and team-based problem solving are necessary
for total quality but not sufficient by themselves. An organization
committed to quality must be led by managers who create an
environment in which quality can flourish.
It is the leaders of the agency who will demonstrate in their
actions a commitment to truly involving employees in decision
making. The voice of the employees is important not only in
order for employees to feel valued, but also so that those closest
to the work processes can share information necessary for
decisions that will best support the mission of the agency.
In this module we explore the manager's role as leader. We also
look at the relationship between managers and employees. We
learn how to use a range of techniques for managing and devel-
oping people with different abilities, skills, and experience.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Assess your leadership style and its impact on your work
unit
• Apply a leadership style that is appropriate to the characteris-
tics of the groups that you manage
• Use leadership techniques to help your employees reach their
full potential
2 Leadership
-------
Discussion
Great Leaders of Today
In this activity you will see how the characteristics of great
leaders are similar and different from those of effective managers
you have known.
Discussion Questions
1. Think of several people you feel are (or were) strong leaders
in the world.
2. Identify characteristics that give (or gave) these people
influence over others.
3. Think of the best managers you know (have known).
4. Identify the characteristics they have (had) that were not
identified above.
5. Answer the following questions:
• How are leaders and managers similar?
How are they different?
3 Leadership
-------
Exercise
Using the Applied Leadership Questionnaire
In this activity you will assess your leadership style.
Directions
Step 1. Read each statement in the questionnaire on the
following pages and circle the number that matches your
typical response. If you act differently with different em-
ployees, try to identify your most frequent response.
Step 2. Transfer the number that you recorded as your typical
response to the line in "The Applied Leadership
Grid—I" that corresponds to the statement.
Step 3. Add the scores in each section. Place the totals in the
boxes provided.
Step 4. Write your total scores in the corresponding boxes in
"The Applied Leadership Grid—II."
4 Leadership
-------
Questionnaire
Your Leadership Style
1. I check employees' work on a regular
basis to assess their progress and
learning.
2. I hold periodic meetings to show support
for agency policy and mission.
3. I appoint employees to task forces to
recommend action on policies affecting
them.
4. I provide employees with clear responsi-
bilities and allow them to decide how
to fulfill them.
5. I make sure employees are aware of and
understand all agency policies and
procedures.
6. I recognize employees' achievements
with encouragement and support.
7. I discuss any organizational or policy
changes with employees prior to
taking action.
8. I discuss the organization's strategic
mission with employees.
9. I demonstrate each task involved in
doing a job.
10. I regularly meet with employees to
discuss their needs.
11. I avoid making judgments or premature
evaluations of ideas.
12. I ask employees to think ahead and
develop long-term plans for their
areas.
A? A? A? A? A?
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
5 Leadership
-------
13. I set performance standards for each
aspect of an employee's job.
14. I explain the benefits of achieving
work goals to employees.
15. I rotate the role of meeting
coordinator among my employees.
16. I emphasize the importance of quality,
but allow my employees to establish the
control standards themselves.
17. I have employees report back to me after
completing each step of their tasks.
18. I hold regular meetings to discuss work
status.
19. I provide employees with the time and
resources to pursue their own
developmental goals.
20. I expect employees to create their own
goals and submit them to me in finished
form.
21. I try to assign work in small, easily
controlled units.
22. I focus on opportunities, not problems.
23. I avoid evaluating problems and concerns
until after they are discussed.
24. I ensure that information systems are
timely and accurate, and that informa-
tion is fed directly to employees.
r
f?
A? A? A?
JT
*
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
6 Leadership
-------
Worksheet
The Applied Leadership Grid—I
3
7
11
15
19
23
4
8
12
16
20
24
Total
Total
2
6
10
14
18
22 Total
1
5
9
13
17
2-j Total
7 Leadership
-------
Worksheet
The Applied Leadership Grid—II
O)
c
'5.
o
High developing
Low structuring
Facilitating
High developing
High structuring
Coaching
Low developing
Low structuring
Low developing
High structuring
Delegating
Directing
Structuring
Facilitating
Involve employees in decisions
that will affect their work.
Help employees feel free to ask
questions and discuss important
concerns.
Hold frequent team or staff meetings
Help employees locate and suggest
their own development activities.
Listen to employees' problems and
concerns without criticizing or
judging.
Coaching
Represent managements position
in a convincing manner.
Try to motivate with monetary and
nonmonetary rewards.
Sell employees on their own ability
to do the job.
Praise employees for good work.
Provide employees with a lot of
feedback on how they are doing.
Delegating
Delegate broad responsibilities to
employees and ask them to handle
the details.
Expect employees to find and
correct their own errors.
Provide employees with feedback
on results.
Allow employees to take risks and
innovate.
Directing
Provide detailed instructions.
Give employees specific goals and
objectives.
Check in frequently with employees
to keep them on track.
Enforce rules and regulations.
Demonstrate the steps involved in
doing the job.
8 Leadership
-------
Presentation The Effective Leadership Model
Being a successful leader means more than having a certain
personality; it requires integrating your style with the group's
characteristics and the job situation.
Dynamic Leadership Process
Leadership
/style ^
\
^ ^ Job
characteristics situation
We have looked at four leadership styles: delegating, facilitating,
coaching, and directing. Now we shall examine how the
characteristics of group members can help us determine the most
effective leadership style. In studying differences among groups
at work, three characteristics seem to emerge.
1. Ability. This refers to expertise in the required skills and the
speed with which the group can learn the tasks involved.
2. Experience. This refers to the group's experience with the
work, combined with transferable skills or learned behaviors.
3. Motivation. This refers to the confidence and energy levels
that are necessary to assume responsibility for new tasks and
to complete them.
These three characteristics can be combined into a dimension that
we call the independence level. This dimension is a continuum
which, for our purposes, can be somewhat arbitrarily divided into
the four segments defined on the next page.
9 Leadership
-------
Independence-Level Scale
30
20
10
H-
High
independence
Moderate to
high
independence
Moderate to
low
independence
Low
independence
• Low independence. The group is either new at the job or
faced with complex, unusual tasks. The leader must assume
that the group has little or no ability, few, if any, transfer-
able skills, and low motivation or confidence. The leader
must be highly directive. Support tends to be less important
at this time, as both leader and group are most concerned
with correctly performing the details of the job.
• Moderate to low independence. The group has some transfer-
able skills and learns readily, but has never performed the
tasks in this new assignment. This group is willing to try,
but is slightly anxious about failing. The leader will have to
provide a lot of support as well as clear, specific direction.
• Moderate to high independence. The group has significant
ability on the job, is highly motivated and confident, but
lacks specific experience in one or more aspects of a new
assignment. This group requires support and some direction
from the leader.
• High independence. The group is highly qualified to do the
job, has done it successfully before, and is confident and
very willing to take on new challenges without much direc-
tion or support.
To be effective, the leader analyzes the job requirements and the
group's characteristics, and chooses an appropriate management
style.
While this module focuses on how leaders match their style to
the characteristics of their groups, these concepts and principles
can easily be adapted to managing individuals.
10 Leadership
-------
Exercise
Assessing Your Employees' Independence Level
As we have seen, effective leaders match their leadership style to
the independence level of their employees. In this exercise, you
will practice identifying the independence level of the groups you
manage. & v y
Directions
Step 1. Turn to the worksheet on the following page. On a scale
of 0 to 40 evaluate a group you manage on the basis of
three characteristics: ability, experience, and motivation.
(40 = extremely high ability, experience, or motivation.)
To do this, mark the appropriate value along the line
provided for each characteristic. Then place the score in
the space provided.
Step 2. Add the three scores for ability, experience, and motiva-
tion. Then divide by three to get a final independence-
level score.
Step 3. Plot this number on the independence-level scale.
Step 4. Now that you have determined the group's independence
level, refer back to "The Applied Leadership Grid—II."
Note the score that best represents your leadership style
and make a mark in the corresponding quadrant in the
worksheet, "Leadership Grid."
Step 5. Mark your group's independence-level score on the scale
below the quadrants. Draw a perpendicular line connect-
ing the independence-level score with the curve in the
quadrants above. This will indicate the management style
that is appropriate for that independence level.
Step 6. Compare this indicated management style with your
dominant leadership style.
11 Leadership
-------
Worksheet
Independence-Level Scale
Ability
Refers to expertise
and talent for the
task, skills, and
learning speed
h
0
' AW,
5 10 15 20 25 X 35 40 Score
Experience
Prior experience in
this type of work
combined with any
transferable skills
or learned behaviors
H h
Experience
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Score
Motivation
The confidence and
energy level
necessary to take
on and to complete
new tasks
10
15 20
25
30
35
H
40
Motivation
Score
Total
Score
40
30
-t-
20
10
High
independence
Moderate to
high
independence
Moderate to
tow
independence
Low
independence
Total
Score+ 3
12 Leadership
-------
Worksheet
Leadership Grid
High developing
Low structuring
High developing
High structuring
Low developing
Low structuring
Low developing
High structuring
Low
Structuring
High
40
30
20
10
High
independence
Moderate to
high
independence
Moderate to
tow
independence
Low
independence
13 Leadership
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Presentation
Effective Use of the Four Leadership Styles
Each of the four leadership styles has its strengths. To help
groups act independently, managers must gradually move from
directive management to more supportive management. Fully
independent groups need less support.
In the model below, you'll review a variety of tactics for suc-
cessfully applying the four styles. Note how you can use some of
these tactics to motivate your employees to move from one
quadrant to another.
The Four Leadership Styles
Facilitating
Involve employees in decisions
that will affect their work.
Help employees feel free to ask
questions and discuss important
concerns.
Hold frequent team or staff meetings.
Help employees locate and suggest
their own development activities.
Listen to employees' problems and
concerns without criticizing or
judging.
Coaching
Represent management's position
in a convincing manner.
Try to motivate with monetary and
nonmonetary rewards.
Sell employees on their own ability
to do the job.
Praise employees for good work.
Provide employees with a lot of
feedback on how they are doing.
Delegating
Delegate broad responsibilities to
employees and ask them to handle
the details.
Expect employees to find and
correct their own errors.
Provide employees with feedback on
results.
Allow employees to take risks and
innovate.
Directing
Provide detailed instructions.
Give employees specific goals and
objectives.
Check in frequently with employees
to keep them on track.
Enforce rules and regulations.
Demonstrate the steps involved in
doing the job.
14 Leadership
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Exercise Selecting Appropriate Leadership Styles
for TQM
In this activity, you will think about the appropriate leadership
style for various TQM activities.
Directions Step 1. Your facilitator will divide you into four groups, each of
which will be assigned a different leadership style. In
your small group, brainstorm a list of TQM activities
that you believe would best be addressed by the
leadership style you have been assigned.
Step 2. Narrow the list to the top three activities for which your
group's leadership style is an appropriate match.
15 Leadership
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Exercise Adapting Leadership Styles—Strategies
What follows are strategies for changing your leadership style to
suit the independence level of your employees. Even though you
have already determined your dominant leadership style, remem-
ber that effective managers adjust and adapt their style of leader-
ship as necessary.
Directions Step 1. Now that you have determined your dominant leadership
style, select an employee who needs your leadership on
a new task he or she is facing.
Step 2. Determine the independence level of that employee.
Step 3. Use the following reference pages to develop a strategy
for using a leadership style best suited to that employee.
16 Leadership
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Reference Page Dominant Leadership Style—Delegating
If your dominant style is delegating, and the employee you are
trying to lead is at
Independence Level 1 You are probably leaving this person in
the dark. He or she needs more direction
and requires the how, what, when, and
where of tasks. For now, you can skip
the why; he or she is too busy learning
the basics to care. Write some goals and
job descriptions for this person, and plan
at first to devote at least 25 percent of
your time to him or her. Give lots of
feedback and have the employee regularly
report to you.
Independence Level 2 This person needs more direction. This
person also appreciates praise and, in
fact, needs support to get to the next
level. He or she already has some good
job knowledge and at times seems inde-
pendent. Don't let that fool you. The
employee still needs you at least 10
percent of the time for feedback and new
ideas. Invest the time to help the employ-
ee develop.
Independence Level 3 You may feel he or she doesn't need
your help very much. With some, this is
true, but with others, their work quality
will suffer if they don't have a chance to
bounce ideas off you with some regulari-
ty. An employee still needs meetings and
problem-solving sessions, and will contin-
ue to benefit from the sharing of ideas.
Arrange meetings and get-togethers so
that a free flow of information and ideas
can take place on a regular basis.
Independence Level 4 You're right on in your leadership style.
This employee can be left alone. But
never make the mistake of ignoring the
employee, or you'll lose him or her.
Everyone needs praise and rewards, and
everyone benefits from interaction. If you
manage very independent people, let
them know how important they are to
you, and solicit their ideas on a regular
basis.
17 Leadership
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Reference Page
Dominant Leadership Style—Facilitating
If your dominant style is facilitating, and the employee you are
trying to lead is at
Independence Level 1 You may be pooling ignorance. A level 1
employee is not yet prepared to share
and problem solve with more skilled
peers or superiors. Putting a person with
low ability, sparse knowledge, and little
motivation in such a setting will confuse
and frustrate him or her. Try to give
more direction and spend more time with
the person. Ask what is needed to do the
job right, and respond with help.
Independence Level 2 The employee may respond well to your
style, but may be left without adequate
direction to properly do his or her job.
Ask the employee if you are giving
enough direction. If you've been support-
ive and nonjudgmental so far, the person
will tell you, and you can act accord-
ingly.
This employee will respond well to your
style. He or she doesn't need a lot of
direction, but enjoys the give-and-take of
participating and sharing ideas. Keep it
up. You might empower this employee.
Let the employee take full responsibility
for projects and come to you only when
necessary. This way you'll keep in touch,
but also take the first steps toward
developing him or her.
Independence Level 4 He or she may find your facilitative style
likeable, but sometimes unnecessary.
Doing the job independently is more
important than participating with people
who are not directly involved in the
effort to get results. Talk to your
employee. Some meetings are necessary,
but let him or her take charge. Give
greater supervisory responsibility for
some of your tasks. This will give him
or her a new goal, and free some of your
time to develop lower-level people.
Independence Level 3
18 Leadership
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Reference Page Dominant Leadership Style—Coaching
If your dominant style is coaching, and the employee you are
trying to lead is at
Independence Level 1 You may have discovered that your
coaching style is not working. Praise and
support are no substitute for clear direc-
tion. Withhold your praise until you see
clear evidence of accomplishment. Until
then, give more direction in terms of
specific steps required to do the job, and
provide lots of feedback to correct per-
formance problems.
Independence Level 2 You are right in tune here. Praise and
support, but don't neglect clear direction.
The level 2 employee is good, confident,
and able, but has not yet mastered the
job, so feedback and direction are essen-
tial.
Independence Level 3 Your coaching style may turn this em-
ployee off. He or she probably doesn't
need quite as much direction as you like
to give. Be less like a teacher with this
person and more like an equal. Try to
offer less advice and spend your time
problem solving with the employee.
Independence Level 4 This employee does not often need your
praise and direction. You may even be
coming across as an interference—
benevolent perhaps, but unnecessary.
Back off as much as possible. Praise
only at the end of an assignment; don't
get involved in the work process. Be
willing to take some risk as far as this
person is concerned.
19 Leadership
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Reference Page
Dominant Leadership Style—Directing
If your dominant style is directing, and the employee you are
trying to lead is at
Independence Level 1 You are doing the right thing. An em-
ployee with a low independence level
needs a telling style in which you clearly
explain the job. Check for understanding,
and make sure that you give explicit
directions.
Independence Level 2
Independence Level 3
Independence Level 4
Ask your employee how he or she would
like to arrange the next project. If the
response is satisfactory, let him or her
run with it. Allow your employee a little
more freedom and see what happens. If
your employee succeeds, back off and
praise him or her.
Avoid issuing orders. Hold a meeting
with your employee and ask for ideas.
This may surprise your employee, partic-
ularly if you've never done this before.
Therefore, you will do more listening
than speaking; try not to censor any ideas
that come up. If something seems reason-
able, back off and let your employee run
with it.
You're lucky this person still works for
you; a telling style can really turn off a
highly independent person. If this person
is really that competent, get out of the
way and let him or her work. If you
need to tell him or her something, do so.
Be specific and clear but then get out of
the picture. If the employee is truly at
level 4, he or she will deliver and save
you time in the process.
20 Leadership
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Key Points Leadership
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• In order to support quality, managers need to be effective
leaders and role models for their people.
• Effective leaders take into consideration the needs and
abilities of their employees as well as the specific situation
and modify their style accordingly.
• Leaders not only manage their people; they provide oppor-
tunities for growth and development.
• Implementing TQM will require a range of leadership styles.
21 Leadership
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Module Seven Promoting Total Involvement
-------
^^^^^•II^^Bi
Contents Promoting Total Involvement
Overview: Promoting Total Involvement 2
Exercise: The New Truck 3
Discussion: Dynamics of Participation 5
Video: "Participation and Quality" 6
Presentation: Effective Decision Making 7
Exercise: Using Participative Management g
Discussion: Group Decision Making 9
Key Points: Promoting Total Involvement 10
1 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Overview
Promoting Total Involvement
As we saw in the previous module, managers often lead effec-
tively by involving their people. In this module we help
managers find answers to three questions about participative
management: Why do I use it? When do I use it? How do I use
it? We use a participative management scale to determine the
level of employee involvement most appropriate for a given
situation. We then take a special look at the benefits to be gained
by involving groups in the design of systems that affect them.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Use participative management techniques to involve your
employees effectively
• Apply the participative management scale as a guide for
using participative techniques
• Identify situations that you might manage more effectively by
involving groups as well as individual employees
2 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Exercise
The New Truck*
In this exercise, you will experience the process of participative
decision making and relate it to your work experience.
Directions
Step 1. At the direction of your facilitator, break into small
groups.
Step 2. Read the material that follows.
Assume that you are repairmen for a large utility company. Each
day you drive to various locations in the city to do repair work.
Each of you drives a small truck and takes pride in its appear-
ance. You are possessive about your trucks and like to keep them
in good running order. Naturally you'd like to have new trucks,
too, because a new truck would also give you a feeling of pride.
Here are some facts about the trucks and the men in the crew.
You report to Walt Marshall, the supervisor of repairs.
George Seventeen years with the company, has a two-year-
old Ford truck
Bill Eleven years with the company, has a five-year-old
Dodge truck
John Ten years with the company, has a four-year-old
Ford truck
Charlie Five years with the company, has a three-year-old
Ford truck
Hank Three years with the company, has a five-year-old
Chevrolet truck
Most of you drive only in the city, but John and Charlie cover
suburban jobs.
'Norman R.F. Maier and Gertrude Casselman Verser,
Psychology in Industrial Organizations, 5th ed. (Houghton Mifflin,
1982), pp. 189-191. Reprinted by permission.
3 Promoting Total involvement
-------
Step 3. At the direction of your facilitator, take the role of one
of the repairmen listed above. Your facilitator will give
you directions for your role, which you should read.
Accept the facts and assume the attitude supplied for
your specific role. From this point on, let your feelings
develop in accordance with the events that transpire in
the role-playing process. When facts or events arise that
are not covered by the roles, make up things that are
consistent with how you imagine them to be in real life.
4 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Discussion
Dynamics of Participation
In the previous exercise you experienced participative decision
making. Now you will have an opportunity to discuss the
dynamics of employee involvement in decision making.
Discussion Questions
1. How would you describe the quality of the solutions
achieved in "The New Truck" exercise?
2. Were all the participants satisfied with the solutions?
3. Can you think of situations when it is impossible to treat all
individuals alike?
4. Are the situations you thought of in question 3 situations in
which employee participation is important?
5 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Video
'Participation and Quality'
In this video, we will describe the process of participative man-
agement and present some examples of how it works. The video
will stress the importance of selectively using participative tech-
niques. As you will see, participative techniques are essential to
improving quality and productivity.
Discussion Questions
1. If participative techniques are so powerful, why don't all
managers use them?
2. Under what circumstances might you not want to use partici-
pative management?
6 Promoting Total Involvement
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Presentation Effective Decision Making
A good decision is one that thoroughly and efficiently produces
the desired goals.
Participation in decision making involves two important dimen-
sions. The first is the quality of the decision. Making high-
quality decisions requires weighing the objective facts, and then
deciding. This has traditionally been done by people with the
necessary technical expertise to ensure the quality of the decision.
The second dimension of decision making is acceptance. The
degree to which employees accept a decision directly affects their
willingness, enthusiasm, and commitment, and their ability to
carry it out. Studies and experience show that people are more
likely to accept and understand a decision in which they took
part. In decision making, keep the following three guidelines in
mind:
1. Define the problem. When a problem is clearly defined, the
solutions often appear by themselves.
2. Clarify the relative importance of both quality and accep-
tance.
3. Determine to what extent you will involve employees in the
decision-making process. The scale below will help you
decide on the level of employee participation you will want,
based on the relative importance of quality and acceptance in
the success of the decision.
Participative Management Scale
I 1 1 1 1 1
Tell Sell Gather Getrecom- Group Group
information mendations decides decides
from group with mgt. without
veto mgt. veto
7 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Exercise
Using Participative Management
In this exercise, you will generate a list of situations and deter-
mine when participative management should be used.
Directions
Step 1. Divide into small groups.
Step 2. Brainstorm types of situations about which a decision
must be made, and in which you might want to involve
a group of employees. Choose one situation from this
list on which your small group will work.
Step 3. Determine the relative importance of quality and accep-
tance in making this decision.
Step 4. Select a management style that will match the relative
importance of quality and acceptance for the success of
this decision. Identify the style on the scale below.
Tell Sell Gather Getrecom-
Information mendations
from group
1
Group Group
decides decides
with mgt. without
veto mgt. veto
Step 5. Identify the costs and benefits of your choice.
Step 6. Prepare to explain your decision-making process to the
larger group.
8 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Discussion
Group Decision Making
In this module, you have had a chance to experience participative
decision making, to discuss when it is important, and to practice
using the participative management scale to determine the extent
to which employees ought to be involved in particular decisions.
In this activity, you will have an opportunity to use all of the
above to focus on how to enhance the benefits of group decision
making and to determine when unilateral decisions should be
made.
Discussion Questions 1. What are the benefits of using a group?
2. How might a skilled team leader enhance the quality of a
team's decision?
3. When should a leader make a unilateral decision?
9 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Key Points Promoting Total Involvement
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Participative techniques contribute to both the quality of
decisions and employee acceptance.
• The participative management scale can help you select
appropriate ways to involve employees in work related situa-
tions.
• Groups are powerful forces whose synergy can be used to
further quality improvement.
• Effectively managing teams can enhance the quality of team
decision making.
• There are times when participative decision making is not
appropriate.
10 Promoting Total Involvement
-------
Module Eight Implementing Total Quality
Management (TQM)
-------
Contents Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
Overview: Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) 2
Presentation: TQM—Keys to Successful Implementation 3
Discussion: Granting Amnesty 7
Presentation: The Common Roadmap—Evolution Is Predictable 8
Presentation: Leadership and Commitment 10
Exercise: Evaluating Your Leadership and Commitment 11
Presentation: Strategies for Implementing TQM 12
Exercise: Implementing TQM—Strategies 13
Presentation: Implementation Checklist 17
Exercise: Contracting for Change 21
Key Points: Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) 24
1 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Overview
Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
You have now completed the seven modules of The EPA
Executive Course on Quality which cover essential quality
concepts and techniques along with corresponding quality
management skills. In this module we look at the "big picture"—
the steps that must be taken to implement total quality throughout
EPA and ensure that it becomes a way of life for managers and
employees alike. The implementation of TQM is not an overnight
process. It begins with a common language of quality, including
problem-solving tools and techniques. It continues as each
employee works individually and in functional and cross-
functional teams to identify and continuously improve the
agency's key work processes. Total quality management is a
never-ending journey that is fueled by an ongoing commitment to
continuous improvement and an openness to changing the way
we work. This includes the actions that senior managers must
take as leaders and champions of quality improvement.
Objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
• Understand the importance of using the voices of your
customers, employees, and processes in planning
• Help the agency to "walk the talk" of amnesty
• Identify the evolutionary phases of quality improvement and
target possible road blocks
• Examine the profile of a quality leader and decide what you
can do to model that profile
• Use eight implementation strategies to help you focus your
areas of action throughout the organization
• Develop some action steps that specify your own personal
commitment to implementing quality
2 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Presentation
TQM—Keys to Successful Implementation
Successful implementation requires thinking not only about where
your organization is but also where you want it to go.
It requires listening to the voice of customers, the voice of
employees, and the voice of key processes. Taking these voices
into account when planning grounds us in quality in the ways we
have been discussing throughout the previous modules.
TQM Implementation
The voice
of the
customer
TQM Implementation
The voice
of the
process
The voice
of the
employee
3 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
The Voice of the Customer
• Customer requirements
• Product
• Service
• Reputation
• Processes
• People
• Policies
• Responsiveness
• Communication
• Competitors
• Product/service gaps
• Anticipation of needs
The voice
of the
customer
4 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
The voice
of the
employee
The Voice of the Employee
• Awareness and validation of quality
strategy
• Amnesty
• Competing priorities
• Obstacles to successful
implementation
• Impact of quality on daily work
• Buy-in of the quality effort
• "Sacred cows" and myths
• Communication and interaction
• Knowledge of problem-solving and
process-improvement skills
• "Get ahead" norms
• Degree of involvement in decision making
• Perceptions of effectiveness of management styles
• Suggestions for proceeding
5 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
The Voice of the Process
• Output
• Productivity
• Cycle time
• Error rate
• Rejects
• Accuracy
• Returns
• Scrap
• Information
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Communication
• Cost
The voice
of the
process
6 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Discussion
Granting Amnesty
Inherent in listening to the voice of employees is the concept of
amnesty. For TQM to be successful, it is critical that employees
and managers alike speak the truth and take risks in the interest
of the greater good of the agency.
Therefore, for senior managers to be credible, they must grant
amnesty to those from whom they hear potentially uncomfortable
news. In the same vein, employees must be willing to take the
initiative to raise issues that they believe are important to EPA's
mission.
In this discussion, you will explore what it means to "walk the
talk" of amnesty.
Discussion Questions
1. If you were raising a difficult, potentially threatening issue
with a colleague or with someone to whom you report, what
would be some of your concerns or fears?
2. What would the other person need to say and do to make
you feel comfortable about raising concerns?
3. What concerns do you believe the employees who report to
you will have about being open, honest, and direct with you?
4. What do you need to say and do that will lead employees to
believe you "walk the talk" when it comes to amnesty!
7 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Presentation
The Common Road map—Evolution Is
Predictable
The implementation of TQM will proceed through four
identifiable phases—readiness, expansion, integration, and
regeneration.
Evolution Is Predictable
Readiness Expansion Integration
Regeneration
At any given time:
• Different parts of the organization will have evolved at
different rates.
• Within any part of the organization different stages will be
present.
• Evolution through the phases will demand attention and a
continuous application of energy.
The phases of TQM are important for planning organization-
wide TQM deployment and serving an individual manager as a
guide for leading TQM in his or her department or small unit.
Total quality improvement requires asking people to change not
only how they do their work, but also how they actually view
their work. It requires a fundamental shift in norms, attitudes,
and organizational culture. It is natural for people to resist
change, especially when it is complex. Therefore, as your total
quality implementation proceeds through the identifiable phases,
the strength and nature of the resistance is predictable, and to
some extent preventable. Being aware of this evolutionary process
can help you anticipate the predictable stages and road blocks
you will likely encounter, as well as facilitate the eventual
acceptance of quality as the way of doing work.
8 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Four Phases of TQM Implementation
Phase 1—Readiness. The readiness phase is marked by variation
in understanding of TQM, its relevance to individual and/or
organizational work, its priority among other mission require-
ments and/or improvement initiatives, its suitability within
particular environments, its compatibility with certain management
styles, and its staying power as a lasting force in the organiza-
tion. Some parts of the organization will be in high readiness for
TQM and will absorb it quickly; other parts will be in low
readiness and will require more preparation for TQM to become
part of daily work.
Phase 2—Expansion. While some parts of the organization are
bogged down, others will be moving ahead. Gradually a critical
mass of successes will be achieved, and a "flywheel" effect will
create a broader and deeper deployment of TQM. Converts from
among those "bogged down" portions of the organization will be
made as they observe long-standing problems beginning to
disappear, as standards of operational effectiveness begin inching
upwards, as doing the right thing right happens the first time
more and more often. These converts will take up the TQM
process in their work areas as success breeds success.
Phase 3—Integration. During this phase, TQM techniques and
ways of thinking about work (continuous improvement, total
involvement, measurement, etc.) will have become incorporated
into daily routines. Supportive systems (personnel systems like
performance appraisal, promotions, communications, planning, and
budgeting) will, during this phase, become linked in support of
TQM to reinforce it as a way of life within an organization.
Moreover, vendors to an organization will have adopted TQM
methodologies, and will be delivering services on time and within
cost and performance parameters. Customers will have joined in
partnership to further tighten the mutual understanding of
customer requirements and supplier capabilities.
Phase 4—Regeneration. In this phase, the organization appears to
have become "reborn" as the cultural transformation promised by
TQM becomes a reality. The entire organization is rededicated to
customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, cost containment, and
productivity. The bottom of the organization is linked to the top
in its pursuit of strategic initiatives aimed at continuously
improving mission effectiveness. Horizontally, those elements
which are joined in a common work process are tightly
integrated, as measures of "handoff' effectiveness reveal a steady
drop in errors.
9 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Presentation
Leadership and Commitment
We have considered the importance of using the voices of the
customer, the employees, and the processes to plan how to get
from where you are to where you want to be. We have also
identified the common evolutionary process of resistance and
eventual internalization of the total quality effort.
However, the quality implementation will move from readiness
through expansion, integration, and regeneration only if senior
managers demonstrate active commitment and leadership. There
are important differences between allowing, supporting, managing,
and leading your quality effort.
Senior Management's Role in TQM
Lead
Commit yourself to becoming a champion of TQM.
Insist on the use of TQM to achieve organizational goals.
Hold people accountable for supporting quality goals.
Never compromise quality for schedule, volume, or cost.
Ensure that TQM is part of decision making in all
organizational procedures.
Chair a quality council, head a quality action
team, and remove barriers.
Establish TQM measures to track your organization's
success.
Implement innovative recognition and reward systems
for TQM efforts.
Model doing "right things right."
I Manage
Support
Delegate the responsibility for TQM initiatives.
Create upper-management TQM initiatives.
Kick off TQM training sessions for your people.
Endorse TQM as a priority for the organization.
Include TQM topics in presentations.
Allow
Allow people in your organization to attend TQM training.
Attend TQM training yourself.
Create a TQM coordinator's position that reports to upper
management.
Fund limited TQM training without becoming directly
involved.
Fund an exploratory TQM pilot effort.
10 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Exercise Evaluating Your Leadership and Commitment
People both within and outside your organization will be alert to
the degree to which you are committed to the total quality effort.
They will very readily be noticing who does and does not "walk
the talk." In this exercise you will consider your role and level
of commitment in leading the quality implementation.
Directions Step 1. In small groups, discuss what you will need to do in
order to actively lead your organization's quality effort.
Record your conclusions.
Step 2. In the same groups, discuss what you can imagine
getting in the way of your leading the quality effort.
What are the barriers to successful leadership? Record
your conclusions.
Step 3. Select a representative to report your findings in the
large group.
11 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Presentation Strategies for Implementing TQM
Being aware of key elements of quality implementation, under-
standing and anticipating the evolutionary phases of effecting
change, and taking seriously your level of commitment in leading
the change process are all critical.
To drive the evolution of TQM forward throughout an organiza-
tion, a further portfolio of interrelated strategies is required.
• These strategies define the framework for TQM deployment
and serve as a test of the comprehensiveness of TQM
implementation action plans.
• These strategies are intended to provide field executives with
sufficient guidance and direction so as to promulgate detailed
plans for their own implementation of TQM.
• These strategies are highly integrated. They are self rein-
forcing and interdependent Taken altogether, they comprise
the basis for detailed TQM implementation planning.
Internal Implementation Strategies
1. Leadership and commitment
2. Infrastructure
3. Focus and rollout
4. Measurement
5. Education
6. Resources
7. Information and communication
8. Systems alignment
12 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Exercise Implementing TQM—Strategies
In this module, we have discussed the critical determinants of
successful implementation, identified the predictable evolution of
a total quality effort, and identified strategies for focused action
in implementing TQM. In this exercise, you will have an
opportunity to think more specifically of your role in focusing
the actions of people in your part of the organization as you
implement TQM.
Directions Step 1. Your facilitator will divide you into small groups and
assign each group two implementation strategies from
the list of eight identified in the previous presentation.
In your group, use the reference pages which follow to
discuss answers to the questions associated with the two
strategies you have been assigned.
Step 2. Pick a representative to report your conclusions to the
large group.
13 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Reference Page The Eight Internal Implementation Strategies
Leadership and Commitment Questions
• How will implementing TQM complement your strategic
objectives?
• How will you demonstrate commitment to TQM?
• How will you hold others accountable for TQM?
• What will you personally do to guarantee the successful
implementation of TQM?
Infrastructure Questions
• How will the TQM implementation be organized?
• How will TQM be managed?
• Who will be accountable for its implementation?
• How will TQM affect headquarters and field operations?
Focus and Rollout Questions
• How will TQM be implemented in the short term and long
term?
• What opportunities will be worked on first, second, third,
etc.?
• In what locations will TQM begin?
• When will external customers and suppliers be involved?
Measurement Questions
• What is currently being measured?
• What processes and results should be measured to meet both
internal and external customer needs?
14 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
• Who will be responsible for TQM measurement?
• How will TQM measures be used?
• How will TQM measures be integrated with other measures?
Education Questions
• What training is presently being successfully offered?
• What quality training needs now exist?
• How will needs be filled?
• Who will facilitate training sessions and how many
facilitators are needed?
• How will training sessions be organized?
• How will educational success be measured?
Resources Questions
• What resources will be needed?
• Where will the resources come from?
• Will TQM be a resource priority?
• How will return on investment (ROI) be measured?
Information and Communication Questions
• What information is required for TQM decision making?
• How will this information be accessed?
• How and to whom will the TQM process be communicated?
• Who will be responsible for this function?
15 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Systems Alignment Questions
• How will TQM be aligned with strategic and financial
systems?
• How will TQM be aligned with human resources manage-
ment systems?
• How will TQM be integrated with current improvement
efforts?
• What other systems need to be brought into alignment?
16 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Presentation Implementation Checklist
Implementing total quality is highly complex and, as we have
seen, involves an unfolding evolutionary process. Identifying the
degree of effort you will put into the various implementation
strategies in the short term versus the long term can serve as a
reminder of the evolving nature of this sophisticated change
effort. Throughout the change process, the following checklist can
serve as a useful device for reflecting on your current status of
implementation as well as on further implementation in the short
and long terms.
17 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
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Reference Page
Implementation Checklist
Leadership and Commitment
• Vision
• Implementation plans
• Management accountability
• Personal involvement
Infrastructure
• TQM management structure
• Lines of accountability
• All operations/locations
• Reporting methodology
Focus and Rollout
• Short-term rollout
-Locations
-People
-Processes
• Long-term rollout
• Involvement of customers
• Involvement of suppliers
Measurement
• Current measures
• Customer measures
• Process measures
• Results measures
• Tracking and reporting
• Integration
Present
Status
Short
Term
Long
Term
• -High effort
O - Medium effort
O-Low effort
18 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Education
• Current training
• Needs analysis
• Facilitators identified and trained
• Rollout guidelines
• Measurement
Resources
• Needs identified and fulfilled
-Financial
-People
-Facilities and equipment
• ROI measures
Information and Communication
• Needs and sources identified
• Communication plan
• Evaluation and reporting
Systems Alignment
• Strategic
• Financial
• Human resources
• Other improvement efforts
Present
Status
Short
Term
Long
Term
• - High effort
C - Medium effort
O - Low effort
19 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Public Responsibility
• Environment
• Ethics
• Local citizenship
• Policy/legislation
Customer Alignment
• Customers identified
• Valid requirements
• Satisfaction measures
• Improvement plans
• Partnerships
• Future needs
Supplier Alignment
• Suppliers identified
• Valid requirements
• Satisfaction measures
• Certification
• Partnerships
• Future needs
Present
Status
Short
Term
Long
Term
• - High effort
O - Medium effort
O - Low effort
20 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Exercise
Contracting for Change
Directions
In this final exercise, you will develop some action plans for
leading the quality effort in your work group or in your part of
the organization.
You may want to refer back to the leadership and commitment
activities, and the internal implementation strategies and checklist
in this module.
Step 1. Pair off with one person in the group with whom you
can provide mutual support, reflection, and improvement
on your quality efforts. In your pair, brainstorm a list of
concrete actions you, as senior executives, can take to
visibly lead the quality effort.
Step 2. Each of you now pick at least one item from the list
which you believe should have a high priority and
important yield for you and your organization.
Step 3. Using the force-field analysis worksheet on the next
page, identify the present state and desired state for the
item you picked in step 2. Then list the driving and
restraining forces. Work jointly, first with one of your
pair's priorities and then with the other's.
Step 4. Discuss with your partner what you can do to strengthen
or build on the driving forces and reduce or eliminate
the restraining forces.
Step 5. Drawing from the force-field analysis, fill in the action
plan worksheet.
Step 6. If time permits, follow steps 2 through 5 with other
items on your brainstorm list.
Step 7. In the large group, share your plans. As others report
their plans, add to your own plan any further activities
that would be helpful to you and your organization.
Step 8. Plan to meet with your partner in the future to discuss
your progress.
21 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
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Worksheet
Force-Field Analysis—Contracting for Change
Area for Improvement:
Present State
Desired Outcome
Driving Forces
Restraining Forces
22 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Worksheet
Action Plan—Contracting for Change
Name:
Date:
Work Unit:
Leadership
Actions
(what)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Steps
(how)
Account-
ability
(who)
Dead-
lines
(when)
Monitoring
Mechanisms
(how it is going)
Resources
Needed
23 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Key Points Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
Below are some of the key points in this module. Please add
your own.
• Successful implementation requires listening to the voice of
your customers, the voice of your employees, and the voice
of your processes.
• Amnesty will only work if managers "walk the talk" and if
employees are willing to express their suggestions and
concerns in the interest of the greater good of the agency.
• Implementation of TQM will likely evolve through four
phases: readiness, expansion, integration, and regeneration.
• Being aware of the four evolutionary phases can help you
anticipate and acknowledge road blocks and facilitate
eventual acceptance of your quality effort.
• For TQM to be successful, senior management must
continuously "walk the talk" and demonstrate active
leadership and commitment.
• TQM implementation planning rests in eight detailed,
interdependent strategies which are highly integrated:
leadership and commitment, infrastructure, focus and rollout,
measurement, education, resources, information and com-
munication, and systems alignment.
• The above eight strategies should unfold over time, some
being activated in the short term and others in the long term.
24 Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM)
-------
Reference Readings
-------
Contents Reference Readings
Reading: The Meaning of Quality 2
Reading: Identifying the Cost of Quality 13
Reading: You and Your Customer 21
Reading: Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things 30
Reading: Quality Action Teams 41
Reading: The QAT Problem-Solving Process 54
Reading: Leadership 62
Reading: Participation and Quality 72
1 Reference Readings
-------
The Meaning of Quality
-------
Reading
The Meaning of Quality
"Consumers are willing
to pay more for higher
quality products."
A revolution in quality improvement is underway in organiza-
tions throughout the world. If supported and carefully nurtured,
this revolution will transform the way we work.
The ideas behind this revolution are simple once we look at
them. However, making these simple ideas work amid the com-
plexities of organizational life can be both difficult and
challenging.
The EPA Executive Course on Quality will help you transform
quality ideas into action by presenting them in a language that
everyone in your organization can understand. Learning a
common language of quality will help you and the people who
work for you communicate more effectively, work as a team, and
solve problems so that they don't recur. Finally, if reinforced by
management, this new attitude about quality will create an en-
vironment in which people want to come to work and are able to
do their best work.
The Quality Revolution
The quality revolution is rooted deep in American soil, but it was
the Japanese who first put quality ideas into widespread practice.
After World War H, "Made in Japan" was synonymous with
junk. Then, in the early fifties, the Japanese were introduced to
quality improvement techniques. Since that time, the Japanese
have become world-class competitors, largely through the sys-
tematic application of the quality concepts and techniques pio-
neered by the American consultants W. Edwards Deming, a
statistician, and Joseph Juran, an engineer, along with Japanese
colleagues, such as Kaoru Ishikawa.
The revolution in quality in the United States has been fueled not
only by foreign competition but also by rising customer expecta-
tions. With a broader array of products and services to choose
from, consumers are demanding higher quality in their purchases
than ever before. A Gallup poll conducted for Quality Progress
magazine, for example, found that consumers are willing to pay
more for higher quality products. That means they are less
concerned with cost than value. There is every reason to believe
that consumers' expectations about quality will continue to rise in
the years ahead, forcing organizations to improve quality—or lose
business to competitors who do.
3 The Meaning of Quality
-------
"Inspection-based
systems never catch
all the errors."
As Donald Ephlin, vice president of the United Automobile,
Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, has
said, "Quality is job security today. . . . There's no sense in
being competitive in cost if you're not competitive in quality. I
think quality has always been important, but it's much more
important today because our competition is good and they con-
centrate on quality."
Big-Q
In the United States, the concept of quality has evolved from
traditional quality control, called little-q quality, through the inter-
mediate stage of quality assurance, to the more comprehensive
concept of total quality improvement, known as TQI or Big-Q
quality.
Traditionally, organizations have sought to achieve quality stan-
dards through inspection and testing. This practice has placed the
responsibility for quality on quality control or quality assurance
specialists. In service industries, inspectors and supervisors per-
form many of the same functions, but they lack the formal status
of quality control specialists. Either way, quality guardians have
generally lacked the organizational status or political clout to
revise project schedules, let alone change the way work is per-
formed. Moreover, inspection-based systems never catch all the
errors.
In contrast, companies that embrace Big-Q quality make every
employee responsible for quality by teaching what quality means,
why it matters, and how to achieve it. These companies dramati-
cally reduce the number of errors or defects reaching customers.
When an organization begins supporting quality in Big-Q terms,
it makes a real breakthrough.
Over the past several years, we have spent hundreds of hours
listening to quality control professionals, line managers, and
hourly workers. They complain that they already know how to
correct—or even prevent—defects, but that they are not en-
couraged to do so. They feel frustrated by the diminished view
of quality reflected in statements like "It's good enough" or
"We'll correct it in the field if there's a problem."
By the time a problem is discovered in the field, corrective
action is more expensive, and the company's reputation has been
tarnished. Moreover, giving responsibility for quality to one
department or group of people may send a message to the other
people in the organization that they don't need to worry about
quality. In contrast, relying on the people who produce the
4 The Meaning of Quality
-------
product or deliver the service to ensure that it is done right sends
a very different message to the organization—a message that
quality is everyone's responsibility.
Big-Q quality differs from litde-q in other respects, tod (see next
page). For example, it
• Is customer oriented instead of product oriented
• Stresses prevention
• Is part of everyone's day-to-day work
• Focuses on the long term
Big-Q quality requires a revolution in organizational culture that
replaces finger pointing with continuous improvement, rewards
initiative, and encourages problem solving by employees and
teams at all levels.
5 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Approaches to Quality
The definition of quality is |1|
Quality priorities are 111
Business decisions iff
are based on |||
SSJ
Emphasis is on |;|
Costs are H
Errors are understood fff
to result from i|i|
Responsibility for |||
quality belongs to |f
Organizational culture ||
tends toward if |
Organizational iff
structure is iff
Problem solving is by If
product oriented 11
less important than cost, III
schedule, and volume 11:
short-term goals HI
detection of errors ill
raised (when quality |:|i
is emphasized) 11
special causes i||
(workers making |||
individual mistakes) ||1
quality control/ |§
quality assurance, i||i
inspectors, and |||
specialists |i|
finger pointing, blame f|J
finding, and punishing ||
risk takers ||
hierarchical, |||
bureaucratic, and static iff
those in authority, If
top of pyramid Hi
customer oriented
first among equals: "the driver"
of business decisions
balancing short-term
and long-term goals
prevention of errors
lowered (when quality
is emphasized)
common causes
(ineffective systems and
management practices)
everyone
continuous improvement,
innovation, and permission
to fail
flat, integrated, and fluid
teams, all employee levels
6 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Defining Quality
Traditionally, quality has referred to the performance of a product
or service. But the quality of your final output is only one aspect
of a total quality organization. As you read this, the people who
work for you are hard at work (you hope). Each of those people
is part of a complicated chain of transactions that stretches from
the raw material vendor supplying your organization to the
ultimate customer receiving the completed product or service.
Most people are somewhere in the middle of that chain, receiv-
ing intermediate products (information, materials, goods, etc.)
from people and processing them to produce intermediate items
for other people in the chain.
Big-Q means that quality is not just for the end user. On the
contrary, every activity in the customer-supplier chain has a
quality dimension. For Big-Q to be realized, each of those inter-
actions needs to be performed well.
Big-Q also means that, in addition to product quality (the charac-
teristics of the end product or service), quality has other dimen-
sions, including the relationship with the customer, the integrity
with which we support our products and services, the timeliness
of delivery, and the cost to the customer of acquiring the product
or service.
There are many definitions of Big-Q quality. One of the simplest
is doing right things right. The two elements of this definition
are
1. Alignment, which is doing right things. Right things are the
results that meet customer requirements.
2. Execution, which is doing things right. Doing things right
refers to the way you do work.
Quality Pays
The realization that quality pays and, furthermore, that it repre-
sents a potential competitive advantage in the marketplace is a
breakthrough for many agencies and companies.
Contrary to popular perception, higher quality need not cost
more. The attitude that there must be a trade-off between cost
and quality is based on the assumption that quality happens after
the fact (i.e., that it has to be inspected in). Companies that use
quality improvement techniques, however, build quality in from
7 The Meaning of Quality
-------
"Because it leads to
business growth and
expansion, quality
improvement can protect
jobs while creating new
ones."
the start. Through better processes that result in less waste and
rework, companies actually save money in the long run (and
often in the short run, too).
In terms of profitability, businesses in the United States that have
improved quality are showing the same spectacular results as
businesses in Japan—not only in products, where the Japanese
have done so well, but also in services. For example:
• AT&T has reported that its investments in quality yield a 20
percent return and an 18 percent net cost savings.
• In 1984, quality improvement efforts at General Electric led
to a 34 percent reduction in quality costs through less waste
and fewer rejects.
• At a leading utility company, where 1,400 teams and other
quality efforts involve virtually every employee in the com-
pany, savings attributed to quality improvement are estimated
at more than $1 million a week.
• At Westmghouse's Semiconductor Division, scrap has been
reduced 58 percent (saving over $2.4 million), material
returned by customers has decreased 69 percent (saving over
$600,000), and service performance has improved 20 percent
since quality improvement began in 1982.
Quality improvement has potential benefits in addition to cost
savings; it can help expand market share, boost sales, and justify
higher profit margins. Note that Japanese cars in the late eighties
represented 30 percent of the U.S. market, although in many
cases they were priced higher than comparable domestic models.
Finally, because it leads to business growth and expansion, qual-
ity improvement can protect jobs while creating new ones.
We need to take a broader view of the role quality plays in
achieving organizational and individual goals. We need to recog-
nize that quality needn't cost more, and that it will improve a
company's competitive position.
Furthermore, we need to see that quality involves more than just
products or services and that it applies to internal as well as
external customers. We must recognize that everything the or-
ganization does has a quality component, and that everyone
shares responsibility for quality.
8 The Meaning of Quality
-------
The Breakthrough in Action
Accepting a new definition for quality and making quality a
priority are essential, but they are not enough. For quality to
become the way we do business in our organizations requires a
breakthrough in action. We have to break out of established ways
of thinking and acting. We have to learn new behaviors, and we
need both skills and the mandate to practice them.
Douglas D. Danforth, former chairman of Westinghouse, has said,
"Everyone needs to say by his or her actions that quality is a
way of life ... that we apply the same high standards of perfor-
mance to our jobs that we do to our personal lives."
In GDI's experience, accomplishing this breakthrough requires
dedication to five basic principles, along with knowledge of the
specific practices needed to implement each one. These five
pillars of quality are customer focus, total involvement,
measurement, systematic support, and continuous improvement.
To support quality, these pillars must be built on a foundation of
organizational values that employees can believe in and live by.
On the following pages we'll examine each of the pillars in turn.
The Pillars of Quality
The Quality Advantage
«
2
a.
|
i
Organizational Values
9 The Meaning of Quality
-------
"The unrecognized
quality experts in any
organization are the
people who do the
work."
Customer Focus
Quality means customer satisfaction, which can be measured by a
product's conformance to a customer's requirements. Quality is
not necessarily the same for every customer, but each customer
expects to have his or her requirements met. A satisfied
Chevrolet owner may have requirements different from those of a
satisfied Cadillac owner—or a satisfied van owner. Yet all three
vehicles may be of equal quality, if they meet the needs of their
respective owners.
Within your organization, people supply products, services, and
information to one another. In these exchanges, you are linked as
internal customers and suppliers. You can better meet the needs
of your final, external customers when you work to meet the
requirements of your internal customers. Everyone in your or-
ganization must understand the requirements of all of his or her
customers and continue to meet these requirements even while
working to improve his or her own processes.
Total Involvement
Beginning with senior management, every level of the organiza-
tion must be involved in organized quality improvement activ-
ities. Everyone in the organization is responsible for quality, top
to bottom and side to side. Each employee has an important role
to play.
The unrecognized quality experts in any organization are the
people who do the work. Who knows more than the experienced
sales representative about how to qualify prospects or reduce
unnecessary sales calls? Who knows better than the conscien-
tious production worker how to reduce product defects? Who
knows more than the customer service representative about what
customers do and don't like about your organization? Certainly,
the sales manager has a great deal to contribute to the reduction
of unproductive sales calls, and the engineer has ideas about how
to reduce defects. But it would be a mistake to solve those
quality problems without the advice and ideas of the unrecog-
nized quality experts.
Measurement
It's important to track your own progress, because you can't
improve what you don't measure. You can't meet quality goals
unless you establish baselines and chart progress against them.
10 The Meaning of Quality
-------
You should be influenced by customer requirements as you
decide what to measure, and you should have those closest to the
work do the measuring. You should make decisions using facts
and data, rather than using intuition or shooting from the hip.
"If quality counts, it
should be recognized
and rewarded."
Systematic Support
Too often, good ideas produce mediocre results because of a lack
of systematic support If quality is important to your strategic
advantage, then it must be reinforced by structures, policies, and
procedures that encourage its development and discourage com-
peting priorities. It must be part of your strategic plan, your
budget process, and—most important of all—your performance
management system. If quality counts, it should be recognized
and rewarded. If you're not willing to promote and reward those
who improve how the work is done (as distinct from those who
rush in at the last minute to put out fires), you'll never achieve
quality.
Continuous Improvement
There's always room for improvement—and there always will be.
In a quality organization, "good enough" is never good enough.
Every aspect of Big-Q must be used to ensure customer satisfac-
tion, or you are not achieving quality. Keep looking for a better
way, even if your customers are satisfied with how you serve
them now. In a fast-changing world, it is only a matter of time
before their needs change. When they do, you want to be ready
to establish or maintain your competitive advantage.
Quality is really a never-ending journey, not a destination. We
need to do things better today than yesterday and be constantly
on the lookout for ways to correct problems, prevent problems,
and make improvements. Even when the customer's needs have
been completely and precisely met, a better, more efficient
approach is always possible. The quality journey is a continuous
search for a better way.
Implementing Quality
Many people agree that quality pays. But although they endorse
the principles of the five pillars of quality, they still complain
that there is no way to put the ideas into action. Their reasons
include the following:
• Top management isn't really committed to quality.
11 The Meaning of Quality
-------
"Quality improvement
can be the ultimate
integrator of your
organization. . ."
• Employees won't believe management is serious about it.
• Employees won't cooperate.
• There's too little money and expertise to undertake quality
efforts.
These are all plausible reasons not to do anything. But there
are powerful incentives—aside from the benefits of strategic
advantage—for implementing quality ideas. One is that people
really do support quality improvement efforts if senior manage-
ment is serious about them. We have seen this in our work with
organizations in all segments of industry, as well as government
agencies and healthcare institutions. Two essential truths can help
you establish and sustain a quality improvement effort.
1. Most people want to be proud of the work they do and the
organization they do it for. If you give people a mandate, a
mechanism, and the support (tools, training, and opportunity)
to do a job well, they'll do it. If you create an organization
with values people can support, they will.
2. People support what they help create. A person who does a
job five days a week, year in and year out, probably has
ideas about how to do the job better. But in practice, he or
she may rarely be encouraged to voice those ideas. Employ-
ees will take an active role in designing systems to improve
quality if you make it clear that jobs won't be jeopardized
by improvements they suggest.
Quality improvement can be the ultimate integrator of your
organization, the umbrella under which you can achieve some of
your most critical objectives: improved product quality, lower
costs, stronger customer loyalty, increased employee morale,
lower turnover, reduced absenteeism, a larger share of the market,
and even higher profits.
Quality can become a rallying cry for organizational improve-
ment. It can turn a company around, transform its culture, and
inspire the changes necessary to compete more effectively.
12 The Meaning of Quality
-------
Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Reading Identifying the Cost of Quality
Traditionally, when faced with shrinking resources, organizations
make across-the-board reductions or cut efforts such as training
and planning that have a long-term payoff. Without training and
careful planning, necessary costs are cut along with avoidable
costs—the wheat discarded with the chaff. Quality improvement
efforts suffer as a result. Managers can cut expenses without
cutting capabilities by taking a cost-of-quality approach to cost
assessment This approach provides an attractive alternative to the
usual cost-cutting methods.
You can think of the cost of quality as an iceberg; on the sur-
face, there are the costs we often associate with quality, such as
defective products, rework, and quality control department ex-
penses. Below the surface is a less obvious but even larger block
of costs that we may not attribute to quality. It includes the costs
of unwanted employee turnover, poorly run meetings, overdue
receivables, and excess inventory. Once you have identified both
the obvious and the hidden costs of quality, you can ferret out
avoidable costs and begin to reduce them.
A number of organizations working toward a quality advantage
have succeeded in cutting costs without cutting capabilities.
• A Federal Express quality team initiated a program to cut
waste that ultimately resulted in a $187,000 annual cost
savings and a one-time savings of $500,000 in capital expen-
ditures. The cost of the quality team's efforts was paid back
in just two weeks.
• A premier consumer products company found that 55 percent
of its billing department employees were engaged in correct-
ing and inspecting invoices. This amounted to a total of $35
million or a cost of $25 to collect an average bill of $90.
• At John Hancock Life Insurance Company, a senior vice
president noted that the thirty quality teams in his area
produced "hundreds of thousands of dollars in underwriting
cost savings and productivity gains" in one year.
• At a leading publishing house, printing crews identified
newsprint wastage as a major cost of quality. By careful data
gathering and problem solving, they reduced wastage by 75
percent, thereby saving $250,000 a year.
14 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
"Unlike most budget-
cutting efforts ... a
cost-of-quaKty approach
leads to doing better
with less."
Unlike most budget-cutting efforts, which lead to doing less with
less, a cost-of-quality approach leads to doing better with less.
The difference is that most budget cuts are conducted without the
cooperation and support of the managers and workers who will
be affected by the cuts and who know where the waste really is.
In an effort to protect themselves and their departments, people
try to rationalize why particular cuts shouldn't be made. In Big-
Q organizations, managers and workers with the right techniques
and attitudes can distinguish fat from bone and concentrate on
trimming the fat. This kind of an activity can lead to increased
morale and a greater commitment to the organization, instead of
to the demoralization that comes with most budget cuts.
How Do You Define the Cost of Quality?
As discussed in the reading on the meaning of quality, the two
key measures of an organization's success are alignment and
execution. Alignment, what you do, is measured by how well you
are meeting your customers' needs. Execution, how you do it, is
measured by whether you achieve the highest return at the lowest
cost. Alignment is doing the right things, and execution is doing
things right. Ultimately, the key goal of the organization and
each of its members is to do right things right.
The cost of quality includes all the costs of providing defect-free
products and services. It includes the costs of prevention or
inspection (appraisal) and failure (see next page). Experts in the
field have found that these costs amount to 20 to 25 percent of
operating costs in manufacturing organizations, and up to 30
percent (or more) in service organizations.
Although some costs of quality are necessary and useful, other
costs of quality are avoidable and wasteful. Whenever you're
failing to do right things right, you're incurring an avoidable cost
of quality.
15 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
The Cost of Quality
Prevention costs
are the costs of any
actions intended to
make sure, in
advance, that things
will not go wrong.
Prevention costs also
include the costs of
on-the-spot corrections.
Inspection costs are
the costs of finding
out if and when
things are going
wrong so correction
or prevention
actions can occur.
Failure costs are the
costs you incur when
a customer is or will
be dissatisfied and
you have to pay the
price in damaged
reputation, rework,
waste, legal penalties,
special charges,
or loss of pride.
16 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
As you pursue quality, you will find that your prevention costs
increase, while your inspection and failure costs decrease by a
much greater amount. Thus, your total cost of quality will go
down.
How Quality Pays Off
Total Cost of Quality
.' •: :•:•: :•
Inspection
Prevention
Total Cost of Quality
Inspection
Prevention
Before beginning the
quality improvement process
As a result of the
quality improvement process
The Employee's Role
The concept of doing right things right puts the responsibility for
quality where it belongs—in the hands of each employee. Most
employees have the ability to define what the right things are,
but they can't do it alone. They must work with their customers
and their manager to identify and understand customer and
organizational needs.
17 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
Employees can also determine how to do things right. Again,
employees do not operate in a vacuum. Quality is achieved only
when the knowledge and skills of all employees are brought to
bear on the work process in which they are involved.
The Manager's Role
In order to reduce the cost of quality, managers must communi-
cate their priorities and expectations to their employees and
facilitate the quality improvement process by involving employees
and ensuring that they have the confidence and skills required to
do the job. It is not the manager's job to provide solutions. Big-
Q quality means that the best people to improve a work process
are the people who do the work.
Prevention and Correction
The key to reducing costs is prevention. For example, if you set
up and follow a maintenance schedule for your car that includes
checking the oil regularly, you will ensure that automotive prob-
lems related to lack of oil will never occur.
The next best thing to prevention is early detection and treatment
of problems. If you don't add oil regularly, you need to add it as
soon as the oil light goes on. If you don't do either prevention
or early treatment, you may wind up with a cracked engine
block, a large expense that could have been avoided.
The same principle applies to problems in organizations. The best
solution is prevention.
Despite prevention efforts, however, some quality problems may
still occur. This means that you need to develop your own
inspection systems rather than wait for someone else to catch
your mistakes.
For example, when a secretary makes an error in a letter, the
most cost-effective solution is for the secretary to catch it and
correct it, thus preventing the error from going out further.
But suppose the secretary doesn't catch the error. The boss finds
the typo, circles it, and gives the draft back to the secretary for
correction. Now, the cost of quality includes not only the secre-
tary's time but also that of the boss.
18 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
"// a customer does
bring a problem to your
attention, you should
consider yourself lucky."
It could be worse. Suppose this letter is written to a customer,
and suppose that neither the secretary nor the boss catches the
error. The important customer sees the error and thinks, "How
can I trust these people when they can't even send a professional
letter? Maybe I should take my business elsewhere." Now the
boss may have to get on the phone or visit the customer to make
amends. At best, the boss's time has been used up in regaining
the respect of the customer. At worst, the customer has been lost.
Ideally, a customer will never have a reason like this to com-
plain to you or your organization. However, if a customer does
bring a problem to your attention, you should consider yourself
lucky. Research indicates that only about 4 percent of dissatisfied
customers complain to their suppliers. The other 96 percent tell
their friends and associates instead. Thus, they become ill-will
ambassadors who undermine your organization's reputation and
help competitors take away business from you.
An old rule of thumb says that a satisfied customer will tell three
people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell twenty people.
Although making amends to a customer for a mistake is costly, it
is still less costly than losing the customer altogether.
The Cost of Quality: A Competitive Advantage
Traditional ways of measuring performance often place managers
and their departments in competition with one another. They are
often evaluated on different criteria that may not take into
account how well they work together toward organizational goals.
Sales may be evaluated by number of trips booked, seats sold,
new accounts opened, or contracts received. Production may be
evaluated by output per hour or number of units shipped.
Accounting may be evaluated by accuracy and ability to keep
costs down. Quality control inspection may be evaluated by the
number of defects discovered in the organization's products or
services.
Different criteria for different departments cause conflicting
values. Production sees the ideal world as one with long lead
times and high predictability, as well as a limited product line.
For marketing and sales, the ideal world has a warehouse or
service operation on every street corner, along with an infinite
variety of products that meet every whim and fancy of the
customer and that cost next to nothing. Finance values a
company without buildings, equipment, or even people, where
resources can be shifted to the hottest investment opportunities.
These opposing values lead to conflict and competition among
the different functions. To some degree such conflict is con-
19 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
stractive. What better way to raise key issues than to have
marketing pushing its position against production, or finance
pushing its position against marketing? But it also results in
competition for resources and a win-lose mentality in which one
function's gain is another's loss.
A more effective model for organizations is a network of mutual-
ly reinforcing dependencies. If, for example, finance doesn't
provide the resources for better equipment, production loses the
opportunity to raise productivity or cut costs.
In today's tough, competitive environment, the win-lose mentality
is even more destructive than it was in the past. To succeed in
this tougher environment requires an ability to move faster with
fewer mistakes, to cooperate rather than compete, and to create
win-win situations. The traditional measures simply don't do the
job. A new measure is needed, one that encourages cooperation
and teamwork. The cost of quality can provide that measure.
20 Identifying the Cost of Quality
-------
You and Your Customer
-------
Reading
You and Your Customer
"Work in the modern
organization has become
too complex to be
managed and controlled
only from the top down."
In recent years, more and more organizations have realized that
quality is important to gaining a competitive advantage and
essential to a company's survival. This increased awareness has
created a unique opportunity for organizations to apply the
principles of quality to day-to-day management in order to make
fundamental and lasting improvements in how they do business.
The key to quality improvement is to recognize and then act on
one simple proposition: Quality begins and ends with the cus-
tomer. While most organizations recognize the importance of the
customer, many fail to align their capabilities with the customer's
needs. Outdated managerial practices and organizational structures
often frustrate the company's ability to meet customers' needs.
Most organizations are structured into specialized functional units
whose members are more loyal to their function than to the
organization. These units compete with one another for money
and resources. The route to the top in these organizations is
through the vertical chain of command. We call this chimney
stack management because people get ahead by moving upward
in one vertical cylinder—defending the interests of marketing or
administration or region C rather than the interests of the
organization as a whole, much less the customer.
Other organizations are managed by the matrix model, which
attempts to link people across functions. In practice, this model
sometimes adds to confusion and conflict by imposing a second
reporting structure. Neither model seems flexible enough to
manage the complexity of a modern organization in a way that
ensures continuous responsiveness to customers. Why? Work in
the modern organization has become too complex to be managed
and controlled only from the top down.
The Customer-Supplier Chain
Managers at all levels are discovering that they can increase
effectiveness and efficiency by encouraging their employees to
see themselves as one another's customers and suppliers, linked
in a chain that extends back into the organization from the
ultimate, external customer.
22 You and Your Customer
-------
This simple structure can support complex work processes. It
represents the natural flow of work across functions and between
employees in an organization. In many companies, only a small
percentage of employees have direct contact with the organiza-
tion's paying customers. However, all of us depend on others for
the products or services we need to do our jobs. We are sup-
pliers to the people who depend on us for input and customers of
the people who supply us with output.
In fact, work can be seen as a process in which customers re-
ceive inputs (e.g., machine parts or data) from their suppliers,
add value (e.g., assembly or information processing) to those
inputs, and then pass outputs (e.g., assembled units or finished
reports) on to their own customers.1
You can describe a process broadly (processing a customer's
request from the first meeting or telephone inquiry to payment
for work completed) or narrowly (ordering a needed part for a
computer). Either way, the customer's needs are better satisfied if
the people from the separate functions—parts, customer service,
field service, and billing—are all trying to meet the needs of the
next internal process, rather than if they are primarily concerned
about the welfare of their own functions.
As a manager concerned with customer satisfaction in a competi-
tive world, you don't want your parts department thinking only
of its own interests and asking, "How can we minimize inventory
and thus reduce costs?" Rather, you want your parts department
thinking of its customers' interests as well as the organization's
interests and, therefore, asking, "How can we make sure we have
the parts the service department needs to do its job without
carrying unnecessary parts in inventory?"
Alignment
Alignment, or the matching of supplier capabilities with customer
needs, is a requisite of the quality process.
The process of alignment begins with a redefinition of the
customer-supplier relationship. Rather than see each other as
adversaries trying to take advantage of each other, customers and
suppliers work together as collaborators to achieve alignment.
Their collaboration must also help promote the overall goals of
the organization.
'For more on the internal customer-supplier chain, see G.H.
Labovitz, "Keeping Your Internal Customers Satisfied," Wall Street
Journal, July 6, 1987.
23 You and Your Customer
-------
When you achieve alignment, customer satisfaction becomes a
shared goal; it is no longer the burden of the supplier alone.
Internal customers are responsible for making their needs known
to their suppliers.
Why should the internal customer make this effort? Because the
ultimate goal of alignment is to support the mission of the
overall organization. And this is the one goal that applies equally
to all your employees, in both roles—customer and supplier.
Conceptually, alignment is easily grasped. It has three variables:
(1) customer needs, (2) supplier capabilities, and (3) organiza-
tional values, vision, mission, and strategies—or what we shall
refer to for simplicity's sake as organizational goals.
As a manager, your challenge is to help your people achieve
three-way alignment. That means matching supplier capabilities
with customer needs, to reach the goals of the organization.
Alignment
I
£
Organizational
goals
Customer Needs
In every transaction, both customers and suppliers must have
their needs and interests met, or alignment will not occur. If
customers feel that the value of the product or service isn't worth
the price, they won't buy it. On the other hand, if suppliers don't
feel that they are receiving a fair price for the product or service,
they won't willingly sell it.
24 You and Your Customer
-------
Traditionally, suppliers within an organization have had a captive
market in their internal customers, so they have not had to take
their internal customers' needs into account. In more and more
organizations today, however, managers are free to decide
whether to buy their services internally or purchase them outside,
thus forcing internal suppliers to become increasingly customer
oriented.
One of the dangers in seeking customer-supplier alignment is that
the supplier will go overboard in meeting customer needs and
will subvert organizational goals.
Lack of Alignment with Organizational Goals
Organizational
goals
X
.o
a
Customer Needs
As a manager, you need to monitor carefully the alignment
process between your employees and avert situations in which
customers and suppliers may be seeking alignment in ways that
will not promote organizational goals.
Gaps
Sometimes supplier capabilities lag behind customer require-
ments. That is, while the customer's needs are in line with
organizational objectives, the supplier lacks the capability to meet
them. This results in a performance gap, which usually requires
rework to prevent customer dissatisfaction.
25 You and Your Customer
-------
Performance Gap
Organizational
goals
Performance gap
Customer Needs
In this case, suppliers need to increase their capability to meet
customer requirements, or they'll lose the business to someone
who can. And customers need to provide clear and complete
feedback to help their suppliers close this gap.
A gap can also occur when supplier capabilities exceed customer
requirements. If you are giving customers more than they want or
appreciate, you are, in the short term, wasting your effort. A
customer who wants to buy a telephone that will last five years
won't pay extra for one built to last forty years if given a choice
—unless, of course, you can convince this customer that it is
worth making the additional investment
Educating the customer about some of your potential capabilities
opens the door to even higher levels of alignment, especially if
no competitor is able to match these capabilities.
26 You and Your Customer
-------
Opportunity Gap
"You need to know
your boss's objectives,
and your people need
to know yours."
Organizational
goals
Opportunity gap
Customer Needs
Building Customer-Supplier Alignment
How do you foster customer-supplier partnerships that build
alignment?
First, you must identify your own customers and suppliers, and
then meet with them to discuss and agree upon requirements. To
help facilitate this exchange, we suggest you ask the following
questions of your customers:
• What do you need from me?
• What do you do with what I give you?
• Are there any gaps between what I give you and what you
need?
Next, you must help your employees understand alignment. Meet
with them to make sure they follow through with their customers
and suppliers. To do this effectively, you need to know your
boss's objectives, and your people need to know yours. That way
you can ensure that the alignment processes between customers
and suppliers actually contribute to organizational goals. The
same three questions can be used to clarify requirements between
managers and employees, who are customers of and suppliers to
one another.
27 You and Your Customer
-------
Third, once the requirements are agreed upon, focus on a few
highly visible work processes. The requirements tell you what
needs to be done; the work processes show how it should be
done. In the course of this program, you have been introduced to
flowcharting. A flowchart describes the steps in a work process
in graphic form. When you bring together the people involved in
a work process and have them draw a flowchart, you and they
can sometimes resolve conflicting perceptions between what is
actually happening and what should be happening. The flowchart
also makes it easy to identify unnecessary steps and bottlenecks.
Once these are identified, you can work to eliminate them, thus
improving your capability to meet your customers'—and your
organization's—needs.
Alignment Works
A major division of Jostens, a Fortune 500 publishing company
based in Minneapolis, committed itself to total quality improve-
ment as a long-term competitive strategy. The first step in this
effort was making sure everyone in the division knew that he or
she had his or her own customers and suppliers, according to
Fred Bjork, divisional vice president and general manager.
That realization "opened up all kinds of doors," Bjork recalls,
"because people suddenly had a context in which they could
surface problems and iron them out together. What might have
been taken as 'bellyaching' before was now seen by suppliers as
helpful feedback."
Jostens Printing and Publishing prints high school and college
yearbooks. The division's dedication to internal customer satisfac-
tion was soon extended to external customers. "Our customers—
the students and the schools—are also our suppliers. They pro-
vide the text, pictures, logos, and other art we need to produce
their yearbook," he explains.
"We've had great success expanding our customer focus to the
students. By helping them see their relationship with us in
customer-supplier terms, we have significantly reduced the proof-
ing and approval process. And they feel more comfortable and
involved throughout the production process," Bjork adds.
Organizational Collaboration
We've all read stories about people in flood-stricken areas who
form a human chain to pile sandbags against a rising river.
Working together, they safeguard their homes and families.
28 You and Your Customer
-------
The sandbags are passed from hand to hand—supplier to cus-
tomer, supplier to customer—and put in place to form a dike.
The first few exchanges are awkward, but soon suppliers and
customers understand one another's needs and capabilities, and
the flow becomes smooth and orderly. The partnerships between
people enable the sandbags to flow faster and faster to the end of
the line. If the citizens can keep the river from flooding, the
whole community benefits.
A cooperative and effective human chain benefits organizations
too. Working toward quality goals fosters greater organizational
collaboration based on alignment and on strong customer-
supplier relationships.
When you manage your work processes in a way that encourages
alignment and facilitates customer-supplier partnerships, you are
pushing responsibility and encouraging initiative through the
entire organization. The resulting gains—in communication and
commitment, in effectiveness and efficiency—will go a long way
toward creating a competitive advantage for your organization.
29 You and Your Customer
-------
Continuous Improvement—Doing
Right Things
-------
Reading
Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
"When trouble erupts,
many organizations
spend more time fixing
the blame than fixing
the problem."
"Turning an error into
an opportunity for
improvement is a key
component of the quality
process."
Everyone agrees that continuous improvement is an eminently
sensible and cost-effective way to maintain an organization's
competitive edge. When employees constantly improve the way
they do their jobs, they strengthen the organization's ability to
meet the needs of its customers.
In practice, however, many organizations do little more than pay
lip service to continuous improvement. Subscribing to the adage
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," many managers find little time for
improvement efforts. Even the best-intentioned managers, facing
new crises every day, can find their continuous improvement
program turning into sporadic improvement—or no improvement
at all for months at a time.
Organizations often do not learn from mistakes; many don't study
their mistakes to find the lessons they contain. The saying "Those
who ignore history are bound to repeat it" has a corporate corol-
lary: "Those who don't learn from their mistakes are bound to
make them again." Since continuous improvement is an excellent
way to avoid making the same costly mistakes again and again,
why don't organizations take it more seriously?
There are several reasons. Organizations, like people, often don't
confront their difficulties or acknowledge their errors because it's
painful and embarrassing to admit mistakes. The most common
response to a problem is to deny it, minimize it, or blame it on
someone else. When trouble erupts, many organizations spend
more time fixing the blame than fixing the problem.
Then, too, some organizations wish to maintain an aura of invin-
cibility, which discourages the bearers of bad news. In a varia-
tion of the "kill the messenger" syndrome, word goes out that
only good news is welcome. In those organizations it is an
unlucky employee—or manager—who challenges the conven-
tional wisdom, no matter how misguided it might appear to be.
Searching for Buried Treasure
Fortunately, the quality revolution has fostered a new attitude.
Organizations are discovering that learning from mistakes is
integral to continuous improvement. Turning an error into an
opportunity for improvement is a key component of the quality
process.
Japanese industrialists have even been known to refer to a mis-
take as a treasure, a golden opportunity to find out what went
31 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
wrong and make changes. The lesson for managers is simple:
Milk mistakes for all they're worth. Learn everything you can
from each one. No one can do right things right the first and
every time, but everyone can become wise enough to avoid
making the same mistake twice.
One reason Japanese industrialists can view mistakes so positively
is that they have embraced a rule first put forward by Deming.
The rule states that 80 to 85 percent of errors have common
rather than special causes. Common causes are created by sys-
tems, which are controlled by management Special causes are
due to individual events or behavior, which are controlled by
individual workers. If an error is caused by a defect in a system,
it presents an opportunity for a permanent improvement in the
system.
When an organization responds to a crisis with finger pointing,
employees react by concealing information instead of sharing it,
and everybody loses. One of the major challenges in managing
quality is to create a climate in which everyone feels free to
share experiences (good and bad) and to learn from mistakes
without resorting to defensiveness and faultfinding.
The Three Elements of Continuous Improvement
Once you have established a climate that supports continuous
improvement, you need to think systematically about how to
make improvements. Here are three ideas that will help.
1. Fix problems on the spot.
2. Prevent problems from occurring in the first place.
3. Improve your ability to meet customer needs.
Let's look at each of these elements in turn.
Fix It!
To err is human—but machines make mistakes too. Unless the
day comes when everyone—and everything—in your organiza-
tion can do right things right every time, you need ways to catch
errors and fix them. Many managers belittle quick fixes on the
grounds that they are not lasting solutions, but a skillful and
timely fix plays an important role in quality improvement.
32 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Correction costs are not all created equal. They can be divided
into three distinct categories.
1. Mistakes caught and fixed in your work area. These fixes are
known as on-the-spot corrections, and they represent the most
cost-effective way to catch mistakes.
2. Mistakes caught and fixed internally after they leave the
work area where they are made. Sometimes called down-
stream correction, this is the next best way to catch mistakes.
3. Mistakes caught by the external customer. This is the most
expensive way to catch and fix an error, because the damage
to your organization's image and to the relationships with
your customers far outweighs the cost of repairing the
product or improving the service.
A good rule of thumb for comparing the relative costs of these
three fixes is the 1-10-100 rule. This rule holds that for every
hour or dollar your organization spends correcting a problem on
the spot, it costs ten times that much to correct it downstream.
To repair a mistake discovered by an external customer—and to
repair the damage to your reputation—will cost one hundred
times as much time or money as fixing the mistake on the spot.
Still, it is better to know about a mistake from a customer than
never to know about it at all. Research indicates that 96 percent
of your dissatisfied customers will never tell you about their
quality complaint, and so will never give you the chance to fix
it. But they will tell their friends and associates, thus costing you
future business.
Since satisfying your customers is in your best interest, here are
three guidelines for fixing problems on the spot.
1. Fix it right away, while it's happening.
The sooner you catch a problem and correct it, the easier and
cheaper the solution will be. Take time to fix it now, and
you save all the rework and other problems that occur when
the problem gets downstream or to the customer.
Remember the old adage, "A stitch in time saves nine."
33 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
"Prevention is at the
heart of quality
improvement."
2. If you can't fix it, get someone who can.
Sometimes you spot a problem that's outside your control. In
these situations you need to alert the people who can do
something about it. You may see from its smeared copies
that the office photocopier is about to break down. Don't
wait for someone else to discover the problem or for the
inevitable breakdown to occur. Instead, inform whoever is
responsible for the copier.
3. Use your instincts.
From your extensive knowledge of your work, you have your
own ways of knowing when something is going wrong. Trust
your internal warning system, which reflects a wealth of ex-
perience and judgment. If something doesn't sound right, feel
right, or "smell right," investigate.
Prevent It!
Prevention is at the heart of quality improvement. The way to
maximize the percentage of time you spend doing right things
right is to institute prevention systems before work begins. Every
time you fix a problem you should ask, "Can this problem crop
up again?" If the answer is yes, it's time for prevention.
If you have to fight fires, you may not have time for prevention.
And you may prefer the excitement of fighting fires to the
discipline of prevention. But the enormous payoff from preven-
tion will also be exciting in the long run.
You already prevent problems in everyday life. Consider driving.
While the number of automotive accidents and deaths is disturb-
ing it's also astonishing that the figures aren't higher. The
possibilities for error are tremendous. Driving on the wrong side
of the road, changing lanes without looking, falling asleep at the
wheel and becoming angry in traffic and ramming somebody
deliberately (instead of just thinking about it) are just a few of
the ways to make an accident highly probable.
What prevents these potential accidents? A combination of traffic
signals safety devices, police presence, driver training and ex-
perience and plenty of common sense and personal attentive-
ness Highway safety involves both a technology and an attitude
of prevention, supported by rewards (and punishments).
34 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Just as you practice prevention when you drive, you already take
many preventive measures on the job. However, there are still
many areas where prevention is not valued. How can quality—
doing right things right—be ensured? Again, as in driving, you
need to think about prevention all the time, watching to see if
anything can go wrong, and developing innovative ways to make
sure things go right. You also need the support of all the pillars
of quality. Unless managers provide the time and resources
necessary for prevention, errors are just waiting to happen.
Prevention consists of identifying and defining problems, analyz-
ing and eliminating their root causes, finding better solutions or
ways of operating, implementing these solutions, and evaluating
the results. This kind of problem elimination can be time-con-
suming and difficult. Too often, we act without adequate informa-
tion—and then have to rework our solutions.
A model, or framework, can help you systematically work
through a problem and find its solution. The first step in elimi-
nating a problem is to define it carefully, collecting data about
when and how it occurs. Then analyze your findings to uncover
the root causes.
The Why Technique
One way to do this is by using the why technique. Gather people
who are familiar with the problem and ask them why the prob-
lem occurs. Then question each answer, asking why that is so.
Continue asking why until you have traced the problem back to
possible root causes. Test the validity of your hypotheses by
collecting data. Understanding the whys of a problem may make
solving it easy.
To see how this works, consider the following scenario. Suppose
that as director of dietary services you are confronted with
hospital patients' complaints that their food is cold. After collect-
ing data, you find that it's really only the eggs at breakfast that
are cold when served. If you stop here and base your solution on
the data you have collected so far, you might develop a system
for reheating individual trays for patients who complain. This
solution would involve a lot of time and money. But if you look
further, you can discover a common cause and prevent patient
complaints.
35 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Using the why technique, you ultimately discover that the kitchen
holds the cooked eggs in unheated trays. When you discuss this
problem with the cooks, they agree to keep the trays over hot
water. You verify that the eggs now leave the kitchen hot. Three
weeks later, you check with the patients and find that they no
longer complain about cold food. You have eliminated a problem
and prevented it from happening again.
Asking the patients again after the solution is in place is a way
of monitoring your new process. Monitoring and measuring are
important in both problem solving and prevention because they
provide precise feedback. Before making a change, you must
have accurate information about the current situation. After
making the change, you need to know if the situation has
improved. If you don't know, for example, how many people
complained about cold food, you can't tell whether or not the
number of complaints has decreased. You will need this informa-
tion not only for one particular improvement, but also for any
further improvements you may want to make.
The Contingency Diagram
Eliminating problems by attacking their root causes requires skill,
time, and practice. Here's a simple tool for troubleshooting a
present or future situation: Use a contingency diagram to generate
a prevention checklist. The contingency diagram uses reverse
logic. First, think of ways you can make the problem happen.
For example, suppose you want middle-management support for
quality improvement teams. Gather a group of people interested
in the problem and brainstorm ways of guaranteeing that middle
managers won't support quality improvement teams. Your ideas
might include: teach team members a strange language the man-
agers don't understand, demand that teams get time off from
their jobs (without adequate explanation), announce that the teams
will work on problems middle management has been unable to
solve, and insist that managers support the teams without
question.
Middle-
management
resistance
to teams
Take on managers' problems.
36 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Next, examine every cause of managerial nonsupport you iden-
tified and make a checklist of how to avoid these causes. In this
case, your list might include: train managers before training team
members, negotiate with managers about released time for team
activities, structure input from managers into problem selection,
and encourage managers to voice and resolve their concerns.
Prevention Checklist
Train managers first.
Negotiate with managers for
time with team.
Invite problem-selection input
from managers.
Encourage managers to voice
concerns.
Improve It!
The goal of continuous improvement is more than just preventing
and fixing problems. It's even more than striving to always meet
customer requirements. Continuous improvement means just what
it says: always looking for ways to improve how you do work
and better meet your customers' needs. Can your product or
service be made even safer? More reliable? More cost effective?
Longer lasting? Easier to use? Can your production process or
service delivery be simplified? Constantly addressing questions
such as these can help you and your people develop an attitude
that promotes continuous improvement. But even that isn't
enough. You need to find ways to make examining and learning
from mistakes a routine part of the way you manage.
A Continuous Improvement Strategy
How can a manager support fixing problems instead of fixing
blame? One strategy is to hold a review session at the end of a
project. Review sessions provide an opportunity to give and
receive feedback, as well as to learn from the good and bad
things that happened during a project.
37 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
Here's one example. During a four-month project, there had been
many complaints about communication. There had also been a lot
of confusion and errors because old drafts had gotten mixed up
with successive copies of the report.
The week after the project ended, the members of the project
team met for ninety minutes to critique the experience. The team
leader gave each person a chance to spend up to five minutes
outlining what he or she had learned in the course of the project.
"What were you most satisfied with?" she asked. "What do you
wish had been done differently? What surprised you—positively
or negatively—about working on this project?" The team leader
captured the gist of each person's comments on a flipchart.
On the basis of these comments, the team developed recommen-
dations for future projects. They agreed to use electronic mail
more frequently to streamline communications, and to date
successive drafts of project reports in order to eliminate con-
fusion and rework.
In addition to developing ways to improve their workflow, the
team celebrated their successes and cleared up misunderstandings,
enabling them to start the next project with renewed enthusiasm.
Imagine the payoff if everyone in an organization is empowered
to look for such lessons and act on them.
Continuous Improvement in Meeting Customer Requirements
Customer requirements change. Therefore, your capabilities must
change in order for you to keep up with, and ahead of, your cus-
tomers' requirements. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. What am I doing now that is unnecessary for satisfying
customer requirements?
2. Are there better ways of doing what is currently necessary?
3. What untapped capabilities do I have for meeting current
customer requirements?
4. How will my customers' needs be different in the future, and
how can I prepare to meet them?
5. How can I meet my customers' requirements faster, cheaper,
and with fewer errors so that I can maintain or enhance my
competitive edge?
38 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
6. How can I involve my customers and suppliers in looking at
my work process, not only to tighten alignment, but to
reduce my avoidable costs of quality?
Forming partnerships with your internal customers and suppliers
is a good way to improve your capabilities. Here's how it works:
Each person forms a partnership with the next person in the
process to figure out how to better meet the needs of the third
person in the process. These three people then join forces to
figure out how to better serve the next person in the chain. If
this collaboration continues up and down the entire chain of
customers and suppliers, then the whole organization will inte-
grate and focus on better meeting the needs of the external
customer.
Is this a pipe dream, an unreachable goal? It doesn't matter
whether it is or not. Even if the ideal is not perfectly realized, an
organization that strives for a totally integrated customer focus
can achieve a level of responsiveness, innovation, and cost-
effectiveness unmatched by any of its competitors.
How Can You Support Continuous Improvement?
Continuous improvement means fixing problems on the spot,
preventing problems before they happen, and improving your
ability to meet new or existing customer requirements. You can
do all of that as an individual. You can do it even better when
your organization backs you up with systematic support by
responding quickly to problems, providing the time and methods
needed for prevention, and fostering innovation and adaptability.
Here are ten actions you, as a manager, can take to support
continuous improvement in your organization.
1. Give your people the big picture. When they know your
vision, they can better see where they fit in.
2. Solicit new ideas. Give timely, constructive feedback on all
the ideas you hear, along with recognition for those that are
worthwhile.
3. Encourage everyone to talk—preferably in person—with his
or her customers and suppliers.
4. Make your people responsible for finding out how their
outputs are really used.
39 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
-------
5. Encourage people to create flowcharts of their work processes
and look for ways to make improvements.
6. Make your work area a safe haven for the open discussion of
problems. Encourage learning from experiences, both good
and bad, and share that knowledge. Discourage blaming and
defensiveness of any kind.
7. Encourage problem solving. Place a premium on "speaking
with data." Make sure your people have found the root
causes of problems before they attempt solutions.
8. Uphold high standards and model them in your words and
actions.
9. Encourage all of your people to have periodic discussions in
which they take a fresh look at their customers' needs, how
they meet them, and how they use the feedback they receive.
10. Be alert to developments in other fields that you can adapt to
your own work.
Payoffs from Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement means small but beneficial changes that
add up. It also means breakthroughs. These breakthroughs spring
from forming partnerships with customers and suppliers and from
taking a fresh look at what you do and how you do it; often
you'll find a significantly better way.
The first step toward such a breakthrough is asking the question
posed in module 3: "What do you do with what I give you?"
The more you know about the actual use customers make of your
outputs, the more you will be able to think of better ways to
meet their needs. The choice is yours. Only you can create a
Big-Q organization.
What are the payoffs for you? You will experience more candor
and teamwork; fewer hassles as you solve and prevent problems;
greater responsibility; and more job satisfaction. Life in a little-q
organization may seem easier and simpler, but life in a Big-Q
organization is much more challenging and rewarding. Big-Q
empowers you to take responsibility as an individual for doing
right things right, for clarifying and honoring commitments, and
for making things better.
The payoffs of quality—customer satisfaction, individual pride,
and profitability—are enormous for everyone.
40 Continuous Improvement—Doing Right Things
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Quality Action Teams
-------
Reading
Quality Action Teams
"Today's competitive
environment demands
constant attention to
improvements in
quality."
Imagine an organization where everyone—not just management
—is committed to improving both quality and productivity, shares
responsibility for achieving organizational goals, and uses a
common problem-solving language. That's the kind of organiza-
tion that quality action teams (QAT) can help you build. Based
on years of applied management research in dozens of countries,
QAT is rooted in the idea that the most important goal for any
organization in the 1990s is the pursuit of quality, not only in
services and products but also in every aspect of the work pro-
cess.
Why quality? Today's competitive environment demands constant
attention to improvements in quality. Consumers are ever more
insistent on getting full value for their money, whether they're
buying goods or services. They want to know that what they've
bought will work well and keep working well. Reputations and
relationships are established that make consumers return again
and again to the proven vendor of quality—even if the price is
higher. The organization that fails to strive for a measurable in-
crease in quality every year will fall behind.
Conventional wisdom in many organizations holds that quality is
costly and that it always competes with productivity, timeliness,
and other critical factors. This theory of trade-offs may be true in
extreme cases but otherwise has proven to be false. Actually,
improved quality means less rework and, therefore, higher pro-
ductivity. But to get a high payoff, quality has to be built into
the actual work process. It's far cheaper and more reliable to
build quality in than to try to inspect it in later. What's needed
is a system for involving every employee, at every level, in
designing the work process for maximum quality and minimum
cost.
Fortunately, it's not hard to involve people in the quest for
quality. Both employees and consumers recognize and admire
quality. They derive a sense of satisfaction and pride from their
association with a high-quality organization and product.
42 Quality Action Teams
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The Three Pillars of QAT
Quality action teams work well because they're a balanced
system that rests on three pillars: (1) technical competence, (2)
teamwork, and (3) administrative structure.
Technical Administrative
Competence Structure
Just as a stool will fall down if any one of its legs is missing,
QAT also needs each of its three pillars to be strong.
1. Technical competence lets team members experience success
and personal development as they learn to use new skills.
Problem-solving steps and tools relate directly to doing things
right, that is, to getting high-quality work done in the most
efficient manner.
2. Teamwork is crucial because without it ideas that are techni-
cally correct may still be doomed to failure. Teamwork is the
ability to communicate with and take account of others—the
basic human relations that are the underpinning of a success-
ful organization.
3. Administrative structure is absolutely necessary if technical
competence and teamwork are to be integrated within an or-
ganization. QAT is not a natural process for most organiza-
tions. It competes with other philosophies, habits, and priori-
ties. If it's not supported by a committed organizational
structure, it will simply be absorbed by the usual way of
doing things.
Any single pillar of the system can be emphasized, perhaps
successfully, for a time, but used alone it will soon lose its
impact.
43 Quality Action Teams
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"Very quickly, QAT
leads to greater
organizational
integration."
For example, Rensis Likert and Stanley Seashore2 explored
what happened when organizations implemented just the tech-
nical pillar. They looked at a number of companies that had
taken "strong steps to reduce costs, eliminate waste, and increase
productivity." In the first year's results, there were usually mea-
surable gains in productivity, earnings, and the like. Management
had definitely changed in the desired direction. But even by the
end of that first year, Likert and Seashore began to see declines
in employee attitude, motivation, and communication.
As they watched for a longer time, these employee reactions
began to take very measurable forms. Turnover and absenteeism
increased, as did labor grievances. The quality of products and
services suffered, and in the end customers reacted by taking
their business elsewhere. The initial gains had been overshadowed
and offset by adverse reactions.
A similar dynamic of initial gains and longer-term losses is likely
to be encountered by a purely human relations program that
doesn't emphasize high standards of quality and production at the
same time. As you work with QAT, you'll need to preserve the
balance between the three pillars of this program, never over-
emphasizing one at the expense of the others.
The Benefits of QAT
The first thing you'll see as you implement QAT is a change in
attitude. Employees who participate take much greater personal
responsibility for the success of all aspects of the work process.
This shows up in better morale, less blaming of others, and a
more positive attitude. It also shows up in higher productivity,
lower absenteeism, and fewer employee grievances. After about
six months you'll see the teams beginning to solve specific
quality problems. As they implement their ideas, they will
produce cost savings, improve service, reduce waste, and, most
importantly, begin to improve the quality that the outside
customer receives.
Very quickly, QAT leads to greater organizational integration,
producing improved communication up and down the hierarchy.
Side-to-side links are enhanced as groups of managers begin to
use the team problem-solving approach to deal with the problems
they have in common. This happens because QAT provides a
2Rensis Likert and Stanley E. Seashore, "Making Cost Control
Work," Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec. 1963.
44 Quality Action Teams
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legitimate and structured way for employees—both workers and
managers—to have a more effective say in improving the way
work is done. It's the combination of structured meetings, new
techniques, and organizational support that allows these benefits
to occur.
Top-Down Implementation of QAT
QAT works best when it has the active support of all levels of
the organization. In fact, the same need for management support
and involvement is paramount in other such programs, whether
developed in-house or implemented by a consultant.
For example, in one study twenty-two experts who had long
worked with and studied such programs were asked to rate the
influence of sixty-six different factors.3 The scale used was
1 = not important
2 = some importance
3 = important
4 = very important
5 = critical importance
The chart below shows the top five of those sixty-six factors and
indicates both the mean score and the variance (a measure of
how widely the individual scores differed from the mean).
Top Five Factors to QAT Success
Factors
1 . Voluntary participation
2. Top management support
3. Support of first-line supervisors
4. Involvement of middle
management in the process
5. Middle management support
Mean
4.8
4.7
4.7
4.6
4.6
Variance
.16
.21
.22
.23
.44
3H. Ned Seelye and Joyce A. Sween, "Critical Components of
Successful U.S. Quality Circles," Quality Circles Journal, March
1983, pp. 14-17.
45 Quality Action Teams
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"The QAT system is a
synthesis of participative
management and statis-
tical quality control."
These data convey one essential message: For a program like
QAT to reach its potential, it needs the support, understanding,
and active involvement of every part of the organization. This
makes sense when you consider that QAT is really a system—not
just a bunch of isolated teams. The system requires communica-
tion, coordination, resources, and a culture that supports involve-
ment by all employees in quality improvement.
The most logical way to do this is to begin at the top and work
down, making sure that QAT is clearly understood and vigorous-
ly supported by managers and supervisors before it is used by
those who work under them. This is why we recommend that
any implementation scheme gain commitment from higher levels
before it proceeds down the hierarchy. Of course, the final aim
of the program is to reach everyone in the organization.
The Foundations of QAT
The QAT program is based on two management systems that
have been studied and developed over the last thirty years and
that have become cornerstones of modern organizational success.
The QAT system is a synthesis of participative management and
statistical quality control.
Participative management. The concept of participative manage-
ment evolved from research such as the study conducted in the
late 1920s at the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works
in Illinois. There researchers examined the factors influencing
worker efficiency. Flying in the face of the conventional wisdom
that "a kick in the pants and a nickel in the pay envelope" would
motivate workers, this research revealed that workers' attitudes
and nonmonetary needs were at least as important to productivity
as working conditions and pay.
For example, the Hawthorne researchers tested the impact of
lighting on employee output. They increased the amount of
lighting in a sample work area and found that the productivity of
the workers increased, as they had expected. To confirm this
finding, they then reduced the amount of lighting in a different
work area—but productivity increased there as well!
The researchers were puzzled by this apparent contradiction.
Interviewing workers, they discovered that it wasn't the change in
lighting that made the workers produce more; it was the interest
and concern of the researchers that made the difference. This
research finding became known as "the Hawthorne effect" and
was generalized into a principle of human behavior—namely, that
46 Quality Action Teams
-------
"Researchers like
McGregor and Rensis
Likert argued in effect
that workers respond in
kind to the way they are
treated."
people respond positively to a show of interest in their well-
being, almost regardless of the form that interest takes. It gradu-
ally became clear that such traditional incentives as money and
the threat of job loss were not the only factors involved in
worker motivation; other, more intrinsic concerns were at work as
well.
In the 1940s, psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a motiva-
tional theory centering on a universal hierarchy of needs, from
the most basic physiological needs (e.g., air, food, water) to
higher order needs (e.g., self-esteem). The hierarchy culminates in
a feeling of personal fulfillment that Maslow called self-
actualization. According to Maslow, as a person satisfied one
order of needs—the physiological, for example—needs at the next
level became activated, and this implied that motivational tech-
niques had to shift accordingly.
When this theory was translated to the workplace, it was argued
that an organization that tries to spur its employees to greater
effort with promises of higher pay and fringe benefits may be
aiming at the wrong target. Food may be an incentive to a
hungry worker, but to one with a full belly and a need for self-
esteem, more meaningful job responsibility may be a greater
stimulus to productivity.
Still, management hadn't changed its view of the worker as
basically passive, someone who had to be motivated from the
outside. A carrot had merely been substituted for a stick. But in
the 1960s, Douglas McGregor, relying on thirty years of research,
challenged even this traditional management assumption. Labeling
managers who held such views as "Theory X" managers,
McGregor suggested that a new, more enlightened "Theory Y"
manager was making his or her way up the ladder of the best
organizations, managing more successfully by operating on a
different set of assumptions: (1) that work is as natural a human
activity as rest and play, (2) that people at all levels of an
organization are capable of creative thought, and (3) that given a
chance to develop their potential, people will welcome greater
responsibility.
Researchers like McGregor and Rensis Likert argued in effect
that workers respond in kind to the way they are treated. If
management treats them as irresponsible and lazy, then they will
act irresponsibly and lazily. If, on the other hand, workers are
encouraged to show initiative and take responsibility, they will do
so. These, then, were the seeds of the idea of participative man-
agement: abandoning the carrot-and-stick approach to motivation
and making work more meaningful by encouraging worker par-
ticipation and responsibility.
47 Quality Action Teams
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"In the 1950s and after,
the concept of total
quality control was
developed."
Although participative management made good sense to social
scientists, it remained until recently a strange and threatening
concept to many managers. For one thing, they felt it was un-
proven. Who could demonstrate that giving managers, let alone
workers, responsibility for improving productivity through the
techniques of participative management would translate into a
better bottom line on the balance sheet? What if it proved an
expensive and time-consuming exercise in futility that destroyed
organizational discipline and authority?
Moreover, though it was developed in the United States, there
was something foreign about participative management. It wasn't
something that managers had experience doing. It wasn't taught
in M.B.A. programs, and it didn't fit the take-charge, Fm-the-
boss-here image that managers had for generations adopted in
organizations in the belief that it would produce results. Besides,
many would suggest, hadn't the American management system
wrought an economic miracle, making the United States the
strongest nation on earth and providing the average family with a
standard of living unmatched anywhere? When it came right
down to it, why tamper with success?
Indeed, there would have been no reason to tamper with success
if it had continued unabated. However, despite its economic
miracle, the United States eventually had to confront the limits of
its success and face the problem of international competition.
Since money, working conditions, and job security seemed to
have lost their power as motivators for American workers, man-
agement needed to consider other alternatives. The work of
Maslow, McGregor, and others was persuasive in suggesting that
participative management might be worth a try.
Statistical quality control. The second major principle behind
QAT is statistical quality control. Quality control got its start in
the 1920s at the Bell Laboratories, where the concepts of
statistical quality control and control charts were introduced into
the production process.
Later, the demands of World War II led the U.S. armed forces to
enlarge the scope of quality control to include inspecting outside
vendors to see that the military's quality standards were being
met in every aspect of the production process.
In the 1950s and after, the concept of total quality control was
developed. It was an idea that expanded quality control by (1)
making it the responsibility of everyone in the company, from
48 Quality Action Teams
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"Quality control pro-
grams take advantage of
the powerful tools of
sampling and statistical
analysis."
bottom to top, and (2) including consumers as the final arbiters
of quality, to be consulted regularly about their satisfaction with
the product or service. Total quality control means that insistence
on quality is built into every organizational system and process.
Quality control programs take advantage of the powerful tools of
sampling and statistical analysis developed by scientists and
mathematicians over the last century. These techniques make it
possible to understand the capabilities of a process, monitor it,
and set specifications beyond which deviations will not be toler-
ated. Thus, a process can readily be determined to be either in
control or out of control. Minor variations in processes need not
signal trouble, but significant variations can be spotted at once
and corrected before they become too costly or disruptive.
Moreover, quality control techniques can help sort out problems
that are within the control of line workers as well as problems
inherent in the system itself, hence controllable only by manage-
ment. This sorting-out capacity allows problems to be attacked
and solved at their appropriate levels.
"A process can readily
be determined to be
either in control
or out of control."
Synthesis in Japan
Although both participative management and quality control were
developed largely in the West, particularly in the United States,
the idea of participative management, as we have seen, did not
coincide with the traditional hierarchical notions of management
which were prevalent. For many years participative management
remained more an ideal than a reality. On the other hand, quality
control was readily accepted by many American companies as
another aspect of the technical rationalization of the work pro-
cess.
Following World War II, an unforeseen development led to a
synthesis of the two concepts. In an effort to make Japan into a
westernized nation and a strong ally, the United States sent
several American experts, including W. E. Deming, an authority
on statistical quality control, to aid Japan in strengthening its
industry. The Japanese government and the JUSE (Japanese
Union of Scientists and Engineers) supported Deming's ideas, and
statistical quality control was adopted by Japanese industry. In
1954 another American, Joseph D. Juran, advised the Japanese
that quality control should involve a total program of organiza-
tional excellence promoted by management, thus linking quality
control to participative management Excellence would be pos-
sible only when everyone in the organization, including the line
workers, understood the need for quality and could contribute
directly to its attainment.
49 Quality Action Teams
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This idea was refined and implemented by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa
and other Japanese researchers. They developed a system wherein
small groups of workers (quality control circles) meet on a
voluntary basis to solve their own work problems. Quality was
very broadly defined, and these quality circles could work on
almost any problem allowed by management. By 1982, twenty
years after the first companies formed quality circles, Japan had
more than 600,000 circles in operation, involving an estimated
eight million workers.
Among the features of Japanese quality circles were
• Company-wide participation
• Emphasis on the education and training of quality circle
members
• Solution of problems by quality circles
• Formulation of new standard procedures by quality circles
• Careful monitoring of quality circle activity by management
and constant input from management
• Voluntary participation by workers and mandatory participa-
tion by management
• Nationwide promotion of quality circle activity
Quality circle programs began in factories, but they now embrace
workers in hotels, restaurants, department stores, insurance com-
panies, construction firms, and other sectors of the economy.
Today, one out of every eight Japanese workers is involved in a
quality circle.
The Synthesis Is Adopted in the United States
For the most part, quality circles were unknown in the United
States until Juran, who had worked with the Japanese, introduced
the idea to Americans in an article published in 1967. Four years
later, in 1971, General Motors introduced a variation of the
quality circle concept, which it called Quality of Work Life. Since
that time, this program has been a model of the system-wide
benefits that result when quality circle concepts are adopted by
an entire organization.
50 Quality Action Teams
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"Many once-skeptical
executives now sing the
praises of team problem-
solving programs."
By 1982, the International Association of Quality Circles (IAQC)
estimated that 1,500 American organizations in the public and
private sectors had team problem-solving programs, up from 150
organizations three years previously. These programs, according
to the IAQC, involved up to 300,000 workers, in virtually every
sector of the economy, who looked for ways to cut costs,
improve quality, guarantee on-time performance, lower the acci-
dent rate, and raise morale. The results were often dramatic. For
example:
• A group of workers at Westinghouse in Baltimore noted that
it took fifteen minutes to warm up the wire-bonding
machines they worked on and that, while they waited, vir-
tually no work got done. Their solution: Have one worker
come in fifteen minutes before the others and warm up all
the machines. Estimated savings: $800,000.
• At Lockheed, where documented savings in the first two
years totaled $2.8 million, one operation managed to reduce
the product reject rate from approximately thirty units per
1,000 working hours to fewer than six per 1,000 working
hours.
• At General Motors in Tarrytown, New York, the percentage
of substandard body welds in one department plunged from
35 percent to 1.5 percent within a few months after a
quality-of-work-life program was introduced.
• At a Jones and Laughlin steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio,
production of seamless pipe rose 40 percent when employees
were encouraged to use participative management techniques.
• The Mount Sinai Medical Center in Florida achieved savings
of more than $189,000 in an 18-month period as a result of
its program.
In fact, fourteen QAT users who kept comprehensive cost figures
found an average of better than $14,000 saved per team each
year in 1983 and 1984.
Many once-skeptical executives now sing the praises of team
problem-solving programs. In the words of Chairman Walter A.
Fallen of Eastman Kodak, "You can't drive a good work force
30 percent harder, but we've found we could often work 30
percent or even 150 percent smarter." He explained, in an article
in Fortune magazine, that the answer lies in instilling a strong
sense of teamwork among employees and giving them more say
about how they do their jobs.
51 Quality Action Teams
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"QAT gives the people
closest to the problems
the responsibility, train-
ing, and support neces-
sary to solve them."
In the years that lie immediately ahead, the most successful
organizations will be those that both innovate and implement
effectively. Given the forces of competition and accelerating
technology, organizations increasingly need to draw the best
efforts from their most critical internal resource: their people.
QAT gives the people closest to the problems the responsibility,
training, and support necessary to solve them. Implemented
vigorously, QAT will help ensure the kind of innovation and
implementation necessary for an organization to survive and
prosper in the years ahead.
In fact, we have moved far beyond the simple concept of worker
teams in the early U.S. quality circle efforts. While retaining
voluntary problem-solving teams as one fundamental element,
QAT now encompasses a variety of both mandatory and volun-
tary teams at all levels, cemented together by a strong organiza-
tional structure. By giving employees an understanding of how to
work effectively in teams and by emphasizing their crucial
importance to quality, QAT provides the foundation for a whole
series of quality efforts—such as policy deployment from above,
clear standards for work which reflect user needs, the ability to
work with suppliers to improve their quality, and zero-inventory
programs—efforts that together make up a total program of
quality improvement for the organization.
Trouble in Paradise
Success stories about participative management are abundant
today. But a closer look reveals a number of failures—partici-
pative management programs that aren't working and that may
leave an organization with less teamwork than when the program
started. Why do some programs succeed—often with documented
savings of as much as eight times the investment—while others
founder?
There is a myth that the problem lies in the difference between
the "Japanese way" and the "American way." To be sure, Japan
has a very different culture from the West, yet we see frequent
examples of successful collaboration between American and
Japanese firms. Even more striking is the fact that American
workers are sometimes more productive when they are managed
by the Japanese than when they are managed by their American
counterparts. What, then, is the nature of the problem?
In case after case where participative management programs fail,
we see that management wasn't brought in at the outset to
understand the new program, learn to make it work for them, and
contribute to its design and implementation. Participative manage-
ment has too often solicited the participation of the workers but
52 Quality Action Teams
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not of the managers. Managers who were not adequately prepared
for and involved in the participative program viewed the new
system as undermining their ability to function effectively, and
they actively resisted its implementation.
The Japanese are accustomed to a consultative mode of operating
that involves all levels of the organization. There is nothing
foreign about this; American companies with successful employee
involvement programs do exactly the same. The support and
involvement of management are vital to the success of these
programs, and when that support and involvement are present, the
programs succeed.
All that problem-solving teams require to be successful is good
management, which involves (1) listening to ideas and opinions
and considering them seriously, (2) making information easily
accessible instead of hoarding it, (3) planning activities well in
advance, and (4) creating an atmosphere in which people feel
they are all working toward the same goal.
53 Quality Action Teams
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The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
Reading The QAT Problem-Solving Process
Learning to solve problems effectively is one of the most worth-
while of quality activities. Here are some of the benefits.
• Problems get solved permanently. The whole idea of problem
solving is to prevent problems from recurring, not just to
"clean up the mess" after they happen.
• The quality of work life is improved. Every time a problem is
solved permanently, it's one more annoyance that doesn't
have to be dealt with anymore. As problems get solved, the
work begins to go more smoothly, and it's easier to plan
effectively.
• Everyone is able to do better work. As people (at all levels)
learn new skills and see that their ideas are supported by
others, they become more involved in their work and are
able to do it better.
• Communication and coordination are improved. Effective
problem solving involves coordination among different indi-
viduals and different work units. A problem-solving system
creates communication paths that clarify what needs to be
done and that help people address problems more effectively.
In the end, a good problem-solving system does much more than
just solve problems. It trains everybody in habits of thinking and
acting that allow the whole organization to work more smoothly
and more effectively.
Outline of the System
The quality action teams problem-solving system consists of four
phases. Each phase is complete once you have certain outputs.
These are used as the inputs for the phase that follows (except,
obviously, in the last phase). Here is an outline of the four
phases and the outputs for each.
Phases Outputs
I. Focus. Choose a problem A written statement of the
and describe it. problem
II. Analyze. Learn about the Baseline data
problem from >data. A list of the most
influential factors
55 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
"The system-
abbreviated FADE
—works for all
problems, no matter
how big or small."
III. Develop. Develop a
solution and a plan.
IV. Execute. Implement the
plan, monitor results,
adjust as needed.
A solution for the problem
A plan for implementing
the solution
Organizational commitment
An executed plan
A record of impact
The system—abbreviated FADE—works for all problems, no
matter how big or small. Let's take a very simple example from
everyday life to show how the FADE system works.
Focus. Let's suppose that every so often the circuit breaker for
your living room is tripped and all the lights there go out. Each
time this happens, you go to the basement, reset the switch, and
the lights come back on—until the next time. Finally, you realize
that this problem will continue to annoy you until you take
decisive action. You want a solution that will safely keep the
living room circuit breaker from being tripped.
Analyze. You collect data, testing all the outlets in the house to
see which ones are connected to the offending circuit breaker.
You discover, to your surprise, that the refrigerator and the
upstairs bathroom share the circuit breaker with the living room.
You suspect that whenever your son uses a hair dryer upstairs,
the circuit breaker is likely to be tripped. You collect more data
(by having your son use the dryer) and find that you were
correct. You now understand the main factors contributing to the
problem. You also have a baseline measure, because you know
that the problem has occurred seven times during the last three
months.
Develop. Using your analysis as a basis, you consider solutions.
You could tell your son not to use the dryer at certain times, but
you know that this solution will last only as long as your son's
memory, which is currently not long. To ensure that you solve
the problem safely, you decide to have some rewiring done that
will lessen the load on any single circuit breaker. You and your
son create an action plan to call the electrician, arrange a time
for the work that won't disturb the rest of the family, and get
your spouse's approval to spend the money.
Execute. You secure your spouse's support for the plan and have
the electrician do the work. You are there to coordinate the ef-
forts and make sure the work is done the way you want it. Three
months later, there have been no more problems with the living
room lights. Your solution has worked perfectly.
56 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
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"You can compare the
FADE system to building
a frame house."
You can compare the FADE system to building a frame house,
which involves a few fundamental phases. First, you have to
make a foundation. Then you can build the frame. The next
phase involves putting on a roof and the external walls. Finally,
you can do the internal work.
Within these phases, there's room for variation. Just as specific
houses differ from each other, every problem also is unique and
may require a somewhat different approach. The four phases and
their outputs are still necessary, but the specific steps that are
followed and the tools that are used have to be chosen to suit the
situation.
Even so, there's a particular series of steps (three steps per
phase) that works for most problems. There are also certain basic
tools (like the hammer or drill in house building) that are almost
always very useful for problem solving. These steps and tools are
what we teach in the phases that follow. You'll find that once
you learn the steps and understand the tools, you can use them in
new sequences, as required by each problem. The steps for each
phase, plus a toolbox, are listed below and on the next page. The
tools are presented in the order in which you're likely to first use
them. Many of the tools are used again later, just as you'd use a
hammer or a drill at many different points in building a house.
Suggested Steps
Phase I: Focus
Step I-A. Generate a list
of problems.
Step I-B. Select one problem.
Step I-C. Verify and define the
problem.
Tools
(in sequence as taught)
Brainstorming
Multivoting
Selection grid
Impact analysis
Problem statement
Phase II: Analyze
Step II-A. Decide what you need
to know.
Step n-B. Collect data—baselines
and patterns.
Checklist
Data-gathering plan
Sampling
Survey
Checksheet
57 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
Step II-C. Determine the most
influential factors.
Pareto analysis
Fishbone diagram
Flowchart
Phase ni: Develop
Step III-A. Generate a list of
promising solutions.
Step in-B. Select one solution.
Step in-C. Develop an imple-
mentation plan.
Innovation transfer
Cost-benefit analysis
Force-field analysis
Standard operating
procedure
Action plan
Phase IV: Execute
Step IV-A. Gain commitment.
Step IV-B. Execute the plan.
Step IV-C. Monitor the impact.
Building individual
support
Presentation
Measuring and monitoring
Basic descriptive charts
Specifications and con-
trol limits
58 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
Below is a guide that shows some of the common uses for each
of the tools. Each tool is taught in only one phase (indicated by
the circled checkmarks) but can be used in any of the phases
indicated.
Tool Selection Guide
Action plan
Basic descriptive
charts
Brainstorming
Building individual
support
Cost-benefit analysis
Checklist
Checksheet
Data-gathering plan
Fishbone diagram
Flowchart
Force-field analysis
Impact analysis
Innovation transfer
Measuring and
monitoring
Multi voting
Pareto analysis
Presentation
Problem statement
Sampling
Selection grid
Specifications and
control limits
Standard operating
procedure
Survey
Focus
/
0
/
/
/
/
/
0
/
0
/
0
0
/
/
Analyze
/
/
/
/
0
0
0
0
0
/
0
/
0
/
0
Develop
0
/
/
0
/
/
/
0
0
/
/
/
0
/
Execute
/
0
/
0
/
/
0
/
0
0
/
/
59 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
"Most employees learn
the FADE cycle the
same way you'd learn to
play tennis—learn a
little theory, but spend
most of your time
practicing and doing it."
"You're learning some
measurement skills and
some communication
skills that can help you
not just in your formal
teams, but whenever you
try to improve how
things are done."
How to Learn the FADE Cycle
Most employees learn the FADE cycle the same way you'd learn
to play tennis—learn a little theory, but spend most of your time
practicing and doing it. If you're a member of a new quality
action team, you'll be meeting over a period of time to do one
or more projects.
In the team, you'll get an overview of the FADE cycle. Then
you'll work on your project, learning the details of the steps and
tools as you go along. You'll probably pay more attention to
some tools than to others, depending on how much you have to
use them for your immediate problem.
You may work this way for three or more months before you
finish the first project. By the time you've finished it, you'll
have a pretty good idea of how the cycle works. As you get into
new projects, you'll be able to concentrate on other tools and fill
in some of the gaps. By the time you've finished three or four
projects, you'll be working very efficiently, and you'll feel com-
fortable using whatever tool you need whenever you need it. For
other employees—particularly leaders and managers—the first
exposure to the FADE cycle may be in a training group. There
you will try to learn the concepts of problem solving rather than
solve an immediate problem. In that case, you'll probably use
any problem that helps you understand the steps and tools. It
could be something from work life, from home, or a problem
you make up. You'll probably go through the process more
quickly than you would working in a team because you'll not
really be trying to solve the problem. You'll put a bigger por-
tion of your time into learning than into doing. By the time
you're done, you'll understand the cycle well enough to help
others use it.
In either case, you're learning a process that is simple yet sys-
tematic. You're learning some measurement skills and some
communication skills that can help you not just in your formal
teams, but whenever you try to improve how things are done.
The process we present here can be used equally well in any
situation, no matter what you're doing or what your position
may be.
60 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
Learning the FADE Process and Tools
Learn tools.
Watch phase video.
Participate in exercises
to practice tools.
Use appropriate tools to
solve quality problems.
61 The QAT Problem-Solving Process
-------
Leadership
-------
Reading Leadership
If management is the process of planning, organizing, directing,
controlling, and coordinating resources to achieve organizational
goals, then what is leadership?
Leadership is harder to define than management. What's the extra
dimension in leadership?
Think of someone you have worked for whom you regard as a
leader. Forget for a moment the qualities you believe he or she
embodies. Concentrate instead on what people have said about
the leader. Chances are, many of these characteristics are re-
flected in the following statements:
• "She made me see things in a new light."
• "He took the blinders from my eyes. I could see possibilities
I hadn't recognized before."
• "She made me outdo myself; I never realized what I was
capable of before."
• "He had a way of bringing out the best in people."
• "She made this an exciting place to work."
• "He set an example for people to follow."
• "Some of the most important things I know about this busi-
ness, I learned from her."
• "He made believers out of us."
People who inspire tributes such as these are more than manag-
ers. They have vision, set directions, and enable people to extend
their capabilities. They inspire loyalty and command respect.
In this reading, we will examine that extra dimension that charac-
terizes leaders. We will also learn four distinctive leadership
styles: directing, coaching, facilitating, and delegating.
The starting point for a discussion of leadership is an understand-
ing of the bases of social power. What is it that enables some
people to direct the work of others?
63 Leadership
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"The quality necessary
for leadership is referent
power; developing this is
what leadership is all
about."
Bases of Social Power
The answer lies in one or more of these five kinds of power.
1. Reward power. Since people are motivated by the desire to
satisfy a particular set of needs, rewards are valuable tools
for influencing behavior. These rewards take many forms,
ranging from money to praise (especially in front of a work-
er's peers). Most bosses control rewards, and employees
understand this.
2. Coercive power. While use of reward power is positive
leadership, use of coercive power is negative leadership. The
stronger the penalty, the more negative the leadership. Every
day many managers use both types of power. Whichever type
predominates sets the climate within the work unit.
3. Referent power. This is the quality that causes an employee
to emulate his or her boss. Bosses who have referent power
are regarded as role models. Their views, values, mannerisms,
skills, and even gestures may be studied and copied. A boss
with referent power strongly influences employees' thoughts
and actions.
4. Expert power. A manager who possesses relevant expertise
can influence others because of this expertise. This is the one
area in which technical competence, skill, and knowledge can
contribute to a leader's effectiveness. Expert power is related
to referent power in that knowledge is a respected character-
istic.
5. Legitimate power. Managers doing prescribed jobs within
their rightful authority have, by definition, legitimate power.
Because they represent authority, employees normally will
follow their lead. In the eyes of employees, only if managers
exceed their limits of authority do they lose legitimate power.
All managers have legitimate power; it goes with the title. This
power can be enhanced by demonstrated support from upper
management. Some managers demonstrate expert power, which
can be enhanced by training and experience. All managers have
some level of reward and coercive power, this can be enhanced
by delegation from upper management. However, the quality
necessary for leadership is referent power; developing this is
what leadership is all about.
Some managers are unable to control group activities, regardless
of the powers bestowed on them, because they are competing for
influence with the group's informal leaders, the group itself, or
other external factors. Many managers exercise little or no leader-
64 Leadership
-------
ship, creating a vacuum that is filled by informal leaders who
become de facto influences of thought and action. Our goal is to
ensure that responsibility for influencing the activities of a work
unit remains with, or returns to, the formally designated supervi-
sors and managers of these units by helping the managers devel-
op effective leadership styles.
There have long been rival schools of thought about leaders. One
holds that leaders are born, not made; the other that leaders are
made, not born.
Universal Leadership
The traditional school contends that leaders are born, not made.
There are two variations within this school. One group of adher-
ents says that "natural leaders" are distinguished from "natural
followers" by certain universal traits. While those who have
studied the subject disagree, the popular notion—promoted by
Hollywood and the mass media—is that leaders are people of
commanding presence, decisive judgment, authoritative voice,
good looks, and boundless self-confidence. General George Patton
during World War n, John Wayne in any starring movie
role—these hard-nosed, no-nonsense risk takers would be leaders
anywhere, according to popular folklore.
While there is some truth to this stereotype (most leaders are,
after all, decisive and do appear self-confident), the model fails
to help most managers; most of us are not now, and never will
be, this type of leader.
A variation of the universal-trait theory of leadership holds that
leaders demonstrate universal behavior. This school believes that
if a leader exercises the right mix of direction and control while
showing concern for the needs of followers, the result will be
high commitment and performance in virtually all circumstances.
A well-known example of the universal behavior theory describes
the ideal leader as a team player who shows equal concern for
people, quality, and productivity. Yet some situations clearly
require more concern for people than for quality and productivity,
and vice versa.
Many of us know of fast-rising corporate executives who seem-
ingly could do no wrong in one organization. After a promotion
or joining another organization, however, their luck dramatically
changed. How many of those in your high school class voted
most likely to succeed actually achieved the kind of success
foreseen for them?
65 Leadership
-------
"The key variable in
effective leadership is the
situation of the follow-
ers,"
Situational Leadership
The school of thought that maintains leaders are made, not born,
is based on a belief that there are no universal traits or behav-
iors, only situational ones; leadership must be appropriate to a
situation in order to be effective. For example, a turnaround
expert who is taking over a failing company, with orders to cut
staff, may need to demonstrate very different leadership qualities
from those needed by a leader trying to encourage his or her
people to become more entrepreneurial. This school also has two
variations.
One is based on a belief that there are certain situational traits
that make leaders effective in certain situations but not in others.
Leaders, these people say, are successful in motivating their
followers when both the situation and the expectations of the
followers are congruent. President Lyndon Johnson was a brilliant
tactician in maneuvering his Great Society legislation through
Congress, but his foreign policy skills were not deft enough to
avoid the quagmire of a winless war in Vietnam.
The other variation of situational leadership centers on situational
behavior. A leader who uses situational behavior adapts his or
her traits to the circumstances. The concept of situational behav-
ior was popularized in the 1960s and 1970s in the situational
leadership theories of Hersey and Blanchard. In their model,
successful leadership behavior is contingent upon the maturity
and competence of the followers. Arguing that neither autocratic
nor democratic styles are right or wrong in themselves, adherents
maintain that the key variable in effective leadership is the
situation of the followers.
Lee lacocca was a rising star at Ford Motor Co., but his outspo-
ken manner and entrepreneurial spirit ultimately kept him from
gaining the presidency of the company. However, these qualities
were precisely what was necessary to revive the flagging fortunes
of Chrysler Corp., and today lacocca is one of America's most
admired men. Similarly, John F. Kennedy became a hero when
he rescued the crew of his Navy PT boat in the Pacific during
World War JJ. When asked what made him heroic, he simply
replied, "My boat was sinking."
In view of this discussion, it is sobering to wonder how many
potential leaders—whether "natural" or "situational"—never got
their moment in the sun, never had the opportunity to demon-
strate their leadership ability.
Hubert Humphrey once said, "Behind every great man there's a
surprised mother-in-law!" By the same token, it can be said that
there are no great people, only circumstances that create them.
66 Leadership
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Leaders and Followers
What can we managers learn from the above discussion to help
us become leaders? One clear lesson is that we needn't be born
leaders to lead. Another is that it is not so much the situation,
but our response to the situation, that makes us leaders. A third
lesson is that since there is usually no one "man (or woman) for
all seasons," something about the relationship between the manag-
er and his or her followers creates a leader. Let's look at how to
apply these lessons.
The four styles of leadership available to a manager—delegating,
facilitating, coaching, and directing—are illustrated on the scale
below. Determining which style is most effective for you is
covered in module 6. Your style should reflect both the risk or
sensitivity of the job situation and the characteristics of the group
you manage. In studying characteristics of groups at work, we
need to look at three critical variables.
1. Ability. The expertise, talent, and skills required to do the
job, and the speed with which the group learns the tasks
involved.
2. Experience. The group's track record with the kind of work
in question, combined with transferable skills or applicable
learned behaviors.
3. Motivation. The confidence and energy level necessary to
assume responsibility for new tasks and to complete them.
Together these three factors measure a group's independence
level, as represented on the scale below.
The scale tells us that your leadership style should be a function
of your group's independence level, as measured by members'
ability, experience, and motivation. Match your style to the
group, and you should obtain better results from them. In the
session that follows, you will find an instrument to help you
gauge these factors in your own work unit.
Independence-Level Scale
40 30 20 10
1 1 h
High
independence
Moderate to
high
independence
Moderate to
low
independence
Low
independence
Delegating Facilitating Coaching Directing
67 Leadership
-------
Another point to stress here is that leading groups, not individu-
als, is the focus of leadership. The more independence you can
grant a group, the more opportunities it has for creativity, innova-
tion, and flexibility. Thus, in most situations, preparing the group
for greater responsibility and independence works to your advan-
tage.
Although the group should be the focus of your leadership, keep
in mind that the same model can help you determine how to
manage any individual within the group. Your relationship with
individuals is also a function of their ability, experience, and
motivation. When your people, individually or in a group, are
capable of working productively with little supervision, you are
able to achieve your greatest productivity.
Examples of Leadership
1. The impossible assignment. Leader A took over a major
airline and set what seemed like an impossible goal: to
become the number one on-time airline in the company's
area of operation. His staff identified the variables that
accounted for delay, researched the factors that caused each
variable, and created action plans to prevent or correct each
cause. Less than six months later, the goal was achieved.
2. Redirecting strategy. Leader B took over a lagging, num-
bers-driven food manufacturing division in which successive
waves of cost cutting had reduced quality, market share, and
profits. Decentralizing operations, she restructured the compa-
ny around strategic menu segments (snacks, main dishes,
desserts) rather than specific products, launched a drive to
improve quality, and ordered development of new food
products that would appeal to discriminating palates rather
than to the meat-and-potato set. The upscale approach, tied to
quality and not low prices, paid off in higher sales, market
share, and worker productivity.
3. Organizing work. Leader C was put in charge of the night
shift at a printing company noted for its long hours and
frequent crises in meeting deadlines. Her predecessor, who
had prided himself on being the only problem solver in the
shop, had hoarded information. He had been fired for repeat-
ed failure to anticipate problems and for chronic cost over-
runs. Leader C posted a work-flow status report and updated
it twice a day; she also scheduled regular staff meetings to
involve others in problem solving. What got the troops
excited, however, was the goal she set: to reduce job turn-
around time by 10 percent within a month, using task force
teams to figure out how it could be done.
68 Leadership
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What made this CEO, this division head, and this first-line
supervisor effective leaders? Was it their leadership styles—or
something else?
The Common Ingredient
All three got their people excited by
• Establishing a vision, mission, or goal
• Communicating it in a way that fired up the followers
• Making these same followers feel part of something impor-
tant, uplifting, and satisfying
More important than charisma, bearing, or interpersonal skills,
this may be the secret ingredient that vaults someone to a posi-
tion of leadership: the ability to convey a sense of vision and
mission in a way that transforms and enhances the followers'
sense of the possible.
Students of the subject say that leaders motivate followers to
• Transcend self-interest for the sake of organizational goals
and values
• Raise their need level from security and safety to self-esteem
or autonomy
• Share the leader's vision of the importance of the goals or
values to the organization's future
In the process, according to researcher Bernard M. Bass, these
leaders motivate followers to achieve more than the followers
themselves thought they could. They also strengthen workers'
commitment to the organization, and induce feelings of trust,
admiration, loyalty, and mutual respect.
This may sound like a very tall order, but think about the num-
ber of managers you know who are trying to do something even
more difficult: practicing heroics day after day.
The Question of Heroics
Because of the mythology surrounding the subject of leadership,
many managers still think leadership requires a kind of manageri-
al omnipotence. A manager is seen as a problem fixer, master
technician, fountain of knowledge, workaholic—an organizational
69 Leadership
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"Today's leader is a lot
like an orchestra con-
ductor. He or she must
know the capabilities of
all the instruments, but
there's no reason he or
she should be able to
play them all—or fix
them."
counterpart of the fastest gun in the West. The old image persists
because many of the people who taught us management thought
the secret of leadership was personal heroics.
Yet the example set by today's best leaders suggests that leaders
in this day and age cannot be omniscient. Given the technical
nature of modern organizations and the range of jobs and skills
required, a manager's job is not so much to perform heroics as
to produce them. Today's leader is a lot like an orchestra con-
ductor. He or she must know the capabilities of all the instru-
ments, but there's no reason he or she should be able to play
them all—or fix them. Others can do these jobs.
Leaders see the big picture. They need not know where all the
puzzle pieces go, but they must know what the picture should
look like and how to coordinate the efforts of each person who
holds a piece of the puzzle. They point out the pattern, and they
have the ability to mobilize and excite others to create the pic-
ture, or realize the vision.
The president of a giant insurance company attended a staff
meeting during which the subject of customer responsiveness
came up. The vice president of administration stood up and said:
"We're receiving seventy thousand inquiries a month about our
services. From now on, I'd like to see us make it a policy to
answer all inquiries within two business days." He sat down,
feeling proud of himself, and cast a sidewise glance at the presi-
dent, looking for approval.
The president stood up, thanked the vice president for his idea,
and proceeded to tell the staff why that goal wasn't good
enough: "We can do better than that," he said. "Imagine if you
called an airline to find out about a flight and they said they'd
get back to you in two days. Is our business that different? Do
our customers deserve any less service than theirs? Can't we
make it a goal to get back with some response on the same
day?" He appointed a task force to develop a strategy for
same-day response to inquiries. Within four months, same-day
response was a reality. It also became a competitive advantage,
which helped pay for itself in increased revenues.
We began this reading by asking you to think of a leader you
have known, and to recall what people have said about him or
her. Now, think of the best boss you ever had and ask yourself
two questions: What did he or she do to rate as your best boss?
How did he or she make you feel?
70 Leadership
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We've asked these questions countless times over the past fifteen
years, and the answers usually are as follows:
What Boss Did How I Felt
Listened Valued
Delegated Challenged
Set high standards Committed to excellence
Left me alone to do Trusted
my job
Supported me Cared for
Gave me positive and Developed
negative feedback
Instructed/taught me Coached
If you want to develop your own leadership potential, begin by
learning a lesson from your best boss. Then remember your best
leader. Follow their examples.
Summary We looked at the five bases of social power and contended that
one distinguishes a leader from a manager: referent power, the
quality that causes people to look up to their boss. We looked at
the arguments for and against the theory that leaders are bom,
not made, and concluded that while some may be born and not
made, others are made, not born. What makes people leaders is
their response to situations and the relationships they establish
with their followers.
We also learned that we use our responses to control and influ-
ence many situations. We explored four leadership styles and said
that the appropriate style for you depends on three factors: the
ability, experience, and motivation of your group. We also looked
at some examples of leadership and concluded that it is a lead-
er's ability to mobilize people on behalf of a vision or goal that
distinguishes a true leader from an ordinary manager.
Finally, we suggested that if you want to develop your leadership
potential, you should think back to your best boss and your best
leader and strive to be like them.
71 Leadership
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Participation and Quality
-------
Reading Participation and Quality
In the final analysis, there is only one reason to be a participa-
tive manager—to get better results. Consider the following ex-
amples:
• In a study of participative management programs at four
large industrial organizations, Peter Richardson found that
successful implementation led to significant cost reductions,
improved safety, higher morale, and better employee rela-
tions. Long-term success was primarily dependent upon
sustained commitment by top management.
• At a consumer products plant of Warner-Lambert Company,
an employee-involvement program led to a 21 percent in-
crease in production and a 10 percent decrease in costs over
a one-year period.
• A Canadian firm applied participative management techniques
to its office-space planning and design. Adjustable work
stations were installed, and changes were made to reduce
video glare and to improve lighting and acoustics. As a
result, productivity rose by 15 percent.
• A printer of educational materials, games, newspapers, and
magazines implemented an employee-involvement program at
each of its plants. Everyone from first-line supervisors to
plant managers learned participative management techniques.
Then these people applied what they had learned. Cross-
functional work teams found ways to reduce inventory,
lengthen production runs, and shorten press downtime. The
result: a 17 percent increase in productivity, and more co-
operation than management had seen in years.
These are random examples pulled from an expanding body of
literature documenting the experiences of countless managers.
Today it is estimated that 10,000 organizations in the United
States alone have formal employee-involvement programs, includ-
ing quality circles and quality-of-work-life projects. In thousands
of other organizations, participative management is growing
informally. Managers and supervisors are discovering that they
can usually accelerate quality and productivity improvement by
involving their people in solving workplace problems or in deci-
sion making.
73 Participation and Quality
-------
What is participative management? To begin with, it is not
management by democracy. No one suggests that you, as a
manager, should have your workers vote on whether they want to
come to work tomorrow. You are responsible for the quality,
timeliness, and cost-effectiveness of the products and services you
produce or deliver. Participative management is the involvement
of people in decisions about the design or implementation of
systems that affect them.
Authority and Responsibility
Managers who practice participative management have a clear
idea of the distinction between authority and responsibility. Au-
thority is synonymous with legitimate power. It is the right to
command or the power to act. Responsibility implies account-
ability to higher management. As a manager, you can delegate
authority—the power to act—but you can never delegate respon-
sibility; you are always accountable for seeing that your unit's
work is accomplished, no matter who within the work unit is
actually doing that work.
The boss's job is to manage, and the employee's job is to do the
work expected of him or her. But the more a manager can dele-
gate authority, the more discretionary time he or she will have to
work on more important issues.
The Act of Delegation
Every time a manager delegates work to an employee, he or she
does three things.
1. Assigns duties. That is, the person who is delegating indicates
what work the employee should do.
2. Grants authority. Along with responsibility for doing the
work, the employee needs to have rights, such as the author-
ity to spend money on people or materials, or to take what-
ever other steps are necessary to complete the new duties.
3. Creates an obligation. In accepting an assignment, the em-
ployee is contracting to take responsibility for finishing the
job to the manager's satisfaction.
74 Participation and Quality
-------
"Many managers resist
delegating authority for
fear a job won't be done
well—or that it mil be
done too well..."
Two Kinds of Delegation
A manager may delegate duties by describing them in terms of
activities to be performed or results to be achieved. A sales
manager who assigns a new salesman to call on a specified
number of customers within a specific territory is delegating
activities. When the same sales manager tells a salesman what
volume of sales he expects the territory to produce, he is dele-
gating in terms of results. Many managers do both.
In delegating responsibility, it is important for you to make clear
what activities or results you expect from your people. The better
your employees understand your expectations, the better able they
will be to fulfill them.
Delegation and Participation
Delegation, the process of pushing decision making down an
organization's hierarchy, creates a participative climate. A man-
ager who delegates, framing orders in a broad, general way, is as
much a consultant as a director.
Delegation enriches the jobs of employees. It gives them the
responsibility for interpretation—the sense of being their own
boss and exercising control over their own environment. It pro-
motes autonomy and self-motivation.
Many managers resist delegating authority for fear a job won't be
done well—or that it will be done too well, making the em-
ployee look more competent than the manager. Sometimes,
managers do not delegate enough authority to enable the employ-
ee to effectively accomplish an assignment.
In one instance, the head of a specialty store chain was leaving
on a business trip. She asked the vice president of finance to do
a comparative analysis in her absence of print and electronic
media expenses, and to have it on her desk when she returned.
The finance man told her that to do so, he would need figures
from the merchandising department, whose vice president was
very wary of sharing information. He asked the boss to give him
something in writing to authorize his request for the figures. The
president said she would dictate a memo, but forgot in the last-
minute rush before her trip.
When the finance man called merchandising, he was rebuffed, as
he had feared. When he told the merchandising vice president
that he had been directed by their mutual boss to do an analysis
requiring merchandising's figures, he was told, "Sorry, pal.
You're not my boss."
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Obviously, there is a risk involved in any act of delegation. After
all, you can control your own actions, but you can't control the
actions of other people. What if they screw up? If you are re-
sponsible for the end result, isn't it more likely to be positive if
you do the job yourself?
Often, yes. But there are some risks involved in not delegating.
First, for every job you do yourself, there are other jobs that may
not get done, and some that may be more important. Second, if
you aren't preparing your people for greater responsibility, you're
probably not motivating them or working to optimize produc-
tivity.
In baseball, when the player-manager enters the game during a
clutch play, he is usually taking a short-term view—trying to win
one game at the expense of building future leadership. Participa-
tive techniques develop a team to take a long-term view, and can
help prepare your people for future leadership.
Benefits of Participation
To the manager, participation pays the following dividends:
• Builds self-reliance. By making people less dependent on
managers for detailed direction, participation contributes to
organizational strength and stability.
• Builds succession management. This improves the chances for
a manager to be promoted without leaving a big hole.
• Frees the manager to concentrate on challenges that really
require his or her attention.
• Produces better ideas, which are more effectively imple-
mented.
• Produces better communication and coordination, higher
creativity, and cohesion. Psychologists researching the climate
of an organization will often record the number of times
employees say "we" rather than "they."
As we approach the twenty-first century, some see participation
as a means to restore human values that were lost in the effort to
achieve efficiency by oversimplifying work and oversupervising
employees. Others see it as a necessary step for organizations
that wish to survive in the face of rapidly changing environments
and fierce competition.
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Paradoxically, participation can increase a manager's influence.
When managers subject their ideas to the scrutiny of their em-
ployees, they increase understanding and gain valuable knowledge
and information from those closest to the issues. By allowing
themselves to be influenced through this process, managers are
likely to make better decisions that are more widely accepted by
their employees. Through supportive action, the manager makes a
social contract with the group; this creates a savings bank of
goodwill on which he or she can later draw, when needed.
Prerequisites for Participation
Participative management techniques are not a panacea for all
problems. The best times to use participative techniques are when
you don't know the answer, when you want to get input, when
you want commitment, and when you are managing change. The
times not to use them are almost the opposite—when you do
know the answer (and won't be swayed), when you don't need to
know what people think, when commitment is unnecessary, or
when the situation is beyond the control or competence of those
you manage.
Here, drawn from the research of organizational behaviorist Keith
Davis, are some more specific guidelines for deciding when to
involve others, whom to involve, and to what extent to involve
them.
• There must be sufficient time for participation prior to
action. In an emergency, participative problem solving is far
less appropriate than instant, autocratic direction.
• The cost of the participation should not exceed the value of
the outcome. There is a difference between participating in
the decision to design a new layout for the plant and the
decision to reorder pencils for the stockroom. Employees
cannot spend their time participating in the decision-making
process if it keeps them from their other duties.
• The subject must be relevant to the participant or it will be
misconstrued as busywork. Employees should be brought into
decisions that affect their working lives. While a production
crew should be involved in the layout and design of a new
plant, it probably would not be appropriate to have them
decide whether to locate it in Poughkeepsie or in Tuscaloosa.
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The participant must have the ability—that is, the intelli-
gence and the knowledge—to participate in the decision. One
would not consult computer programmers on profit and loss
projections for the coming quarter. However, a programmer
might be able and willing to participate in decisions about
cost reduction and the planning and procurement of new
systems.
The participants must be able to communicate with one
another. Participative management can work only when the
participants speak the same language.
No party to the decision should feel that his or her position
is threatened by participation. If a worker believes his status
on the job will be adversely affected, he may not participate,
just as a manager may refuse to participate if he feels that
his authority is threatened. Defensive participation is worse
than no participation at all.
Group Decision Making
In addition to the guidelines for when to use participative man-
agement, here are some suggestions for successful group decision
making in meetings. They have been adapted from the work of
William Dowling and Leonard Sayles, who have helped many
managers organize successful meetings.
• Suggest participation only when the group's acceptance of a
solution is at least as important as the quality of the deci-
sion. Decisions about vacation schedules, coffee breaks, and
phone coverage during lunch are of little concern to manage-
ment as long as the work is done. For example, a vacation
schedule is likely to displease someone, since conflicts are
almost inevitable. Consequently, the manager who passes this
task on to the group also passes on the headache of solving
conflicts. And because the group is left with the responsibil-
ity of drawing up the schedule, the results are more likely to
be accepted by all the members involved.
• Set clear limits for discussion. Certain aspects of any topic
are reserved for management. Setting a budget ceiling for an
activity, and then allowing employees to design the activities
under that ceiling, is very different from asking employees
how much the activity should cost.
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• Make the extent of desired participation clear. Are you ask-
ing the group for suggestions on how to solve the problem,
or are you asking the group to solve the problem for you?
Both approaches are valid forms of participative management,
but managers run the risk of unfulfilled expectations if at the
outset they do not clearly define what they want. If a group
of employees come up with a solution to the problem, think-
ing that mis was their assignment, and you, as manager,
thank them for their suggestion and reject it, they will feel
frustrated and may refuse to go through the process again.
• Avoid defining the problem prematurely, or you may confuse
the problem's cause with its symptoms. One manager called a
meeting to deal with the problem of bills not getting out on
time. After much discussion, someone traced the problem to
chronic absenteeism among key personnel. The manager then
asked the group to examine the causes of absenteeism and to
come up with a solution that would also solve the late billing
problem.
• Don't ask for ideas if you've already made up your mind.
It's okay to use a group to validate a tentative decision, but
don't mislead people into thinking you have an open mind
when you're not willing to listen to them.
The drives that cause people to form groups in the first
place—the desire for status, recognition, power, and protection
from the pressures of the organization—can be satisfied by the
joint action of management working with the group. Properly
managed, group decision making serves to channel energy into
cooperation, rather than competition, with management.
Here are some suggestions for promoting the establishment of
cohesive work units.
• Keep enemies apart. Be careful when assigning individuals to
jobs; try not to create friction.
• Put friends together. This often will result in a higher noise
level and more talking on the job, but evidence shows that
more work will get done in the process. In a study in which
carpenters and bricklayers were allowed to choose job mates,
those who worked with their friends outproduced those who
were not permitted to choose. Similar results have been ob-
tained with air force pilots, hospital laundry workers, and
many others.
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Give special attention to people who find it difficult making
friends. Use informal leaders to help integrate these people
into groups. It can do much to improve their performance
and keep them from eventually quitting, a result that costs
the organization money in training and lost productivity.
Avoid fostering competing subgroups. Place together individ-
uals performing similar kinds of tasks, or who are from
similar backgrounds. Although competition is considered
healthy, competition among subgroups in an organization
often leads to tactical warfare among the groups and reduces
productivity. Energies are spent in war games.
Unions and Participative Management
More than one attempt to implement participative management
has been met with suspicion and resistance from organized labor.
Since most of the impetus for changing and improving the way
work is done comes from management rather than labor, many
union leaders feel that job enrichment is just an excuse to make
employees work harder.
Here are three guidelines, based on studies about gaining union
support for large-scale participation programs.
1. Limit the scope of any joint program. Focus on quality-of-
work-life issues, and avoid traditional collective-bargaining
issues.
2. Give the union a strong voice in defining the program goals.
Many unions are skeptical about employer motives, and
union reps will hesitate to enter into cooperative efforts if
they are not given a voice.
3. Promote these programs as enhancements. Make it clear that
they are intended to supplement, not replace or interfere with,
collective-bargaining procedures.
Union representatives naturally fear that efforts to boost produc-
tivity will end up costing jobs. Nevertheless, a recent study of
participative management programs in a heavily unionized indus-
trial organization found that unions and management can agree
and work together on this most sensitive issue. Indeed, one of the
great benefits of participation, when successfully implemented, is
that employees and unions gain a better understanding of the
economic realities.
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In the study, when cutbacks and terminations were unavoidable,
those who left the company went with a greater sense of dignity,
and those who remained felt pride in their contributions to their
operation's competitiveness.
"An employee has a
right not to participate;
some people just want to
be told what to do."
Limitations
Although the benefits of participative management are evident,
and the practice often results in improved quality, higher produc-
tivity, better morale, and lower costs, participation does have its
disadvantages. With today's complex technology, specialized work
roles often make it difficult for people to participate much be-
yond their particular job environments. Moreover, unless a clear
contract is established, many individuals will expect to be con-
sulted on every issue, even those to which they cannot contribute.
In addition, an employee has a right not to participate; some
people just want to be told what to do. Because of this, manag-
ers must sometimes reach out, grab people by the throat, and
drag them into this process when input for better decision making
is needed. At other times, employees' desire for minimum inter-
action with their supervisor should be honored.
Occasionally practitioners of participative techniques can become
lost in procedure and overlook philosophy. The substance of
participative techniques does not automatically flow from the
procedures. There is no cookbook to follow.
The extent of top management's commitment to, and involvement
in, participative management is one of the most important factors
in ensuring its long-term success. Obviously, an initial lack of
top management support for participation can seriously diminish a
program's chances for success. Even a highly successful program
can stagnate if continuity is not maintained through policies set at
higher levels in the organization.
Despite these limitations, participative techniques work. They are
not the answer to all organizational problems, but they are useful
when management wishes to improve existing systems and gain
consensus and commitment—especially during periods of organi-
zational change.
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Summary Participative management is the involvement of people in deci-
sions about the design or implementation of systems that affect
them. Participative management is not management by democ-
racy. It is a way of increasing the quality or acceptance of deci-
sions—often both. It should be used selectively—when you don't
know the answer, when you want input, when you want commit-
ment, and when you are managing change.
Don't use participative management when there isn't time for
people to be meaningfully involved, when the cost of participa-
tion outweighs the value of participating, or when the subject is
beyond the participants' competence. Never use participation for
issues that threaten employees' job security or positions.
Always tell people the extent to which you are asking them to
participate. Do you want them to analyze the problem? Come up
with a list of possible solutions? Evaluate solutions? Recommend
a preferred solution? Or actually make the decision? Above all,
don't ask for ideas if you have already made up your mind about
what you want to do.
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