10.2 THE STRATEGIST IN YOU: A Recipe for Total Quality

(SHORT NOTES FROM STRATEGY TOOLS:

Quality Strategy at http://www.mindtools.com)

The concept of quality is at the core of many ideas about effective management and leadership.  Programs like Total Quality Management and Six Sigma have been at the heart of many companies' success.

We know that quality needs to be built into every level of the company, and become part of everything the organization does.  Quality is key to organizational success.

 

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a statistician said that by improving quality, companies will decrease expenses as well as increase productivity and market share.  Although Deming didn't create the name Total Quality Management, he's credited with starting the movement.

The 14 Points quality transformation
1	Create a constant purpose toward improvement ·        Plan for quality in the long term ·        Resist reacting with short-term solutions ·        Don't just do the same things better – find better things to do ·        Predict and prepare for future challenges ·        always have the goal of getting better
2	Adopt the new philosophy ·        Embrace quality throughout the organization ·        Put your customers' needs first, rather than react to competitive pressure ·        design products and services to meet customers’ needs ·        Be prepared for a major change in the way business is done ·        It's about leading, not simply managing ·        Create quality vision, and implement it
3	Stop depending on inspections ·        Inspections are costly and unreliable – and they don't improve quality, they merely find a lack of quality ·        Build quality into the process from start to finish ·        Don't just find what you did wrong – eliminate the "wrongs" altogether ·        Use statistical control methods – not physical inspections alone – to prove that the process is working
4	Use a single supplier for any one item ·        Quality relies on consistency– the less variation in the input, the less variation in the output ·        Look at suppliers as partners in quality ·        Encourage suppliers to spend time improving their own quality ·        Analyze the total cost, not just the initial cost of the product ·        Use quality statistics to ensure that suppliers meet the quality standards
5	Improve constantly and forever ·        Continuously improve systems and processes ·        Emphasize training and education so everyone can do their jobs better ·        Use kaizen to reduce waste and to improve productivity, effectiveness, and safety
6	Use training on the job ·        Train for consistency to help reduce variation ·        Build a foundation of common knowledge ·        Allow workers to understand their roles in the "big picture." ·        Encourage staff to learn from one another ·        provide a culture and environment for effective teamwork
7	Implement leadership ·        Expect supervisors and managers to understand their workers and the processes they use ·        Don't simply supervise – provide support and resources so that each staff member can do his or her best ·        Be a coach instead of a policeman ·        Figure out what each person actually needs to do his or her best ·        Emphasize the importance of participative management and transformational leadership ·        Find ways to reach full potential ·        don't just focus on meeting targets and quotas
8	Eliminate fear ·        Allow people to perform at their best ·        ensuring that they're not afraid to express ideas or concerns ·        Let everyone know that o   the goal is to achieve high quality by doing more things right o   you're not interested in blaming people when mistakes happen ·        Make workers feel valued ·        encourage them to look for better ways to do things ·        Ensure that your leaders are approachable ·        Ensure that leaders work with teams to act in the company's best interests ·        Use open and honest communication to remove fear from the organization
9	Break down barriers between departments ·        Build the "internal customer" concept ·        recognize that each department or function serves other departments that use their output ·        Build a shared vision ·        Use cross-functional teamwork to build understanding and reduce adversarial relationships ·        Focus on collaboration and consensus instead of compromise
10	Get rid of unclear slogans ·        Let people know exactly what you want – don't make them guess. ·        "Excellence in service" is short and memorable, but what does it mean? How is it achieved? The message is clearer in a slogan like "You can do better if you try." ·        Don't let words and nice-sounding phrases replace effective leadership ·        Outline your expectations, and then praise people face-to-face for doing good work
11	Eliminate management by objectives ·        Look at how the process is carried out, not just numerical targets ·        Provide support and resources so that production levels and quality are high and achievable ·        Measure the process rather than the people behind the process
12	Remove barriers to pride of workmanship ·        Allow everyone to take pride in their work without being rated or compared ·        Treat workers the same ·        don't make them compete with other workers for monetary or other rewards
13	Implement education and self-improvement ·        Improve the current skills of workers ·        Encourage people to learn new skills to prepare for future changes and challenges ·        Build skills to make your workforce more adaptable to change, and better able to find and achieve improvements
14	Make "transformation" everyone's job ·        Improve your overall organization by having each person take a step toward quality ·        Analyze each small step, and understand how it fits into the larger picture ·        Use effective change management principles to introduce the new philosophy and ideas