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Why is cultural change important in TQM?
A Book Extract
The real key to the success of TQM is people. If the people in the business, at every level, are not committed to producing a quality product or service, then your TQM initiative is doomed to failure. It is relatively easy to change technology, systems and procedures. It is much more difficult to change people's attitudes to work, their perceptions of management, their values, their motivation and their behaviour. Yet this is exactly the challenge confronting you if your company is committed to TQM. The culture existing in many organizations is simply not conducive to the achievement of excellence. We have worked in many organizations where people recognize that the culture in which they work is one of "covering our backs"; "finding someone to blame"; "lack of trust"; "people being kept in the dark"; "us and them"; "nobody listening".Changing such a culture to one in which people work together collaboratively takes a lot of energy, commitment and time. For this reason this is the part of the TQM jigsaw
that is often neglected. As a TQM trainer, however, this is your primary responsibility: to confront people at all levels of the business with the negative results of their own behaviour and get their commitment to changing behaviour. So how do you do this? When we work with an organization which is at the early stages of TQM and just beginning to examine the implications of their present management style and organizational culture, we ask the board or senior management team to think quite deeply about three questions: What is a TQM employee? How does this description differ from the way our employees behave now? What is a TQM manager? How does this differ from the way our managers behave now? What are the implications for the board? These are questions we'd like to help you consider in the next three sections of this chapter. What is a TQM Person? Of course there is no such thing as a TQM person. All people are different and TQM organizations are not full of clones of a certain kind; quite thecontrary. However, TQM does require people to have a commitment to quality and to the company, and their behaviour needs to reflect this. Generally speaking, people will do what they are rewarded for doing. So, when embarking on TQM the senior management team needs to clarify their picture of how people will behave in their TQM organization. If they compare this ideal with how people actually operate now, this will help them develop a strategy for culture change. What is a TQM Manager? If your business needs people who are committed to quality and to the company then there are likely to be profound implications for the way they are managed. TQM requires a very different management style from that which has been traditional in many organizations. Traditional management has placed a great deal of emphasis on controlling people. This is evidenced in the importance placed on piecework, clocking in, close supervision, etc. TQM, however, places the emphasis on empowering people, helping them build the
skills, confidence and attitudes to take responsibility for their own work, rather than forcing them to do it. Before going on we would like you to take a sheet of paper and list the skills, attitudes and knowledge required of managers if they are to develop and successfully manage TQM people. Try to compare the characteristics of managers who adopt a "traditional" management style with those of a TQM management style. Think about attitudes and approaches to the customer, the employee, and the production process. Consider areas such as customer-centredness, loyalty, accountability, change, culture, leadership, service and improvement. How do I go about Influencing the Culture? Cultural change is a very complex business which requires a lot of commitment, a lot of patience and a desire to succeed. However, without a thorough examination of the management style and the culture of the business, TQM is likely to be doomed to failure. The culture of an organization is all the interactions which take
place between people. It is about how people work together, their relationships and the feelings engendered by their behaviour. The culture of an organization includes:
Management style
Who makes decisions and how
Communications -- one-way or two-way
Who participates in decision-making
Status
Perceived power or powerlessness
Whether people feel listened to
How people react to new ideas -- constructively or destructively
Opportunities for individual development and growth
The degree of support, openness and trust
The amount of feedback people give to each other
How conflict is handled -- constructively or destructively
Whether people compete with each other or work collaboratively
How problems about gender, race and disability are handled
The way feelings are handled
Involvement
Commitment
Motivation.Many organizational problems are to do with culture, how people
behave and feel. Yet very few organizations really attempt to deal with these issues. This is probably because they are very difficult to quantify and impossible to control. But if you are seeking excellence in your business it is vital that you promote an organizational culture which facilitates excellence. Thus an essential component of TQM is the introduction of personal change programmes which help everyone in the organization -- directors, managers and employees -- to work on elements of the culture which work against business success and the vision. What does Personal Change Training Involve? Personal Change Workshops should be designed to help people examine the way they behave in the organization both as groups and as individuals. A successful Personal Change Workshop will enable participants to increase their understanding of the culture of the organization and how cultural issues help or hinder business effectiveness. In addition they will need to have increased their own self-awareness,
looked at how they themselves manage working relationships and their strengths and weaknesses. (Obviously personal and group action planning are important aspects of personal change training). The objectives of a personal change workshop should include:
Helping managers to gain an insight into their own management and personal styles, and to identify a range of other styles that shall be appropriate.
Improving people's awareness and understanding of the style of their organization and to develop action plans to facilitate change within the business (in terms of leadership style and teamwork).
Participants receiving and also being encouraged to give constructive feedback to others on their behaviour, and giving suggestions as to ways they may change and the potential benefits of doing so.
Development of personal action plans which involve talking with their boss and other members of their team about managerial issues raised in the programme and what needs to be done in the
business.
Practising a range of "people contact skills" which will help them to be more visible and skillful in handling relations in the team, with suppliers and customers and improve their overall effectiveness.Such programmes require a high degree of flexibility. It is important to help managers work on their own issues rather than staying rigidly married to a predetermined training programme. Getting people to change their behaviour is notoriously difficult. The training world is littered with examples of people attending wonderful courses, leaving full of enthusiasm and then being unable to implement their learning on returning to work. Personal change should he seen as much more than a training course. QUESTIONS FOR THE TQM TRAINER Do senior managers have a vision of the kind of people a TQM business requires?
Do senior managers have a vision of the style of management the business will require? Are they clear about the changes they themselves will need to
make?
Do you have a clear idea of the elements which make up the culture of the organization?
Have you got commitment for a programme of personal change from the top?
Is the senior management team prepared to attend a personal change workshop?
Are members of the senior management team prepared to get involved in supporting your running personal change workshops for middle managers?
Are people attending personal change workshops sufficiently well briefed?
Do you have a range of behavioural theories, instruments and exercises which will help people understand their own and others' behaviour in the organization?
Do people leave personal change workshops with personal and group action plans to which they are committed?
Is there a system for supporting individuals and groups during this period of cultural change?ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT TRAINING: TOTAL QUALITY (Vol 8)
20 Volume Series
Edited by D Jeffries, B Evans & P
Reynolds
Crest Publishing House, New Delhi
Price: Rs 9,000 (Complete Set)
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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