Apologies for slow response to these postings. As a newbie, I haven't
figured out a comfortable method for dealing with some of the long,
"stream-of-conciousness" postings, which are even more challenging when
lumped into these huge digests that I have opted for. Don't get me wrong;
there are some great minds at work here! but whom sometimes have a LOT to
say!
I appreciated the emergence of this thread via John Farago and John
Zavacki. John Z wrote, in response to John F's concern that I was
suggesting the absolute death of all that is TQM:
> The point I think Katheryn (sic) was making was that of TQM asa "named
> strategy". As a quality professional with over twenty years in the
>field, I have always striven to make myself obsolete as a "named
>strategist" if you will. The Quality Department is obsolete. It is
>also expensive to maintain as a separate entity. Using the LO as the
>baseline quality system (actually, the baseline operating system) one
>makes quality transparent. By understanding the need for TQM tools and
>techniques and making them an integral part of infrastructure and daily
>management we can eliminate a great deal of the misunderstanding that
>has been generated by making quality "special".
Well put! I pasted the whole quote because John Z expressed my idea so
well. In my daily digest, Martha's posting on another topic appeared just
before the above. Not to quote Martha out of context (hers' a plea against
religion at school) but read these words, substituting "TQM" for
"religion":
> So teach those ideals. But don't burden them with naming them a
> religion. [snip]
This too was what I meant about the fading of a named strategy. Forget
the name, TQM! It has negative connotations for too many people. (Just as
my own hair stands on end a bit, when I read here about 'Christianity';
like Martha, I also am not a Christian although I hold many of the values
dear -- and having it put in my face in an educational/business forum
makes me all the more grumpy about it.) Many people get grumpy when they
hear the term "TQM".
Back to John's quote. In my field research/interviews with the general
manager's of hotels where a Quality strategy is pursued, I find that most
of them now claim they don't use the term with their employees anymore nor
do they adhere to all the techniques and tools of TQM. It seems they tend
to extract out those Quality ideas that (they hope will) work for them.
This _may turn out to be a problem. But we recall that the TQM strategy
was never developed to work in a high-contact service environment like a
hotel. I think these GMs are learning how to learn, and using the TQM
philosophy to develop their own strategy.
The only "Quality Manager" I've encountered in the NZ hotel industry was
pleased to tell me recently that her position will soon be made redundant;
she and the GM feel that the departmental managers and staff as a whole
have enough understanding of Quality concepts now to carry on without a
specialist Quality Manager. Just as John Z said... .
Kathryn De Lima-Turner
k.delima@xtra.co.nz -or- k.turner@mang.canterbury.ac.nz
--Kathryn De Lima <xtr13197701@xtra.co.nz>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>