Quality Culture: Changing Hearts, Minds, and Attitudes CHAPTER SIX

Outline

Understanding what a Quality Culture is Quality Culture Versus Traditional Cultures Activating Cultural Change Changing Leaders to Activate Change Laying the Foundation for a Quality Culture Learning What a Quality Culture Looks Like Countering Resistance to Cultural Change Establishing a Quality Culture Maintaining a Quality Culture

Total Quality Management

Understanding what a Quality Culture Is

To understand a quality culture, Organizational Culture must be understood it is the everyday manifestation of its underlying values and traditions. An organizations culture has the following elements:

Business environment Organizational values Cultural role models Organizational rites, rituals, and customers Cultural transmitters

A quality culture is an organizational value system that results in an environment that is conductive to the establishment and continual improvement of quality. It consists of values, traditions, procedures, and expectations that promote quality.
Total Quality Management
3

Understanding what a Quality Culture Is

How Are Organizational Cultures Created? Many factors contribute to the creation of an organizations culture:

The value systems of executive-level decision makers How managers treat employees and how employees at all levels interact on a personal basis What management expects of employees and what employees expect of management Changing an organizations culture requires a total commitment and a sustained effort at all levels of the organization.

Total Quality Management

Quality Culture Versus Traditional Cultures

Organizations that develop and maintain a quality culture will differ significantly from those with a traditional culture. The differences will be most noticeable in the following areas:

Operating philosophy Objectives Management approach Attitude toward customers Problem-solving approach Supplier relationships Performance-improvement approach

Total Quality Management

Activating Cultural Change

To attempt the implementation of total quality without creating a quality culture is to invite failure. Several primary reasons cultural change must either precede or at least parallel the implementation of TQ are described here:

Change cannot occur in a hostile environment Moving to TQ takes time It can be difficult to overcome the past

Total Quality Management

Changing Leaders to Activate Change

Sometimes an organizations culture cannot be changed without a change in leadership. Senior managers are likely to be the individuals in an organization with the greatest investment in the past. Some questions are used to assess the current leadership of the organizations in order to change the culture:

Are the current leaders fully knowledgeable of the need to change and the ramifications of not changing? Are the current leaders able to articulate a vision for the new organization? .

Cultural change requires support, ideas, and leadership from employees at all levels. Senior executives who are unwilling to empower employees to think and do will block cultural change.
Total Quality Management
7

Laying the Foundation for a Quality Culture

Establishing a quality culture is a lot like constructing a building. The process begins with laying a solid foundation. 10-step model quality professional can use to establish a solid foundation for a quality culture in any organization:

Understand the quality culture an its importance Assess the existing corporate culture. Plan based on the assessment process Expect the quality-positive attitudes and behavior Management models that will be followed by employees not their words. Orient the new employees in terms of quality Mentor the employees technically Train Monitor attitudes and behaviors Reinforce and maintain the quality-related attitudes and behavior
Total Quality Management
8

Learning What a Quality Culture Looks Like

If a picture of a company with a strong quality culture could be taped to an organizations wall for all employees to see, it would have the following characteristics:

Widely shared philosophy of management Emphasis on the importance of human resources to the organization Ceremonies to celebrate organizational events Recognition and rewards for successful employees . .

Total Quality Management

Countering Resistance to Cultural Change

Resistance to change is normal organizational behavior. Why Change Is Difficult

Total Quality Management

10

Countering Resistance to Cultural Change

How to Facilitate Change

Total Quality Management

11

Establishing a Quality Culture

Establishing a quality culture involves a specific planning and activities for every business or department. The figure below illustrates the transition process people go through when confronted by one of these major traumatic changes in their lives.

Total Quality Management

12

Establishing a Quality Culture

Steps in the Conversion to Quality

Total Quality Management

13

Maintaining a Quality Culture

Organizations must foster the following critical behaviors:

Maintain an awareness of quality as a key cultural issue Make sure that there is plenty of evidence of managements leadership Empower employees and encourage self-development and selfinitiatives Keep employees involved Recognize and reward the behaviors that tend to nature and maintain the quality culture

Total Quality Management

14