Making total quality work aligning organ

Making Total Quality Work: Aligning Organizational Processes, Performance Measures, and Stakeholders1 Judy D Olian and Sara L Rynes Total quality is increasingly used by companies as an organization-wide system to achieve fully satisfied customers through the delivery of the highest quality in products and seruices The goals of total quality can be achieved only if organizations entirely reform their cultures Traditional management, operations, finance and accounting systems are reviewed against changes that are needed in organizational processes, measurement systems, and the values and behaviors of key stakeholders to overpower the status quo and shift to a total quality culture that permeates every facet of the organization Specific company illustrations are drawn upon to show the inadequacies of these traditional areas under the new imperatives for total qualify 01992 by JohnWiley & Sons, Inc INTRODUCTION Total quality (TQ) is increasingly seen by corporate leaders as the most important strategic tool at their disposal Reports2 show that 93% of manufacturing companies and 69% of service companies have implemented some form of quality management, mostly in the last four years (The Conference Board, 1991) A majority (64%)of CEOs devote at least one-tenth of their time to quality improvement (KPMG Peat Marwick, 1991), and many commit a lot more For example, James Houghton, Chairman and CEO of Coming, says that he spends more than half his time on quality (Houghton, 1990) Fifty-five percent of American executives and 70% of Japanese executives use quality improvement information at least monthly as part of their assessment of overall business performance (The American Quality Foundation and Emst & Young, 1991) In short, quality improvement processes are part of the fabric of modern enterprises Penril Corporation for instance, is a small manufacturer of data communications equipment located in Gaithersburg, Maryland Every activity in the company is being reengineered to support quality (see Olian, 1991).From the President on down, all employees are involved in Human Resource Management, Fall 1991, Vol 30, Number 3, Pp 303-333 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc CCC 0090-4848/92/030303-31 efforts to achieve improvements in quality For example, the President heads the firm’s quality council, works with vendors to redesign packaging that will simplify the unloading process, and actively leads the effort to identify and recognize individual employees for their quality improvements The flow of the manufacturing process has changed to emphasize flexibility and speed Before the quality efforts, engineers designed products in a vacuum, then threw the product design “over the wall” to manufacturing, resulting in products which could not be manufactured Today, goods are designed for manufacturability by deploying cross-functional design teams Every employee receives extensive training in quality and functional cross-training that enables each of them to several jobs Movable carts replace stationary shelving Information technology is used heavily in all parts of the design, manufacturing, and administrative operations of the company The Penril ”Hall of Fame” lists the names of employees who are champions of the TQ cause, and once a year the company’s senior executives don aprons and cook lunch for all employees in the ”Great Chefs of Penril” cookout The company has gone from taking 4-6 weeks to process an order, to taking days Defects per unit have declined by 83%, and productivity is up 18% Although often mistaken as merely a tool or technique, TQ is an entire management system When successfully implemented, TQ changes the way companies view and interact with each of their primary stakeholders-customers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders Many organizational processes change, including factory and office layout, acquisition of raw materials, product development and manufacturing, interactions with customers and distributors, and measurement, feedback, and control systems TQ processes refocus strategic priorities The role and process of management also changes, from one based on authority and restricted access to one of mentoring, developing, and liberal sharing of information In this article, the organizational synergies that are critical in achieving a pervasive TQ culture are discussed The following are considered: (1) Organizational processes that nudge people toward TQ-supportive behaviors ( ) Outcome measures that provide the information necessary to diagnose and continuously improve manufacturing and service processes (3) Sources of stakeholder support and opposition to transition into a TQ culture Our premise is that TQ will become an organizational way of life only when all three aspects are ”in sync” with one another: people (that is, stakeholders), processes, and outcomes all moving in the direction of market-driven quality and continuous improvement Without creating 304 Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 Critical Synergies: ir The Goal: p Cwnwnicaling a Vision Eilablishing Goals 1mnmg Team-building Recogntzmgand Rewarding Recruiling.S e k l m g and Orienting F ~ n a m aMeasures I Middle Managemen1 Proleswnal Stan Figure Getting to TQ: Organizational processes, outcome measures, and stakeholders such synergies, no single stakeholder, no matter how committed or charismatic, will be able to prevail in dragging the rest of the organization toward TQ since most will have a stake in the status quo and in the systems that support the old way of doing things Figure traces the synergies among processes, outcome measures and stakeholder behaviors that are necessary in order to make the transformation into a market driven quality organization Each of these elements is discussed in a subsequent section THE ESSENTIALS OF TQ Before discussing the organizational synergies that support TQ, the core components of a TQ approach are reviewed Over the years, a number of quality experts such as Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Crosby, Taguchi, and others, have developed and refined various TQ philosophies and systems Although their approaches vary somewhat in terms of relative emphasis and techniques, in general, most TQ philosophies share the following characteristics (Saraph, Benson, & Schroeder, 1989; Tuttle, 1991): Customer-driven quality as the main strategic priority which is based on the presumption that other business goals (such as profit or market share) will follow if customers are fully satisfied or delighted Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work / 305 Visible, effective leadership, where top management places quality ahead of other pressing demands and objectives-both symbolically and in day-to-day activities Data-driven processes, where all decisions are made from verifiable data that track changes in performance trends over time Prevention rather than inspection, in which building defect-free performance into product or service design is emphasized, rather than relying on subsequent inspection and rework Employee empowerment, so that authority over delivering or improving products and services is in the hands of the "doers" rather than the overseers Vertical deployment of quality initiatives so that everyone in the organization understands how their work affects key organizational objectives Emphasis on processes and cross-functional coordination as the most likely source of problems and solutions A process emphasis reduces buck-passing and finger-pointing, and encourages employees to think of themselves as internal customers and suppliers Continuous improvement philosophy, which recognizes that performance can, and must, always be improved because the competition never rests Because TQ requires abandonment of some of our most cherished traditions and assumptions (managers think while workers do; engineers design while workers assemble), TQ implementation generally requires a wholesale change in the organizational culture Organizational development experts have been saying for a long time that cultures change very laboriously and only when interdependent systems are simultaneously nudged in the same direction (Schein, 1985) For TQ to be successful, organizational processes must be altered, different forms of information must be attended to, and various stakeholder groups must be persuaded to buy into the process (see Fig 1) ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES THAT SUPPORT TQ In this section, some of the major processes organizations use to introduce and support TQ implementation are outlined These include (a) communicating a quality vision; (b) translating that vision into quality goals; (c) training for quality; (d) team-building to enable quality processes; (e) recognizing and rewarding for quality; and (f) recruiting, selecting, and socializing quality-oriented employees 306 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 Communicating a Quality Vision Successful TQ organizations are nearly always driven by a carefully articulated and widely shared quality vision For example, Globe Metallurgical, a small alloys company in Ohio, adopted the vision of being the highest quality producer at the lowest price (Papay, 1990) Until very recently, this would have been dismissed as an impossible aspiration by most Western executives, academics, and consultants (Garvin, 1987) However, just four years into the TQ process, Globe has become an industry benchmark Its CEO, Arden Sims (1992), describes what was involved in communicating the quality message: When Globe Metallurgical first decided to pursue a quality program in 1985, there was no Baldrige Award and no prescribed quality criteria Quality for Globe was a matter of economic survival, not part of a calculated effort to win an award To compete in a global market, we had to provide our customers with the highest quality products at the lowest possible cost Once we established this vision, we communicated the values of quality to every employee at every level of the company To demonstrate our commitment to our employees, we began a companywide profit-sharing program, eliminated time clocks at our main facility, and promised to respond to every quality-related question within 24 hours In addition, I made a personal commitment to eliminate layoffs and began to conduct small group meetings with every employee in the company to review our financial performance (p 126) Another illustration is Motorola's former CEO, Bob Galvin, who focused on "six-sigma quality" (no more than 3.4 defects per million) in communicating Motorola's quality vision Galvin spent sigruficant amounts of time communicating this vision and ensuring that people in all areas of Motorola, even bakers and security guards, were able to translate it into personal work goals (Wiggenhom, 1991) In addition to communicating the quality vision downward, TQ organizations also increase upward and lateral communications For example, the Conference Board (1991) notes that most TQ-practicing companies convene periodic employee meetings with top management (79% of manufacturing companies; 73% of service companies), face-to-face short-term teams (92% manufacturing, 97% service), focus groups (46% manufacturing, 71% service), and employee suggestion systems (60% manufacturing, 64% service) Another method used to enhance twoway communication and top management understanding of the business is for the top management team to adopt a regular schedule of working with line employees or service workers: It's not possible to analyze and control quality from behind a desk any more than a golf swing can be corrected by a teaching pro who isn't out on Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 307 the course it is for this reason that Honda managers go to the spot on the factory floor to have direct contact with an actual operation (Shook, 1988, p 158) Establishing Quality Goals Not surprisingly, the specific goals that flow from overall quality visions such as six-sigma or "zero customer defections" (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990) are also extremely ambitious In fact, many would argue that the "trick" to TQ goalsetting is to make the goals so ambitious that they cannot be achieved merely by incremental improvements to business-as-usual For example, Motorola, which has already cut defects from 6000 per million to only 40 per million in just years, has a goal of further cutting defects by 90% every years throughout the 1990s (The Economist, Jan 4, 1992) Furthermore, Motorola is thinking ahead to the time (about 10 years from now) when its 68040 microprocessor chips will contain 10 billion transistors (up from 1.2m at present), at which point even one-in-a-billion defects will mean a lot of "dud" chips Thus, Motorola is already thinking about building "redundancy" into those products via such tactics as adding space capacity or alternative signal paths Such thoughts are also triggering a search for structural ways in which Motorola can accelerate the dissemination of learning from already completed projects to new ones Similarly, as indicated by a Westinghouse official at their Quality Day (January 23, 1992), the company has never set a cycle-time reduction goal of less than 50% the first time through the self-examination process To date, Westinghouse (a Baldrige award-winner and two-time finalist) has not missed a single first-time target With goals such as these, it is clear that TQ is aimed at producing "quantum leaps" in performance However, because most goal-setting research suggests that people will not embrace goals which they perceive to be impossible (Locke & Latham, 1990), achieving quantum leaps in performance through goal-setting often requires, as a first step, dramatic shifts in outlook regarding what is possible Examination of industry practices suggests that this is being accomplished through two principal techniques: (a) benchmarking and (b) setting goals for the system rather than for individuals Benchmarking Traditionally, US organizations have looked to past performance and to historically close competitors (e.g., GM, Ford, and Chrysler) to gauge how they are doing and to set performance objectives However, in a global economy with continuously improving competitors, these insular and backward-looking practices are increasingly inadequate Hence, the 308 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 rapidly growing practice of benchmarking has arisen to provide more realistic and much higher standards (Camp, 1989) Benchmarking turns the focus outward toward the "best in class" for a given function, regardless of industry For example, many industries look to L L Bean for distribution benchmarks, to Honda for customer service, and to American Express for invoicing Some companies engage in benchmarking to get a general feel for the best in class, regardless of the function or industry Joseph Gorman, CEO of TRW and a major supplier to the American auto industry, was so impressed after driving a friend's Lexus that his company leased a top-of-the-line Lexus LS400 model to be driven by each of TRWs top executive team for weeks (during the rest of the time they drive American cars) Says Gorman of the luxury Japanese car, "It's as good an example I know of what total quality and satisfaction to a customer mean" (Kretchmar, 1992, p 121) The motivational aspects of benchmarking were recently described by Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric: (We went to Wal-Mart) to observe the speed, the bias for action, the utter customer fixation that drives Wal-Mart and, despite our (own) progress, we came back feeling a bit plodding and ponderous, a little envious, but ultimately, fiercely determined that we're going to whatever it takes to get that fast (Jack Welch, quoted in Hyatt & Naj, 1992, p B-6.) System, Not lndividual Goal Setting A second aspect of TQ that seems to help people accept "stretch" goals is its insistence on looking at processes and systems, rather than individuals, as the most likely causes of and solutions to problems To date, the focus of performance and reward systems for most US employees has been individual performance Thousands of individualized Management by Objectives plans and merit increases have often failed to produce world-class organizational performance Indeed, according to Gabor (1990),W Edwards Deming argues that individually based assessment and reward systems are fundamentally flawed in their basic assumptions: (Dr Deming has argued that) performance appraisals, bonuses, and other reward systems that brand a few employees winners and encourage constant competition in the ranks are fundamentally unfair and ultimately harmful to the interests of both companies and employees (He) believes that if the system in which people work is predictable-and if management has done its job well in selecting employees-then over time most employees will perform at about the same level, and that only a few will perform exceptionallywell or poorly Moreover, the influence of variation is such that it is impossible to accurately measure the overall performance of individuals within a variable process it is impossible to separate the performance of the individual from that of the system (pp 26-27) Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 309 In contrast, TQ philosophies argue that if system outcomes are the ultimate determinants of success, then analysis and improvements must be focused primarily on the system rather than on the individual People in TQ organizations make heavy use of process tools such as flowc*harting, cause-and-effect diagrams, and plan-do-check-act cycles Moreover, many of these efforts are conducted on a team basis across, rather than within, functional areas Looking at performance from a process or systems perspective appears to have a number of side benefits Viewing one’s role as a supplier of goods or services to other employees (internal customers) often brings profound change in perspective For example, while considering the role of accounting (staff) from a systems perspective, line managers may realize for the first time that when they not deal promptly with xcounting paperwork, they may be costing the company money in terms of late payment penalties, not to mention placing inordinate stress on those with accounts payable responsibilities A second benefit is that people begin to speak the common language of quality, which facilitates further cross-functional process improvements A third benefit is that once people get used to the idea of looking at systems rather than people, the amount of fingerpointing and turf protecting that goes on in functionally segregated systems decreases L~ Training for Quality Another fundamental premise of TQ philosophies is that people who actually perform jobs are in the best position to understand them Given this assumption, TQ advocates argue that more (and more radical) improvements occur when frontline employees are empowered to make them For example, the most mature TQ cultures have factory workers who can stop the line over a quality issue or salespeople who are allowed to make very large deviations or adjustments for customers without supervisory approval (Garvin, 1991) However, a variety of support systems must be put in place before workers who are not accustomed to making decisions (or authorized to so) become active problemsolvers and decision makers Formal quality training appears to be the most common technique for initiating and sustaining employee involvement, at least during early stages of TQ implementation According to the Conference Board (1991), 90% of manufacturing companies and 75% of service corporations report using some sort of training in their TQ efforts However, KPMG Peat Marwick (1991) found that while training was the most important initiative in the early stages of TQ implementation, cross-functionalquality teams and work process redesign became relatively more important in more mature implementations Across TQ-practicing companies, the 310 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 median number of hours devoted to quality training (per employee) was 20, with a larger commitment in corporations just launching their TQ efforts According to the General Accounting Office of the U.S Government (1990), TQ training is typically a two-stage process The first stage consists of general awareness training to create a common frame of reference and a sense of the leadership commitment The second stage focuses on concrete skill-based training designed to prepare individuals to become effective members of quality improvement teams For example, in a small convenience sample of Fortune 100 firms, Olian and Rynes (1991)found the most common training content to be (in descending order of frequency): personal interaction skills, quality improvement processes and problem solving, team leading, team building, running meetings, statistical process control, supplier qualification training, and benchmarking Mature TQ organizations also frequently get involved in training people traditionally regarded as outsiders, for example, suppliers, customers, or public administrators Indeed, one of the major contributions of TQ, and the analyses it fosters, is to blur entirely the lines between insiderloutsider, and with that, to facilitate redesign and reengineering of a broader set of factors including t h e previously thought of as uncontrollable, because they were outside the system Team-building to Enable Quality The other major strategy to enable empowerment is the use of teams and team-building activities A 1991Conference Board survey found the formation of short-term problem-solving teams to be the single most commonly employed TQ implementation tactic As with training, the roles of teams and the issues for team facilitation change over time Although most companies begin their team involvement with short-term single-issue teams, over time teams tend to become longer-standing, more cross-functional, multi-issue, and increasingly self-managed For example, KPMG Peat Marwick (1991)found that only 15% of their total sample used completely self-managing work teams as a primary TQ tool However, this figure rose to 50% in companies with the most developed TQ cultures Recognizing and Rewarding for Quality Successful incorporation of TQ principles by all employees is also supported by a dramatically increased emphasis on employee recognition TQ organizations have recognition-rich, even celebratory cultures Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 311 According to Schonberger (1990), world-class approaches to recognition are visible and public, have a strong next- and final-customerbias, focus on teams first and individuals second, are active and frequent, and ensure consistency (in the sense that self- and other-recognition are bestowed for the same things) For example, Milliken, the Baldrige Award-winning textile manufacturer, has ”Alcoves of Excellence,” “Walls of Fame,” and a company news magazine filled with recognition stories and photos of both individual and team accomplishments (Schonberger, 1990) Monsanto Agricultural Products has a “Big Meeting” day, in which more than 500 worldwide employees and team members come to corporate headquarters to be recognized for quality improvements At Xerox, the Team Celebration Day turns into a “happening,” with over 12,000 employees, customers, and suppliers attending a huge quality fair at one of four US or international locations, all linked via satellite As early as 1986, Honda of America’s president began taking line workers (rather than other company executives) to Detroit’s annual Automotive Hall of Fame Dinner, a meeting of approximately 600 of the industry’s top-level executives In addition to verbal praise and visual recognition, many TQ organizations have also changed their financial reward systems to support employee involvement and quality achievements For example, WTD Industries (sawmills) hands out $50 spot awards; Nucor steel has implemented profit-sharing plus a variety of small group incentives; and PepsiCo, Inc provides stock options for all of its roughly 100,000 permanent employees to involve everyone in the fate of the company (Kanter, 1989; Perry, 1988, Schonberger, 1990) As is the case with most other aspects of TQ, reward systems tend to evolve in predictable ways as commitment to TQ grows For example, both the Conference Board and KPMG Peat Marwick surveys showed that as companies mature along the TQ cycle, they increasingly shift their reward and recognition practices toward teams and broader units (see Table I) In addition, the KPMG study showed an increasing linkage between incentive payouts and explicit quality improvement goals: 60% of the TQ ”leaders” (those furthest along in TQ implementation) had incentive plans reflecting quality goals, as compared with none of those just beginning TQ Interestingly, the Peat Marwick study also revealed that companies are less willing to link quality to rewards for top executives than for middle managers Indeed, contingent executive compensation awards are still driven almost exclusively by financials, a situation which Eccles (1991) argues undercuts TQ strategies Despite the lack of an explicit link between quality and executive compensation, highly evolved TQ firms in the United States tend to be more concerned about vertical pay equity than are less advanced com- 312 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 uate training, is now increasingly performed by "doers," typically, with high school diplomas Status is also eroded (at least in some people's minds) by being increasingly required to conduct work outside the private office, in consultation with line workers on or near the shop floor Although this has long been common practice in Japanese firms, it is still quite a shock to many US professionals (Shook, 1988) Although the advent of TQ poses a challenge to virtually all staff functions (including product designers, engineers, basic researchers, marketers, accountants, lawyers, MIS specialists, and operations researchers), several that are particularly germane to the human resource (HR) function are elaborated on here One of the most important of these concerns is the overwhelming predominance of an individualistic orientation to all major HR functions (Dobbins et al., 1991) At present, the vast majority of employees are still selected for their individual accomplishments, evaluated on the basis of their individual (that is, independent) contributions, and rewarded with individualized pay increases Moreover, HR textbooks continue to emphasize individualistically based techniques, thus shaping the assumptions and tool kits of future generations of HR professionals A second shortcoming concerns the failure of HR professionals to routinely collect and evaluate data for improved future decision making (Fitz-Enz, 1990) This runs counter to the core TQ principle of collecting information on all important processes and outcomes for the purpose of reducing variability, improving processes, and developing a better understanding of covariances among activities and outcomes Although progress certainly has been made in this regard (Cascio, 1987), lack of adequate experimentation, design, and evaluation continues to be cited in most areas of HR A third issue for HR departments concerns the substantial proportion of practitioners who remain functionally isolated from mainstream business operations Functional isolation not only prevents practitioners from understanding business issues, but may also yield an overly optimistic assessment of the adequacy of HR services provided (Bellman, 1986; Fitz-Enz, 1990) As TQ gets under way, line managers typically are inundated with people-management issues that include the need for training, teambuilding, goal setting, problem solving, ways of reducing absenteeism, incentives for skill building, and the independent initiation of process improvements (Bell & Burnham, 1991; Ciampa, 1992) Unfortunately, it is not clear how many HR practitioners are equipped to provide such a wide range of services The final issue concerns the legalistic, inflexible bent of such longstanding HR practices as job analysis, job description, job evaluation, performance appraisal, and merit increase grids Although one can certainly sympathize with the fact that HR practitioners have been charged with keeping things legal-and new legal requirements continue to be churned out with a distressing imperviousness to the business utility of 326 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 some of the practices called for-the simple truth is that keeping legal is not the main strategic priority of any organization Given that the influence of any department is contingent upon the extent to which it supports the strategic objectives of the firm, most HR departments will have to realign their priorities dramatically if they wish to play a central role in TQ organizations (see also Fitz-Enz, 1990; Schuler, 1990) Moreover, emerging evidence suggests that HR departments not have long to make these modifications Because of perceived unwillingness or inability to change, some organizations already are bypassing HR departments in their quality efforts (Olian & Rynes, 1991) In these situations, KR is being left with its legal control function, while the strategically more important change agent role is being carried out by newly created functions, such as the Quality Office Line Employees In contrast to middle managers and staff professionals, line employees in service and manufacturing operations are seen as major beneficiaries of TQ systems For example, TQ management is touted as a method for giving workers more control over their immediate worklives, in stark contrast to h4intzberg's (1989) description of what typically occurs when the thinkers impose strategies onto the doers: Then, once (top management) has the final answer, (they)let others lower down in the hierarchy work it all out It's called "implementation."Implementation means dropping a solution into the laps of people informed enough to know it won't work, but restricted from telling anyone with power what can So while administrators in the executive suites are smiling about how "Quality is Job1" or whatever, the implementers are running around the factories trying to plug the holes (p 358) In addition, TQ offers the promise of greater job security, first by increasing workers' personal knowledge and skills, and secondly by improving the chances that their companies will survive intense worldwide competition Despite these optimistic promises of what TQ can for workers, line workers have sometimes resisted TQ programs Although resistance generally has been strongest in ongoing units with union representation, it has also occurred in other organizational settings From experience, it appears that at least two major factors have to be addressed before line employees become TQ champions The first of these is the fear of job loss Although anxieties exist in any major change situation, fears are typically magnified when the changes involve improved efficiency This is especially true when, as has often been the case, TQ processes are adopted after several rounds of efficiency improvements and downsizing In such situations, additional at- Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 327 tempts to increase efficiency may be seen simply as hastening the workers' demise For example, a subset of the UAW (Business Week, July 10, 1989) has gone on record as arguing that "the team concept pits worker against worker and eliminates jobs, all in the name of 'competitiveness'" (p 61) Clearly, the most compelling way to overcome such fears is through explicit assurances of job security For example, Globe Metallurgical's CEO personally committed to a no-layoff policy when the TQ program was first launched Although this approach is admirable, some companies cannot afford to offer such guarantees Consider, for example, the position of Robert Haas, chairman and CEO of Levi-Strauss & Co.: You can't promise employment security and be honest The best you can is not play games with people You can't make any guarantees We're now in a real-world situation where market forces are less favorable, external competitive pressures are more intense, and change is more rapid Sometimes the only solution is to close a plant, and if we don't have the guts to face that decision, then we risk hurting a lot of people-not just those in one plant We need to be honest about that We tie it to our (corporate aspirations and values) by asking, "How are we going to treat the people who are displaced?" (Harvard Business Review, Sept.-Oct., 1990, p 142-143) Haas goes on to say that while Levi-Strauss does not guarantee against layoffs, it does everything it can to prevent them and to soften the blow when they occur For example, Levi's gives more advance notice than required by law; provides higher-than-industry-average severance packages; extends health care benefits after severance; supports local job-training and job-finding initiatives; continues philanthropic support in communities where closings occur; and has changed the criteria for plant closing decisions to give more weight to community impact A second issue that often must be addressed concerns the increased level of commitment expected from a TQ workforce Organizations committed to quality, customer service, and on-time delivery must be able to depend on a workforce that does more than go through the motions from to For example, requirements for improved capacity utilization increasingly require worker commitment to more flexible work rules, schedules, and sometimes third-shift employment Although this is sometimes attained rather painlessly through selection in start-up organizations, it is a major sticking paint in ongoing concerns For example, GM recently announced the closing of a Michigan plant that, despite more than 10 years of downsizing at GM, refused to budge on work rules, schedules, and third-shift employment (Ingrassia & White, 1992) More generally, Kanter (1987) and others have argued that attempts to make workers more committed, involved, and entrepreneurial buck up against a number of counterpressures These include not only the traditional bureaucratic control and reward systems, but also the long work- 328 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 ing days already put in by two-earner families where both work and family obligations tend to clash (OReilly, 1990; Schor, 1992) For these reasons, management must show that there are tangible organizational benefits to TQ Sometimes, the main selling point is that without dramatic improvements in results, employees will be left without jobs In other cases, the message revolves around the immediate intrinsic benefits of more interesting work and greater control over work decisions, and the potential for elimination of fruitless paperwork and procedures In still others, the focus is on longer-term benefits that come from being part of a successful quality-driven company GM has stressed how joint UAW-GM quality initiatives have saved thousands of jobs in its component parts operations (Business Week, 1989).In the longer term, however, there are going to be increasing numbers of workers who, like marathon runners, "hit the wall" after extended periods of continuous effort or, like the Japanese, complain about "karoshi" or death by overwork For these individuals, support for TQ will come only after they truly share in organizational TQ successes CONCLUDING REMARKS Our premise is that getting to TQ is dependent upon fundamental changes in organizational processes and measurement strategies, which will drive and reinforce changes in the behaviors of key stakeholders It is understandable that the label is total quality, since isolated changes are likely to be doomed in the face of forces favoring the status quo Recent media attention to failures of TQ efforts (The Economisf, April 18, 1992) reinforce the point that TQ cannot succeed if it is only a program, a bag of tools, or a bureaucracy created to manage microprocesses Instead, TQ must reflect a systemwide commitment to the goal of serving the strategic needs of the organization's customer bases, through internal and external measurement systems, information and authority sharing, and committed leadership This is where we come full circle, back to the imparative for strong leadership among the top management team These team members are the ones who set the tone for everyone else in the organization including the managers and professional staff who perceive that they have a lot to lose from adoption of TQ The top leadership can affect managerial behaviors by holding middle managers accountable for TQ behaviors and implementation Much more importantly, resistance to TQ will slowly dissipate when middle managers perceive the senior executives as exemplars of TQ in every aspect of their behavior, day-in and day-out Corning's CEO, James Houghton (1991), describes what it takes: One of the leader's key roles is to inspire, and inspiration only comes from setting an example That is why a leader's commitment to quality must be Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 329 a very personal one For example, I regularly visit every Corning unitabout 50 locations-every year On these visits, about the only thing I talk about is quality: I want to know what they are doing and how they are doing it I also deal with the other issues, but, since I believe so much in quality, I apply its principles to every issue The message is simple: The first person who must be involved in quality is the leader; it is the leader's responsibility (p 22) END NOTES The authors are grateful to Ramji Balakrishnan and Gary Gaeth for their useful comments and suggestions Throughout this article, four survey sources are used repeatedly They are KPMG Peat Marwick's (1991) survey of 62 major US-based companies classified as stage IV (very early) to stage I (advanced) in their TQM evolution, The Conference Board's (1989) survey of quality measurement practices in 149 firms, The Conference Board's (1991) survey of 158 of the Fortune 1000 regarding their approaches to achieve employee buy-in to TQM, and a joint survey by The American Quality Foundation and Ernst & Young (1991) of "more than 0 international corporations' strategic quality practices ]udy Olian is Associate Professor of Management, the University of Ma yland at College Park Her mearch and consulting interests focus on the alignment of human resource systems with business strategic objectives, and she has written widely on these and related topics For the last two years she has been American Council on Education Fellow and then Special Assistant to the President of the University of Maryland In that capacity she has overseen the University's design and implementation of total quality in its administrative and academic divisions Sara Rynes is Professor of Management b Organizations at the College of Business, University of lowa Dr Rynes' research and teaching interests are in the areas of human resource strategy and decision making, compensation management, total quality management and continuous improvement, recruitment, staffing, and career management Dr Rynes has served as consultant to a wide range of private and public secfor organizations, and is on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Applied Psychology Prior to joining the University of lowa, she was on the faculties of the University of Minnesota and Cornell university REFERENCES American Quality Foundation and Ernst & Young (1991) International quality study: Top-line findings Cleveland: Emst & Young Beischel, M E., & Smith, K R (October, 1991) Linking the shop floor to the top floor Management Accounting, 25-34 330 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 Bell, R R., & Bumham, J M (1991) Managing productivity and change Cincinnati: southwestern Publishing Bellman, G M (1986) The quest for staff leadership Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Company Business Week (July 10, 1989) The payoff from teamwork 56-62 Caminiti, S (December 3, 1991) What the scanner knows about you Fortune, 51-52 Camp, R C (1989) Benchmarking White Plains, N.Y.: Quality Resources Publishers Cantoni, C J (January 28, 1992) Quality control from Mars Wall Street Journal, A14 Carlzon, J (1987) Moments of truth New York: Harper & Row Ciampa, D (1992) Total quality Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Crosby, P B (1979) Quality is free New York Mentor Books Cascio, W F (1987) Costing human resources (2nd ed.) Boston: PWS-Kent Dobbins, G., Cardy, R L., & Carson, K (1991) Examining fundamental assumptions: A contrast of person and system approaches to human resource management In G Fems & K Rowlands (Eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, volume 9, 1-38 Eccles, R G (January & February, 1991) The performance measurement manifesto Harvard Business Review, 69, 131-137 Fisher, A B (November 18, 1991) Morale Crisis Fortune, 71-76 Fitz-Enz, J (1990) Human value management San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Gabor, A (1990) The man who discmered quality New York Random House Garvin, D A (November-December, 1991) How the Baldrige really works Harvard Business Review, 69,80-93 Garvin, D A (1987) Managing quality New York The Free Press General Accounting Office (1990) Management practices-U.S companies improve performance through quality efforts Washington D.C.: U.S General Accounting Office Greene, A H., & Flentov, P (1992) Managing performance: Maximizing the benefits of activity-based costing In B J Brinker (Ed.), Emerging practices in cost management Boston: Warren, Gorham & Lamont, Chapter J-5 Goldratt, E M., & Cox, J (1986) The goal: A process of ongoing improvement Croton-on-Hudson, Ny: North River Press Hampton, W J (October 3, 1988) How does Japan Inc pick its American workers? Business W e k , 84-88 Hart, C W L., Heskett, J L., & Sasser, W E (September-October, 1990) The profitable art of service recovery Haruard Business Review, 68, 105-111 Harvard Business Review (January-February, 1992) Debate: Does the Baldrige award really work? 70 126-147 Houghton, J R (1990) Leadership and total quality In F Caropreso (Ed.), Making total quality happen New York The Conference Board, Research Report NO 937, 21-23 House, C H., & Price, R L (January-February, 1991) The return map: Tracking product teams Harvard Business Review, 69,92-101 Hyatt, J C., & Naj, A K (March 3, 1992) GE is no place for autocrats, Welch decrees Wall Street Journal, B-1, 8-6 Ingrassia, P., & White, J B (February 26, 1992) GM posts record '91 loss of $4.45 billion and identifies a dozen plants for closing Wall Street Journal, A-1, A-6 Johnson, H T (1990) Professors, customers and value: Bringing a global perspective to management accounting education In P Tumey (Ed.), Performance excellence in manufacturing and service organizations Sarasota: American Accounting Association Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 331 Juran, J M (1989) Juran on leadership for quality New York: The Free Press Kanter, R M (1987) The new workforce meets the changing workplace: Strains, dilemmas, and contradictions in attempts to implement participative and entrepreneurial management Human Resource Management, 25, 515-537 Kanter, R M (1989) When giants learn to dance New York: Touchstone Kaplan, R S (July-August, 1984) Yesterday's accounting undermines production Harvard Business Review, 62, 95-101 Kaplan, R S., & Norton, D P (January-February, 1992) The balanced scorecard-measures that drive performance Harvard Business Review, 70, 71-79 Karabatsos, N (1990) Absolutely, positively quality Quality Progress, 24-28 Kirkpatrick, D (March 23, 1992) Here comes the payoff from PCs Fortune, 93102 KPMG Peat Marwick (1991) Quality improvement initiatives through the management of human resources Short Hills, NJ: KPMG Peat Marwick Kretchmar, (March 23, 1992) CEO to Execs: "Drive a Lexus." Fortune, 121 Locke, E A., & Latham, G (1990) A theory of goal setting and task performance Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Mntzberg, H (1989).Mintzberg on management New York: Free Press Olian, J D (1991) Penril DataComm Networks, Inc wins U.S.Senate Productivity Award for manufacturing The Mayland Workplace, 13(4), Olian, J D., & Rynes, S L (1991) Survey of quality practices Unpublished OReilly, B (March 12, 1990) Is your company asking too much? Fortune, 3846 Papay, L J (1990) Process quality is the driver of corporate competitiveness In F Caropreso (Ed.), Making total quality happen New York: The Conference Board, Research Report No 937, pp 30-34 Perry, N (December 19, 1988) Here come richer, riskier pay plans Fortune, 5058 Reichheld, F F., & Sasser, W E., Jr (September-October, 1990) Zero defections: Quality comes to services Harvard Business Review, 68, 105-111 Rice, F (December 3, 1990) How to deal with tougher customers Fortune, 3848 Sakurai, M (1992) Target costing and how to use it In B J Brinker (Ed.), Emerging practices in cost management Boston: Warren, Gorham & Lamont, Chapter 5-2 Saraph, J V., Benson, P G., & Schroeder, R G (1989) An instrument for measuring the critical factors of quality management Decision Sciences, 20, 810-829 Schein, E H (1985) Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic view San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Scholtes, P R (1987) A new view of performance appraisal Madison, WI: Joiner Consultants Schor, J B (1992) The overworked American: The Unexpected decline of leisure New York: Basic Books Schonberger, R J (1986) World class manufacturing: Lessons in simplicity applied New York The Free Press, 1986 Schonberger, R J (1990) Building a chain of customers New York: The Free Press Schuler, R S (1990) Repositioning the human resource function: Transformation or demise? Academy of Management Executive, 4, 49-60 Sellers, P (June 4, 1990) What customers really want Fortune, 58-68 Shaman, G (February 24,1992) When quality control gets in the way of quality Wall Street Journal, A-14 Shook, R L (1988) Honda: A n American success story New York: Prentice-Hall Stalk, G., Jr., & Hout, T M (1990) Competingagainst time: How time-based competition is reshaping global markets New York: The Free Press 332 I Human Resource Management, Fall 1991 The Conference Board (1991) Employee buy-in to total quality New York: The Conference Board, Report No 974 The Conference Board (1989) Current practices in measuring quality New York: The Conference Board, Report No 234 The Economist (April 18, 1992) The cracks in quality 67-68 The Economist (January 4, 1992) Future perfect 61 Tuttle, T C (1991) Implementing total quality The Maryland Workplace, 12(1), 1,4-5 Umble, M., & Srikanth, M L (1990) Synchronous manufacturing Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing Walton, M (1986) The Deming management method New York: Perigee Books Wiggenhorn, W.(July-August, 1990) Motorola U: When training becomes an education Harvard Business Review, 68, 71-83 Worthy, F S (August 12, 1991) Japan’s smart secret weapon Fortune, 72-75 Yates, R (February, 1992) Deming’s game plan Chicago Tribune Magazine, 16, 1622 Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 333 ... Status is threatened because work that was formerly regarded as thinking or expert work, often requiring college or even grad- Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 325 uate training, is... 1992) Debate: Does the Baldrige award really work? 70 126-147 Houghton, J R (1990) Leadership and total quality In F Caropreso (Ed.), Making total quality happen New York The Conference Board,... manufacturing and service organizations Sarasota: American Accounting Association Olian and Rynes: Making Total Quality Work I 331 Juran, J M (1989) Juran on leadership for quality New York: The