advantages are significant, and the companies who fail in its implementation, be they steel producers or law firms, risk their very existence.

The greatest challenge that companies face with regard to the total quality initiative is the absence of a cultural environment conducive to its implementation. Many companies are still based on an authoritarian, adversarial, results-at-any-cost style of management and are often known for their poor response to customer inquiries and requests. As Emerson`s quote points out, a veneer of new management slogans, "what you`re saying," laid over the top of the same old business practices, "who you are," will fail to produce any significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. More than just a new strategy, companies must make the values of TQM a new style of working, a new style of thinking and even a new way of life. They must fundamentally alter their internal culture, they must walk the walk and talk the talk before any TQM system can be successful.

Let`s take a close look at the specifics of TQM as defined by the Malcom Baldridge National Quality Award, the United States` answer to the Japanese Deming Quality Prize. The Baldridge Award Criteria are built upon these ten core values and concepts:

1. Customer-driven quality.

Quality is judged by the customer. All services that contribute value to the customer and lead to customer satisfaction must be addressed appropriately in the quality system. Customer-driven quality is directed toward market share gain and customer retention and extends well beyond error reduction and elimination of the causes of dissatisfaction. Your quality plan must include rapid and flexible response to changing client requirements. Remember, customer perceptions are the crucial measure of your performance.

2. Leadership.

The company`s owners or executives must create clear and visible quality values and demonstrate high expectations. Your quality systems need to guide all activities and decisions of the company, and the owners must encourage participation and creativity by all employees. Through regular personal involvement, the owners must serve as role models reinforcing the values and encouraging leadership throughout the firm.

3. Continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement needs to be part of all your operations and work activities. Improvements may be of several types: enhancing value, reducing error and waste, improving responsiveness or increasing productivity. Clearly, improvement is not simply driven by the objective to provide better quality but also by the need to be responsive and efficient. Further, you must include an objective system for assessing progress.

4. Full participation.

Meeting the company’s quality and performance objectives requires a fully committed, well-trained and involved staff. In addition, your reward and recognition systems must reinforce full participation in the company’s quality objectives.

5. Fast response.

Success in increasingly competitive markets demands ever-shorter service introduction cycles and more rapid response to client needs. Major improvements in response time may require the simplification of your work processes, the series of related actions that produce a desired result. Shortening the process can also "drive" improvements in quality and productivity.

6. Design quality and prevention.

Your quality systems should emphasize problem prevention by building quality into the processes through which services are delivered. Intervention should focus on the earliest stages in your work processes, including materials provided by the company’s suppliers. This can lead to major reductions in "downstream" waste and the costs associated with error correction.

7. Long-range outlook.

Achieving quality and market leadership requires a "future" orientation and long-term commitments to customer, employees, administrative personnel and suppliers. Your strategies and resource allocation must reflect this approach.

8. Management by fact.

Meeting the quality and performance goals of the company requires process management based upon reliable information and analysis. Facts, data and analysis support a variety of the company’s purposes, such as planning, performance review, improving operations and bench marking competitive standards.

9. Partnership development.

Your company should seek to build internal and external partnerships which serve mutual and larger community interests. This is particularly true of large companies which have compartmentalized work functions, such as accounting and marketing, or have differentiated a variety of specialties within the company. Cooperation and communication provide the foundation to accommodate rapidly changing conditions.

10. Public responsibility.

Your company`s customer requirements and quality systems should address areas of corporate citizenship and responsibility, including business ethics, public health and safety, environmental concerns and sharing of non proprietary quality related information in the company’s geographic and business community.

The effects of a successful TQM program can be startling. Japanese manufacturers went from third class producers of inferior products to world-class export powerhouses, transforming an entire nation and the nature of global manufacturing in just thirty years. The Japanese dominate other service-oriented sectors, like banking, in the same manner and with the same means. The company that truly practices total quality will possess a significant, long-term edge over its competitors. TQM unleashes creativity, simplifies and flattens the organization, boosts company moral, increases productivity, customer satisfaction and market share, and improves profitability.

Most quality systems fail to produce their desired results within organizations because they are viewed as merely an isolated set of practices which can be installed within a company`s already existing culture. Yet, this ignores the very real needs and concerns of the human beings within a company who will ultimately be charged with delivering on the possibilities that TQM makes available.

To begin the implementation of a TQM program, your company must lay the groundwork for its cultural shift by creating a context, a state of existence in which all of the changes can occur. The company must invent a powerful vision for itself and its place in the community, and everyone in the company must be solidly aligned with this vision for the company’s future. This provides a rallying point, a place of stability which can be returned to when the disruption that naturally accompanies change begins to occur. Further, the leadership within the company must keep the fire of the vision burning brightly as the TQM process begins to unfold so everyone can continue to draw strength from it.

In addition to an empowering vision, your company must adopt and act consistently with a belief in the dignity and unique value of each human being and must establish a structure for empowering relationship and interpersonal communication. Many individuals are threatened by change. As change and disruption take place, the natural tendency is to assign blame and to attempt to return to the old, familiar methods of operation. Individuals must be free to responsibly communicate their anxieties in an atmosphere of safety, or they will begin to resist and even sabotage the TQM process. And, the owners or executives must resist the temptation to suppress the creativity and leadership of others which will inevitably be unfamiliar to them.

Total quality begins with commitment--the commitment to the possibility of a future for the company, its employees and customers which is unpredictable given its current structure and management style. Total Quality Management requires an unwavering commitment to the fundamental transformation of the company and its practice. And what about the companies which fail to begin the process? Just ask General Motors.

About the Author:
Scott Hunter is a professional speaker, workshop leader, consultant and coach. He speaks on creating meaningful, quality relationships in the workplace to increase productivity, creativity, teamwork and profitability. He can be reached at scott@thpalliance.com. Visit his web site: www.thpalliance.com.

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