[The following news item comes from the February, 1994 edition of
_Quality_Progress_, p. 12.]

                 ADVICE TO THE PRESIDENT: WALK THE TALK

     At the Sixth Annual National Conference on Federal Quality
in July 1993, more than 400 federal employees took part in 70
roundtable discussions over breakfast ("Coffee. Danish. and an
Open Letter to the President." Federal Quality News, October
1993. p. 6).

     The National Conference Roundtable Committee asked each
roundtable: If you could only say one thing to President Clinton.
what would you tell him? Almost half of the roundtables prepared
messages about top management. The messages boiled down to: "Walk
the talk. There is no substitute for top leadership involvement,
commitment, and support for quality improvements." Another common
message was: "Train at all levels."

The committee summarized the nine main themes from the breakfast:

     1. Train top down. Cascade quality management from the top
to the bottom. Many key executives in government are not
knowledgeable about quality. Without their understanding and
support, quality efforts will flounder.

     2. Make employee training and development a priority. Move
away from an emphasis on job security and longevity to developing
productive people who are employable anywhere. Involve employees
in decisions to downsize or restructure organizations.

     3. Overcome bureaucracy. Move away from a bureaucratic,
noncustomer-oriented government that has an inwardly focused
hierarchy concerned with turf and regulations. Move toward
training, empowering, and trusting government employees.

     4. Require strategic planning. Use strategic plans from top
to bottom to link and align the government in accomplishing a
shared vision of the future. Everyone at all levels--inside and
outside government--should participate in forming and
accomplishing this mission.

     5. Link funding to performance. Tie agency funding with
performance achievement. Cascade performance goals throughout
government with dialog and feedback at each level. Base future
funding, as well as rewards and recognition, on achieving goals.
Let government workers compete with private enterprise for
service functions.

     6. Ensure total involvement. Select and reward political
appointees, senior executives, military leaders, middle managers,
and all personnel based on success in achieving quality and pro-

ductivity improvements.

     7. Drive out fear. Strive to motivate and enable federal
employees to take risks and make decisions to put customers
first.

     8. Support teamwork. Reward teams for successful outcomes,
perhaps in a federal performance sharing program patterned after
prototypes in the Department of Defense. Emphasize teamwork
between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to
achieve quality and productivity improvements.

     9. Clearly integrate quality and reinvention. Bring total
quality, reinventing government, and the National Performance
Review together and communicate them as a single philosophy that
embraces a long-term view that emphasizes teamwork, process
improvement, and customer satisfaction.

---
 * Origin: TQM BBS - Total Quality Management - (301) 585-1164
(11:202/299)