[The following article appears in the October 1994 edition of _Public_Sector_Quality_Report_, pages 3 and 4.] Book Review REASONS, RESPONSES FOR TQM FAILURE If you're fed up with books that promise to propel your organization to a state of operational nirvana if you adopt one management strategy or another, you might appreciate the challenging, somewhat downbeat title of a new book co-published by Irwin Professional Publishing and the Association for Quality and Participation. Why TQM Fails And What To Do About It (1994, ISBN #0- 7863-0140-6) doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling on the benefits an organization, its employees, and customers can realize from TQM. Instead, the book breaks TQM down into three major implementation phases--start-up, alignment, and integration--then describes and suggests remedies for some of the most common problems that cause TQM to flounder. "Our intent is not to prescribe a plan for implementing TQM," the authors note in their preface. "That is something that should be designed to the specific needs and culture of your organization. Instead, we have focused on the most common mistakes that organizations make in their implementations. By highlighting these failings and providing guidance about how to avoid or resolve them, we hope to help readers ensure that their TQM efforts achieve their intended results." And make no mistake, the book's trio of authors are believers in TQM's value and its ability to achieve results. Mark Graham Brown is a quality consultant, a former Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award examiner, and author of Baldrige Award --Winning Quality. Darcy E. Hitchcock, president of AXIS Performance Advisors, Inc., is a consultant and trainer specializing in self-directed work teams and a self-described "active member" in the Association for Quality and Participation. Marsha Willard is AXIS' chief executive officer. In reply to criticisms of TQM as "another program" or a "management fad," the authors rebut: ".. how can you dispute the need to delight customers and produce high-quality products and services? As an organizational philosophy, total quality management is even more critical now than it was just 10 years ago. If there has been a failure, it is not one of philosophy; it is one of implementation." Though the book's terminology and examples are geared primarily to the private sector, there's pertinent material here for all types of organizations. While the book would be especially useful for readers searching for answers to why their organizations' TQM efforts are stuck or in decline, it might also be a dose of preventive medicine for an organization just starting out and eager to avoid common TQM traps and missteps. The book's opening chapter, on how executive and managers can support TQM, is a veritable guidebook for leaders. The key, the authors argue, is sincere, visible commitment. They identify a half dozen behaviors and eight action steps executives should consider if they truly are committed to TQM and want to demonstrate that commitment to employees and customers. Among the behaviors: -- Spend more time talking with customers, and less time focused strictly on strategic planning and financial issues. -- Spend time on the "shop floor" practicing "management by walking around," but only if you do so with a sincere, supportive, rapport-building style. In other words, talk with employees about TQM, not to or at them. -- Do your homework. Senior execs should be the most thoroughly trained of your workers. If front-line employees get 40 hours of training, while senior execs get an eight-hour overview, you've got the formula reversed. -- Collect and spend time reviewing customer satisfaction and quality data, not just financial reports. -- Apply TQM techniques and tools in your own work, and in your sphere of influence. Nothing does a better job sending a message that TQM is important and here to stay. Later in the book the authors stress that organizations must focus on results, not merely activities, as yet another key to effective TQM implementation. They offer tips on differentiating results from activities, and for using that insight to develop effective performance measures. As for how to keep TQM from being viewed as another program, the authors caution against appointing a "vice president of quality" and creating a separate, parallel quality organization. At one point they even suggest (if only in passing) that one of the best ways to avoid having your TQM effort seen as another acronymed program might be to not assign it a name. Don't label it, just do it. Less persuasive are the authors' arguments on TQM training. Here they seem to stress that training must inevitably be costly, and that the only effective training method is a top-down, cascading approach. In doing so they seem to ignore the experience of organizations that have had success implementing TQM training on a "just-in-time" or "as-needed" basis, and done so relatively affordably using a "train-the-trainers" approach. The authors apparently draw most of their conclusions from observation, reading, and personal interaction with client organizations that are implementing TQM. They cite few if any authoritative studies or surveys on reasons for TQM failure, and for that matter they never fully define what precisely constitutes "failure." They do, however, present their theories and ideas in easily readable language, and they conclude each chapter with a concise summary and a suggested bibliography of supporting articles and research. All in all, Why TQM Fails offers much food for thought on ways to keep TQM flourishing, rather than failing. CONTACT: Irwin Professional Publishing, Burr Ridge, IL, (800) 634-3966. 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