Traditional Management & TQM

I chose 3 items that I’d like to reflect on on the comparative study of traditional management and total quality management (TQM), which we tackled on August 28, 2021 session with our Professor, Dr. Butch deal Cruz, on QM 401 ~ Total Quality Management: Philosophy & Practice

"TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT: Organizational structure is hierarchical and has rigid lines of authority and responsibility.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: Organizational structure becomes flatter, more flexible, and less hierarchical."

In terms of my observations of the different organizations that I worked with as the President of the Philippine Society for Quality; I’ve seen tremendous efforts from companies to shift from the traditional management perspective to TQM. Almost all leaders are aware in terms of the Why – why we need to shift, and everyone is also fully aware of the benefits however we still fail to execute the concept, we fail to execute what we thought was right for the organization. We always thought of creating a flatter organization so that the approval process can be shortened and lessen the pain of our people however we end up still establishing a hierarchical organization with so many layers. ?It’s ironic but it’s the reality. This knowledge has been there for decades, but we still fail to implement it because we don’t trust our people and we don’t really empower our people. And if there’s empowerment, it’s half-baked. I believe it’s time now for the leaders to start having those honest and meaningful conversations with their employees and get pieces of feedback as inputs to improve the organization. With all the modernization and advancement in technology, we as leaders are still behind when it comes to the execution of the fundamentals.

?"TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT: The focus is on maintaining status quo ("If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it").

?TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: The focus shifts to continuous improvement in systems and processes ("Continue to improve it even if it isn’t broken")."

In the current organization I’m connected with, a global technology company, there are people who will tell you that their processes are already optimized and mature that there’s no opportunity for improvement that they can think of. However, when you dig deeper, when you sit down with these leaders and their employees in terms of their pain areas on their process, you’d see that they have a lot of wastes in their processes. They just need someone from outside their department who will challenge the way they look at improvement, challenge the way they do things. Improvement is infinite and there are countless ways on how you can transform your processes. As leaders, we must challenge the status quo. Embrace innovation! Not just the revolutionary innovation like you need to think like there is no box but we also have evolutionary innovation wherein you keep on looking at how you can improve your processes – can be little tweaks that can help in making the lives of your people better in the organization – on the way they perform their tasks. There is always a better way of doing things! Always! You just have to find it!

"TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT: Management perceives labor and training as costs.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: Management perceives labor as an asset, and training as an investment."?

I remember this very short story:

“CFO asks CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

?In a TQM organization, people is at the center! It will always be people not just the processes and technology. So investing with our people is an imperative – it’s a must be, a priority, training our people with the appropriate knowledge and skills that they need for them to perform confidently and become successful on what they do – so that they become capable leaders! Training technically is a “cost” however this is a positive cost because the return or the benefits outweigh the cost by x number of times.

Let me end my reflection on this 3rd item with this quote from Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, one of the famous billionaires who founded the Virgin Group: “Train people well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don't want to.”