Quality Management, Quality of Management and Quality Culture

Recent global economic meltdown has opened many avenues of discussion and leaving various questions with its affects. One of them is fate of quality management and its necessity during and after the economic recession. It is established fact that management commitment is one of the most critical success factors to achieve best possible results of quality management implementation. So quality of management is not only crucial for effective quality management but also to foster organizational culture to achieve excellence. Strategic Quality Management pave the road for effective operational management, therefore role of strategic level management is decisive for developing, enriching and enhancing quality culture within organization. This paper will try to highlight some vital issues related to quality of management at strategic level to reflect that it’s not only the seed i.e. Quality management but also the soil i.e. fertile management soil is important for excellence culture. So based on literature review and author’s experiences, the paper will draw attention to the factors related to strategic management level, turbulences they may generate and link it with department tectonic activity (DTA) establishing how it disturbs organizational culture to achieve excellence. The survey results will reflect that what strategic level management feels more important among education, development, deployment or monitoring for addressing the factors and enhancing effectiveness of quality management / excellence model implementation at their level. Finally relevant recommendations will be shared. 1.0 Introduction and Research Background: National Bonds Corporation is a governmental entity promoting saving culture and mindset within Dubai and the UAE. It launched its operations in 2006 and has completed five years now with the customer base over 600,000 and current employee base is slightly over 200. The author joined the National Bonds in 2007 when the company completed a year only and was focusing on business growth, increasing customer base and revenue generation. Since its inception, the organization has seen tremendous growth continuously through effective and efficient policies ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 and procedures to cope with the economic meltdown. Like many other newly started organizations, National Bonds was not an exception to undergo various challenges internally and externally in particular issues related to instilling quality mindset at a strategic management level in a newly launched company. As the focus of strategic management level people remained on business growth, the author was facing some critical concerns at a strategic management due to which quality culture was not able to strengthen. Thinking of such apprehensions brought an idea to author for writing this paper and to share his experience with respect to issues normally faced at a strategic management level of organisations. However, the focus of this study does not end up at National Bonds rather author researched it in wider spectrum through extensive literature review to explore various factors affecting quality of management and hinder in enriching quality culture, so findings may enhance understanding of management level personnel. Keeping in view, this paper will highlight such factors, their potential impact on organizational quality culture and probable reasons from some quality award winner organizations. Management professionals understand that quality of management is essential for successful quality management and quality culture, however studies at strategic level management is not found as extensive as in the case of operational level management. Traditionally quality management has been considered as a functional / operational level strategy, where most of the research and theory building in quality management is related to micro-level of organizations (Besterfield, 2005). Steiner (1997) reveals that there are two categories of management. That which is done at the top of organizational structure is Strategic Management and other is Operational Management. Strategic management provides guidance, directions and boundaries for operational management which is more of tactical in nature and focus on execution. Nawaz (2004) through the proceedings of 8 World TQM Congress mentions that if strategic management has no quality relation, operational management will not be effective because strategy-quality bond will be lacking (refer to fig.-1). Normally senior management of organizations is involved in strategies setting, so their role at strategic management level is crucial either establishing or implementing quality management and excellence model. Keeping in view the micro-level focus of quality management, Ahmed and Machold (2004) highlighted that “there is not much related work on macro-level analysis of organizations and accordingly there is a need to look at quality management from the strategic view point”. ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 Figure-1 (StrategyQuality Relationship) 2.0 Literature Review and Research Methodology The author thought of methodology focusing on clarifying following points: iFactors being faced at strategic management level of National Bonds iiLiterature review for exploring factors affecting quality of management and quality culture iiiObserving affect of such factors on organization’s quality culture explored through literature review ivCarry out survey to understand reasons of these factors affecting at strategic management level Above points are further discussed below: (13) Strategy Quality Relationship Strategic Management Operational Management Strategy Quality Relation (Strategic Quality Management) Quality Relation (Strategy Quality Bond) (Operational Effectiveness) ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 2.1 Literature Review for exploring factors affecting quality of management and quality culture Most of the top management of firms implementing quality management is found to be in search of appropriate factors which provide favourable results to their quality management programs, hence to improve quality culture. For this purpose, many researchers have carried out various studies, both quantitative and qualitative; to identify appropriate factors that may enhance the effectiveness of TQM / excellence model implementation and promote quality culture. On reviewing the literature with respect to understanding such factors at a strategic management level, the present researcher came across that there is agreement of most of the researchers that ‘lack of leadership commitment and their attitude towards quality and visible participation for quality culture change’ creates major hindrance for implementation of quality management (Beer, 2003; Dahlgaard & Kanji, 1995; Davies, 2008; Deming, 1986; Hanson, 2003; Hussain, 1998; Mann, 2010; Mary and Harrington, 2002; Moosa, 2010; Sila and Ebrahimpouri, 2003; Soltani, Lai & Gharneh, 2005; Taylor & Wright (2003); Wali, Deshmukh & Gupta (2003). Recent international study carried out by Dr. Robin Mann (2010) titled as “The impact of Business Excellence / Quality Awards” highlights that lack of understanding of the meaning of business excellence and the benefits from it are not clear to organizations managemnet and so are main internal issues hindering effective quality culture. Mann’s study focuses mainly on impact of business excellence on organisation rather than issues / factors faced at strategic management level so missing this aspect. While various researchers suggested about gaining quality management education by leaders, however leadership specific education on quality and excellence not appeared through which they can seek guidance. Various researchers (Hanson, 2003; Marco Nova, 2000; Wali, Deshmukh & Gupta, 2003) also link success or failure of quality management / excellence model due to lack of building in quality in organisation’s strategic planning process by the management which is normally done at a strategic management level. An added issue which has been highlighted by Dahlgaard & Kanji (1995); Moosa (2010) and Thawani (2009) as a road block for quality culture is ‘leadership more focus on the quick fixes and satisfaction with it’. Some researchers are in opinion that this behaviour of leadership may be due to fear of change and lack of clear change vision (Dahlgaard & Kanji, 1995; Angell, 2009; Marco Nova, 2000), however, some others argue that this is because of loss of top management interest due to more pressing business issues / lack of time to devote to quality management (Kwai Sang, 2002; Angell, 2009; Mann, 2010). Echoing Deming (1986), Beer (2003) mentions that too top down or too laissez faire i.e. laid back / casual leadership approach will establish in-effective top team with respect to quality of direction, effectiveness and efficiency of top management, hence the management team which cannot confront issues constructively is actually ineffective (Moosa, 2010). Keeping in view the above, this study is ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 focusing on gaining understanding about the factors affecting quality of management and quality culture. 2.2 Possible Factors being faced at strategic management level of National Bonds In view of newly established organization, the author’s experience with National Bonds has highlighted couple of possible issues which the organization has been and / or facing at a strategic management level due to management of growth and impact of economic recession. So the author thought of understanding such factors affecting quality of management and hence hindering in promoting quality culture. These possible factors are mentioned under 3.0 below. It would be worthwhile to mention that above are author’s observations only and there may be other or different factors present. Moreover, empirical analysis on such factors yet to be done to confirm these. 2.3 Observing affect of such factors on organization’s quality culture explored through literature review The author thus wanted to observe the turbulences generated due to such factors and their possible affect on organizations quality culture and so tried to examine in various organizations including some of Dubai Quality Award winners. The observations are explained under discussion and findings (3.0) below. 2.4 Carry out survey to understand reasons by strategic management level The author was further curious to know why these factors exist and so used survey technique to obtain data from selected Dubai Quality Award winners. The results of the survey are also revealed under discussion and findings section (3.0) below. 3.0 Discussion and Findings: The factors observed at this stage in National Bonds are revolving around followings: i. Leadership more focus on the quick fixes and satisfaction with it ii. Loss of top management interest due to more pressing business issues / Lack of time to devote to quality management / business excellence iii. Over-enthusiastic top management – wants to do maximum in shortest possible time iv. Leadership lack of understanding about quality / excellence and perceived benefits stemming from the quality management / Business Excellence program ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 Further based on literature review and observation with Dubai quality award winner organizations, the author was able to enlist following factors affecting quality of management and thus the quality culture. Interestingly, the factors author was observing in the national bonds are somehow mentioned in the literature as well which endorses the factors affecting at strategic management level. These factors are listed in table-1 below. Table-1: List of factors affecting quality of management and thus the quality culture Sr. No. Factors affecting Quality of Management and thus the Quality Culture 1 Lack of leadership Commitment and their attitude towards quality and visible participation for quality culture change 2 Leadership lack of understanding about excellence and perceived benefits stemming from the Business Excellence program 3 Failure of integrating total quality / Excellence Model into the organization such as in daily management practices and methods 4 Lack of comprehensive quality improvement education of leadership on strategic perspective and holistic view of quality 5 Lack of building in quality in organization’s strategic planning process 6 Leadership more focus on the quick fixes and satisfaction with it 7 Fear of Change and lack of clear change vision 8 Loss of top management interest due to more pressing business issues / Lack of time to devote to business excellence 9 Overlapping of responsibilities of leadership and as a consequent lack of vision 10 Over-enthusiastic top management – wants to do maximum in shortest possible time 11 Unclear strategy and conflicting management priorities 12 Leadership style of top management – too top down or too laissez faire i.e. laid back / casual 13 An ineffective top team i.e. quality of direction, effectiveness and efficiency of top management team 14 Poor coordination among top management The author observed that due to above factors, quality of management suffers and organization will face turbulences at all level of the management layers. ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 3.1 Turbulences that affect organizations due to such Factors As a matter of fact, various departments work together within the organization as a chain. When there is complete harmony among them, the departments chain work well, quality management flourishes and business grows. However, this scenario is usually missing if senior management not in sync with the quality mindset and clarity about excellence direction. Then departments and organization as a whole may have various turbulences which impact on business growth. This certainly raises concern over quality of management which would be disastrous for organizational quality culture. The factor revealed above can create turbulence within and among departments. The rate of turbulence is critical for the changes in culture and for effectiveness of quality management programs. If turbulence rate is higher, the impact on cultural will be higher and quality management program may fail. Normally turbulence happens at three levels as mentioned in figure-2 and described below: Figure-2: Turbulences that affect organizations Intra-department Turbulence Inter-department Turbulence Organization-wide Turbulence Business at Risk Cultural Changes within Individual Department Cultural Changes at Overall Organization Level Cultural Changes among Different Departments ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 3.1.1 Intra-Department turbulence When quality of management face these factors within the individual department, the turbulence happens within that department and so cultural changes occurs. This actually starts influencing the working environment and relations. Therefore, productivity of the department suffers. This kind of turbulence can be termed as “Intra-department Turbulence”. 3.1.2 Inter-Department turbulence The second level of turbulence is called as “Inter-department Turbulence”. This occurs when these factors are faced management of different / cross functional departments and so turbulence occurs among different department instead of individual department. The scale of this kind of turbulence and its impact is higher on organizational quality culture. 3.1.3 Organization-wide turbulence The third level of turbulence can be termed as “Organization-wide Turbulence”. This occurs when inter-department turbulence among management is at extreme, so loyalty of stakeholders reduces continuously reflecting organization-wide culture issue. We can simply say that, intra-department turbulence will increase inter-department turbulence, which ultimately increases organization-wide turbulence, and thus business comes at risk due to naïve quality culture because of quality of management. This will have clear indication that quality management programs are not working as desired. 3.2 Department Tectonic Activity (DTA) Generation of these turbulences due to quality of management raises tectonic activity within and among departments. There is push and pull forces involve in it due to which folds, faults (fractures) and joints develop. Such forces increase the conflicts among management and ruin the organization’s quality culture. Figures 3 and 4 are reflecting Department Tectonic Activity (DTA) in diagrammatic way. ICQI-Lahore, 2-3 May 2011 Figure-3: Push and Pull Forces develop Department Tectonic Activity When there is equal push force among departments, folds develop. In this case, departments start working in silos, resist each other’s ideas, and therefore never go along with each other. When push force is unequal, then faults / fractures develops among departments. These fractures actually develop mistrust among departments. Therefore in working scenarios instead of cordially cooperating each other they start watching and seeing and if things go positive, they are together and if negative then against each other. This further promotes blame culture. When pull force act among departments, the gap develops and if not taken care of, become wider. In this situation two departments seek third and neutral department to fill the gap when interact with Purchase Production