Total Quality Management
Week # 6
Culture, Communication, & Learning
Prepared by: Khalid Dahleez
Faculty of Commerce – the Islamic University of Gaza
This material was collected from different sources
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
1
Quality Culture (general concepts)

Creating a quality culture within an organization is increasingly
recognized as one of the primary conditions for the successful
implementation of Total Quality Management.

culture represents the way in which members of a business
group control their behavior in order to communicate with
each other and with other groups in that society.

many organizations are not even aware of their own culture or
its distinct characteristics.

These cultures are influenced by the culture of the country and
the nature of its business of the organization
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
2
Quality Culture (general concepts)

Peters and Waterman (1982) in their book In Search of
Excellence, where they said ‘without exception, the dominance
and coherence of culture within these organizations proved to
be the essential quality of success’.

In some studies it has been suggested that organizations with
adaptive cultures, geared to satisfy the changing demands of
customers, employees and shareholders can outperform
organizations without such culture.

Companies with sound culture can increase their sales three
times more than the organization without a sound culture.
Therefore a successful company needs more than just sound
business strategy, it needs a culture to support the strategy.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
3
Quality Culture (Definition)

Culture is the pattern of shared beliefs and values that
provides the members of an organization rules of
behavior or accepted norms for conducting operations.
It is the philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions,
beliefs, expectations, attitudes, and norms that knit an
organization together and are shared by employees.

Main components:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Behaviors based on people interactions.
Norms resulting from working groups.
Dominant values adopted by the organization.
Rules of the game for getting on.
The climate.
Any organization needs a vision framework that
includes its guiding philosophy, core values and beliefs and
a purpose these should be combined into a mission.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
4
Quality Culture (Viewpoints of the founders)

The acknowledged experts agree on the
need for a cultural or value system
transformation:
◦ Deming calls for a transformation of the
American management style.
◦ Feigenbaum suggests a pervasive
improvement throughout the organization.
◦ According to Crosby, “Quality is the result of
a carefully constructed culture, it has to be
the fabric of the organization.”
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
5
Quality Culture



Successful organizations have a central
core culture around which the rest of the
company revolves.
It is important for the organization to have
a sound basis of core values into which
management and other employees will be
drawn.
Without this central core, the energy of
members of the organization will dissipate
as they develop plans, make decisions,
communicate, and carry on operations
without a fundamental criteria of relevance
to guide them.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
6
Creating TQM Culture
From Traditional Culture
 Hierarchical style
 Top down information flow




Inward quality focus
Functional focus
Short-term planning
Episodic improvements
Top down initiatives
Manage and delegate
Direct
Counsel
Functional and narrow scope
of jobs
 Enforcement
 Fire – fighting with few
individuals/group





To TQM Culture
 Participative style
 Top down, lateral and upward
information flow
 Customer defined quality focus
 Process focus
 A vision for the future
 Comprehensive/Continuous
improvements
 All staff involved and engaged
 Lead and Coach
 Empower
 Ownership and participation
 Integrated functions


Promoting mutual trust
Team initiatives group focussing on
continuous improvement
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
7
Corporate Culture (Definition)

The concept of corporate culture has been used in recent years to
develop and understand the concept of culture in connection with the
study of organizations.

Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society.

‘Corporate culture can be defined as a set of commonly held
attitudes, values, and beliefs that guide the behavior of an
organization's members’ (Martin, 1985).

Culture reflects assumptions about clients, employees, mission,
products, activities and assumptions that have worked well in the past
and which get translated into norms of behavior, expectations about
what is legitimate, desirable ways of thinking and acting. These are the
focus of its capacity for evolution and change’ (Laurent, 1990).
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
8
Factors Influencing Culture
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
9
Steps for Creating TQM Culture








Management accountability and a deep sense of
responsibility & commitment towards
employees is the starting point.
Total people involvement and empowerment
Communication
Training to employees
Management thoughts and action towards
delighting its customers
Removing organisational boundaries and internal
competition
Using fact based decision making
Use of Kaizen
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
10
Changing the culture


TQM is concerned with moving the focus of
control from outside the individual to within, the
objective being to make everyone accountable for
their own performance, and to get them
committed to attaining quality in a highly
motivated fashion.
Changing the Culture
• The culture of an organisation is formed by the beliefs, behaviours, norms,
dominant values, rules, and climate in the organisation.
• Each Organisation needs a vision (Guiding Philosophy).
• Everyone within the organisation has a role and must do their work
towards the common goals and objectives.
• TQM is concerned with moving the focus of control from the outside to
the inside of individuals and so everyone is accountable for her/his
performance.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
11
Changing the culture



The guiding philosophy drives the organization and
is shaped by the leaders through their thoughts and
actions.
The core values and beliefs represent the
organization’s basic principles about what is
important in business, its conduct, its social
responsibility and its response to changes in the
environment.
The purpose of the organization should be a
development from the core values and beliefs and
should quickly and clearly convey how the
organization is to fulfill its role.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
12
Resistance to cultural change
 People are afraid that the change will affect their way of
functioning.
 People perceive that they will lose their control over
things.
 There is a personal uncertainty that they will not be
able to live up to the expectations of others.
 The change may mean more work for them.
 There may be past resentments against management.
 They think that TQM will die its natural death after
sometime like several other concepts.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
13
Resistance to cultural change
 There is an attitude that TQM will go away if I
ignore it.
 They are unwilling to take ownership and feel
committed.
 They think it is somebody else’s responsibility.
 They have the attitude – first you change, then I
will.
 They think that others will find out that what I
have been doing over the years is wrong. I could
be penalized for my misdeeds.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
14
Communication
Communication is linked in the quality process.
The ability to communicate is a valuable skill at all
levels, from front-line supervisor to CEO.

How Employees Receive Information? The culture of
an organization can sometimes define how the employees
receive information. The following represents the ways in
which employees get their information:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Monthly town meeting between the CEO and staff
Monthly departmental meeting
Email
Members of the inner circle
Company newsletter
Memos
External customers who call with questions
Voice mail
Verbal and/or written feedback from a manager or superior
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
15
Communication
Communication is defined as the exchange of information
and understanding between two or more persons or
groups.
Note the emphasis on exchange and understanding.
Without understanding between sender and receiver
concerning the message, there is no communication.
All information is encoded, and prior agreement
must be reached onthe meaning of the code.
Quality must be carefully defined andmeasures
agreed upon.
 Communication downward cannot work
because it focuses on whatwe want to say.
Communication should be up & down.
 Employees should be encouraged to set
measurable goals.

TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
16
Communicating the quality strategy
◦ The essence of changing attitudes is to gain acceptance for
the need to change, and for this to happen it is essential to
provide relevant information, convey good practices, and
generate interest, ideas and awareness through excellent
communication processes.
◦ This change will require direct and clear communication from
the top management to all staff and employees, to explain the
need to focus on processes. Everyone will need to know
their roles in understanding processes and improving their
performance.
◦ An excellent way to accomplish this first step is to issue a
total quality message that clearly states top management’s
commitment to quality and outlines the role everyone must
play.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
17
Communicating the quality strategy
◦ This can be in the form of a quality policy or a specific statement
about the organization’s intention to integrate quality into the
business operations.
◦ Example 1: We can become a total quality organization only with your
commitment and dedication to improving the processes in which you
work. We will help you by putting in place a program of education,
training, and teamwork development, based on business and process
improvement, to ensure that we move forward together to achieve our
business goals.
◦ Example 2: We wish to convey to everyone our enthusiasm and
personal commitment to the total quality approach, and how much we
need your support in our mission of business improvement. We hope that
you will become as convinced as we are that business and process
improvement is critical for our survival and continued success.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
18
Communicating the quality strategy
The quality director or TQM coordinator should
then assist the senior management team toprepare
a directive. This must be signed by all business unit,
division, or process leaders, anddistributed to
everyone in the organization. The directive should
include the following:






Need for improvement.
Concept for total quality.
Importance of understanding business processes.
Approach that will be taken and people’s roles.
Individual and process group responsibilities.
Principles of process measurement.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
19
Communication Model
This communication model indicates the potential for problems through
environmental distractions, mismatches between sender and receiver (or
more correctly, decoder) in terms of attitudes – towards the information
and each other – vocabulary, time pressures, etc
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
20
Communicating the quality message
The people in most organizations fall into one of four
‘audience’ groups, each with particular general attitudes
towards TQM:
1.
Senior managers, who should see TQM as an
opportunity, both for the organization and themselves.
2.
Middle managers, who may see TQM as another burden
without any benefits, and may perceive a vested interest in
the status quo.
3.
Supervisors (first line or junior managers), who may
see TQM as another ‘flavor of the period’ or campaign, and
who may respond by trying to keep heads down so that it
will pass over.
4.
Other employees, who may not care, so long as they still
have jobs and get paid, though these people must be the
custodians of the delivery of quality to the customer and
own that responsibility.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
21
Communicating the quality message
Senior management needs to ensure that each group sees
TQM as being beneficial to them. Total quality training
material and support (whether internal from a quality
director and team or from external consultants) will be
of real value only if the employees are motivated to
respond positively to them. The implementation strategy
must then be based on two mutually supporting aspects:
1.
2.
‘Marketing’ any TQM initiatives.
A positive, logical process of communication designed to
motivate people (‘discovery’, affirmation, participation, and
team-based learning). The key medium for motivating the
employees and gaining their commitment to quality is
face-to-face communication and visible management
commitment.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
22
Methods of Communication




Verbal communication either between individuals or
groups, using direct or indirect methods, such as public
address and other broadcasting systems and
recordings.
Written communication in the form of notices,
bulletins, information sheets, reports, e-mail and
recommendations.
Visual communication such as posters, films, video,
internet/intranet, exhibitions, demonstrations, displays
and other promotional features. Some of these also call
for verbal and written communication.
Example, through the way people conduct themselves
and adhere to established working codes and
procedures, through their effectiveness as
communicators and ability to ‘sell’ good practices.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
23
Education & Training

Education and training can be a powerful stimulus
to personal development at the workplace, as well
as achieving improvements for the organization.

Education and training is the single most important factor
in actually improving quality and business performance,
once there has been commitment to do so.
For education and training to be effective, however, it
must be planned in a systematic and objective manner to
provide the right sort of learning experience.
Education and training must be continuous to meet not
only changes in technology but also changes in the
environment in which an organization operates, its
structure, and perhaps most important of all the people
who work there.


TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
24
Education & Training Cycle
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
25
Education & Training as part of the Quality policy




Every organization should define its policy in
relation to education and training.
The policy should contain principles and goals to
provide a framework within which learning
experiences may be planned and operated.
This policy should be communicated to all levels.
Example: We can become a total quality organization only with your
commitment and dedication to improving the processes in which you
work.We will help you by putting in place a program of education,
training, and teamwork development, based on business and process
improvement, to ensure that we move forward together to achieve our
business goals.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
26
Establish objectives and responsibilities for education and training
When attempting to set education and training objectives
three essential requirements must be met:
1.
2.
3.
Senior management must ensure that learning outcomes are
clarified and priorities set.
The defined education and training objectives must be
realizable and attainable.
The main objectives should be ‘translated’ for all functional
areas in the organization.
The following questions are useful first steps when
identifying education and training objectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.
How are the customer requirements transmitted through the
organization?
Which areas need improved performance?
What changes are planned for the future?
What are the implications for the process framework?
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
27
Establish the platform for a learning organization
The overall responsibility for seeing that education and
training is properly organized must be assumed by one
or more designated senior executives.
 All managers have a responsibility for ensuring that
personnel reporting to them are properly trained and
competent in their jobs.
 This responsibility should be written into every
manager’s job description.
 The question of whether line management requires
specialized help should be answered when objectives
have been identified.
 It is often necessary to use specialists, who may be
internal or external to the organization.

TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
28
Specify education and training needs
The following questions need to be answered:
 Who needs to be educated/trained?
 What competencies are required?
 How long will the education/training take?
 What are the expected benefits?
 Is the training need urgent?
 How many people are to be educated/trained?
 Who will undertake the actual education/ training?
 What resources are needed, e.g. money, people,
equipment, accommodation, outside resources?
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
29
Prepare education/training programs and materials


Senior management should participate in the creation
of overall programs, although line managers should
retain the final responsibility for what is implemented,
and they will often need to create the training
programs themselves.
Training programs should include:
◦ The training objectives expressed in terms of the desired
behavior.
◦ The actual training content.
◦ The methods to be adopted.
◦ Who is responsible for the various sections of the program?
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
30
Implement, monitor, & Assess education and training




The effective implementation of education and training
programs demands considerable commitment and
adjustment by the trainers and trainees alike.
Training is a progressive process, which must take into
account any learning problems of the trainees.
In order to determine whether further education or
training is required, line management should themselves
review performance when training is completed.
However good the training may be, if it is not valued
and built upon by managers and supervisors, its effect
can be severely reduced.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
31
Review effectiveness of education and training

Senior management will require a system whereby
decisions are taken at regular fixed intervals on:
◦
◦
◦
◦


The policy.
The education and training objectives.
The education/training organization.
The progress towards a learning organization.
Even if the policy remains constant, there is a
continuing need to ensure that new education and
training objectives are set either to promote work
changes or to raise the standards already achieved.
The education/ training organization should similarly be
reviewed in the light of the new objectives, and here
again it is essential to aim at continuous improvement.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
32
A systematic approach to education and training for quality
Education and training for quality should have, as its first
objective, an appreciation of the personal responsibility for
meeting the ‘customer’ requirements by everyone from the
most senior executive to the newest and most junior
employee.
 Responsibility for the training of employees in quality rests
with management at all levels and, in particular, the person
nominated for the co-ordination of the organization’s quality
effort.
 Education and training will not be fully effective, however,
unless responsibility for the deployment of the policy rests
clearly with the chief executive.
 One objective of this policy should be to develop a climate
in which everyone is quality conscious and acts with the
needs of the customer in mind at all times.

TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
33
A systematic approach to education and training for quality
The main elements of effective and systematic quality
training may be considered under four broad
headings:
1. Error/defect/problem prevention.
2. Error/defect/problem reporting and analysis.
3. Error/defect/problem investigation.
4. Review.


The emphasis should obviously be on error, defect, or
problem prevention.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
34
Error/defect/problem prevention
The following contribute to effective and systematic
training for prevention of problems in the organization:
An issued quality policy.
2. A written management system.
3. Job specifications that include quality requirements.
4. Effective steering committees, including
representatives of both management and employees.
5. Efficient housekeeping standards.
6. Preparation and display of maps, flow diagrams and
charts for all processes.
1.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
35
Error/defect/problem reporting and analysis

It will be necessary for management to arrange the
necessary reporting procedures, and ensure that those
concerned are adequately trained in these procedures.

All errors, rejects, defects, defectives, problems, waste,
etc. should be recorded and analyzed in a way that is
meaningful for each organization, bearing in mind the
corrective action programs that should be initiated at
appropriate times.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
36
Error/defect/problem investigation
The investigation of errors, defects, and problems can
provide valuable information that can be used in their
prevention. The following information is useful for the
investigation:
 Nature of problem.
 Date, time and place.
 Product/service with problem.
 Description of problem.
 Causes and reasons behind causes.
 Action advised.
 Action taken to prevent recurrence.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
37
Review of quality training
Review of the effectiveness of quality training programs
should be a continuous process.
 However, the measurement of effectiveness is a
complex problem.
 One way of reviewing the content and assimilation of a
training course or program is to monitor behavior
during quality audits.
 This review can be taken a stage further by comparing
employees’ behavior with the objectives of the qualitytraining program.
 Other measures of the training processes should be
found to establish the benefits derived.

TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
38
Starting where and for whom?
Education and training needs occur at four levels of an
organization:
1. Very senior management (strategic decision makers).
2. Middle management (tactical decision makers or
implementers of policy).
3. First level supervision and quality team leaders (on-thespot decision makers).
4. All other employees (the doers).
Neglect of education/ training in any of these areas will, at
best, delay the implementation of TQM and the improvements
in performance.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
39
Very senior management
The chief executive and his team of strategic policy
makers are of primary importance, and the role of
education and training here is to provide awareness
and instil commitment to quality.
 Executives responsible for marketing, sales, finance,
design, operations, purchasing, personnel, distribution,
etc. all need to understand quality.
 They must be shown how to define the policy and
objectives, how to establish the appropriate
organization, how to clarify authority, and generally how
to create the atmosphere in which total quality will
thrive.

TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
40
Very senior management
This is the only group of people in the organization that
can ensure that adequate resources are provided and
directed at:
1. Meeting customer requirements – internally and
externally.
2. Setting standards to be achieved – zero failure.
3. Monitoring of quality performance – quality costs.
4. Introducing a good quality management system –
prevention.
5. Implementing process control methods – SPC.
6. Spreading the idea of quality throughout the whole
workforce – TQM.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
41
Middle management

The basic objectives of management quality training should
be to make managers conscious and anxious to secure the
benefits of the total quality effort.

The middle managers should be provided with the technical
skills required to design, implement, review, and change the
parts of the quality management system that will be under
their direct operational control.

Middle management should receive comprehensive training
on the philosophy and concepts of teamwork, and the
techniques and applications of statistical process control
(SPC).
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
42
First-level supervision

There is a layer of personnel in many organizations which plays a
vital role in their inadequate performance – foremen and
supervisors – the forgotten men and women of industry and
commerce.

The first level of supervision is where the implementation of total
quality is actually ‘managed’.

Supervisors’ training should include an explanation of the principles
of TQM, a convincing exposition on the commitment to quality of
the senior management, and an explanation of what the quality
policy means for them.

The remainder of their training needs to be devoted to explaining
their role in the operation of the quality management system,
teamwork, SPC, etc., and to gaining their commitment to the
concepts and techniques of total quality.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
43
All other employees

Awareness and commitment at the point of production or service
delivery is just as vital as at the very senior level. If it is absent
from the latter, the TQM program will not begin; if it is absent from
the shop floor, total quality will not be implemented.

The training here should include the basics of quality and
particular care should be given to using easy reference points for
the explanation of the terms and concepts.

All employees should receive detailed training on the processes
and procedures relevant to their own work.

Obviously they must have appropriate technical or ‘job’ training,
but they must also understand the requirements of their
customers.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
44
Turning Educating & Training into Learning

Learning can be defined as a process in which individuals can
change their attitude to adopt a continuous development of
basic knowledge and skills in pursuit of total professionalism.

Effective action must be organized around a range of
systems and procedures to accomplish the goal.

The basic requirement of any effective learning process is,
therefore, the desire to learn the skills, to implement them
and to practice them in an appropriate context.

Continuous learning requires a sustained interest in learning
over time and relates to the improvement in learning ability
which is independent to the content being learned.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
45
QUALITY LEARNING

The key word in relation to continuous improvements
is learning. In order to communicate this to his
audience/readers, Deming changed the name of the
improvement cycle (the Deming cycle) from plan-docheck-act to plan-do-study/learn-act.

In the check phase of the improvement cycle, you have
to study the results in order to understand what were
the causes behind them.

This learning process is the most important part of the
continuous improvement process. Therefore, we will
discuss the learning process.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
46
Continuous Quality Learning Cycle

In general, quality learning is a continuous process that can be broken
anywhere in the learning systems of supply and customer service.

Deming cycle plan defines the learning process which ensures
documentation and sets measurable objectives against it.

The do executes the process and collects the information and knowledge
required.

The check analyses the information in a suitable format.

The act obtains corrective action using quality learning techniques and
methods and assesses future plans.

At the end of each cycle the process is either standardized or learning
targets are adjusted based on the analysis and the cycle continues.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
47
Learning Organizations & TQM

learning organizations are organizations where people continually
expand their capacity to create desired results, where new patterns of
thinking are nurtured and where people are continually learning how to
learn together.

learning organizations as being skilled at creating, acquiring and
transferring knowledge and then being able to modify behavior to reflect
this new knowledge and insight.

Both of these definitions imply a new way of thinking about how people
work together and the need for greater emphasis on reviewing current
and past experiences.

T QM, if practiced as a philosophy as well as a set of techniques, can be
a vehicle for organizational learning.

Quality is primarily associated with learning. There is a clear
philosophical link between systemic problem solving of a learning
organization and the quality movement.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
48
Learning Organizations & TQM
Garvin suggests that, to become a learning organization,
companies need to be skilled at the following five activities:
1. Systematic problem solving: Relates to the philosophy and
methods of the quality movement, relying on scientific
method rather than guesswork; uses actual data rather than
assumptions and simple statistical tools.
2. Experimentation with new approaches: Systematic searching for
and testing new knowledge; motivated by opportunity and
new perspectives and not by current difficulties.
3. Learning from their experiences and past history: A review of
successes and failures; reflecting and self-analysis.
4. Learning from experiences and best practices of others:
Benchmarking; looking outside the immediate environment;
openness to the outside world; environmental scanning.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
49
Learning Organizations & TQM
5.
Transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the
organization: Knowledge transferred quickly and
efficiently throughout the organization; mechanisms in
place to facilitate the process; written and oral reports;
site visits; tours; rotation programs; education and
training programs.
Learning is clearly an output of a successfully implemented
TQM program and a TQM initiative can only be regarded as
successful when a new working environment has been
created in which people are able to learn, share knowledge
and make contributions.
TQM - Spring 2010 - Khalid Dahleez
50
Summary Slide

The following Slides are for understanding
only (subject to indirect Questions): “ 13,
14”

Other slides are required and subjects to
any type of Questions
Total Quality Management - Spring 2010
51