Organizational Dynamix: Quality Improvement Programs

A Brief History

Understanding the origins of a philosophy are important, but this historical account will be brief.  Most quality improvement philosophies and models are outgrowths of W. Edwards Deming's Plan-Do-Study-Act approach to quality improvement (QI).  The path to QI was a long path, with underpinnings stemming from Deming's earlier career as a statistician in the 1930s.  Adapting and applying these theories to quality improvement in post-WWII Japan the 1950s, the QI models and methods that are the framework of today's QI programs today took shape.

Selecting the Right Approach 

Defining a quality improvement program for an organization begins with understanding the business environment and the organization's culture.  Despite the adaptations that have taken place to apply various models in service industries, there are some models that are simply not an appropriate fit and remain best suited to manufacturing businesses.  So, what do you need to consider in regard to the business environment and culture?

• What is the nature of the business (service, manufacturing, government, non-profit, etc.)?
• What is the method of operation of the business (production driven or process driven)?
• What is the business structure (multinational, distributed sites, single site, etc.)?
• How is authority structured (Executives run the business, divisions operate independently, etc.)?
• How empowered and involved in the business are non-managerial employees?
• How well defined are the organization's vision, mission, and values?

Implementing QI

After careful selection of the right QI method, model, and tools it is important to define a QI plan for the organization.  QI should be supported across the organization and consistently applied throughout.  When this is not the case, QI efforts fail.  For this reason, it is best to work with professionals to plan, implement and maintain QI.  What is the risk if you assign a small team within the company to do this instead?  The risk is ending up with a QI project with a short lifespan that never really gains the momentum that will allow the business to realize the benefits of a well planned, supported, and executed QI program.  

To sum it up; take an intentional and well thought out approach to QI that includes a plan for sustaining the program over time.

Organizational Dynamix for Business Sustainability: F3

What makes an organization sustainable?  This article focuses on three keys to maintaining relevance over time.  While there are certainly more than three keys to sustainability, F3 provides the business professional with an easy to remember and manageable starting point to work from.

Foresight

Foresight is not a new concept; rather, it is a tried and true business best practice.  Foresight comes from keeping a finger on the pulse of the organization's industry, tracking with customer needs and wants, and reading the domestic and foreign climate.  The ability to see the direction in which to take the company for success is not an innate ability, it is largely a matter of being cognizant of multiple climates (e.g., market, economic, political, and consumer), recognizing the opportunities worth taking and identifying the risks to manage on the horizon. As the captain of a ship charts the best course based on the climate and other factors; organizational leaders must continually monitor the climate in the sea of business. 

Fluidity

We're not talking about the recent organizational fluidity business model here.  That is a concept that is controversial in the business and organizational development literature, as addressed by Georg and Jorg.  What we are talking about is fluidity of the workforce.  A recurrent theme at the recent Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology conference was fluidity of the workforce, indicating that science-practitioners are beginning to recognize that organizational change is best managed in a proactive, rather than a reactive manner.  Fluidity of the workforce is concentrating on the skills, knowledge and abilities of an organizations' workforce and capitalizing on those organizational resources to maneuver the organization as needed to remain relevant and reactive to the changes in market, economic, political, and consumer demands.  

Flexibility

Being able to harness and capitalize on the fluidity of the workforce requires the organization to maintain a reasonable amount of flexibility of function.  This form of flexibility is not a business form, rather it is a principle of the organization's climate.  Leadership must foster a culture conducive to change to have flexibility of function.  In such a culture, employees feel safe taking reasonable risks that allow creativity and innovation in the organization.  Employees learn from their mistakes and improve, finding what works from what doesn't work.  In this type of an environment, business units can exercise flexibility of function to maneuver the organization into the optimum position as identified by foresight.