This is actually Total Quality Management.

Plis answer DISCUSSION ASSIGNMENT 1

DISCUSSION ASSIGNMENT 1 FACTUAL REVIEW QUESTIONS The Indifferent Manager 1. Define the expression quality culture. The efforts of Public Communications Inc., to implement 2. Explain why the implementation of total quality plants . However, the third plant just didn't seem to be able total quality had exceeded expectations at two of its three requires cultural change. to get things off the ground. The plant manager, Merrill 3. List and describe the steps involved in laying the foun- Stephens, was under a lot of pressure because his colleagues dation for a quality culture. in the other two plants were succeeding and he was floun- 4. What are the characteristics shared by companies that dering. He didn't know what the problem was, and he didn't have a quality culture? know how to find out. 64 Quality Culture: Changing Hearts, Minds, and Attitudes Merrill decided to call together a group of line DISCUSSION QUESTION employees and ask for their input. Immediately, he sensed Discuss the following question in class or outside of class their reticence. Clearly, they had something to say but with your fellow students didn't want to say it. Finally, an employee who had been with the company for more than 20 years spoke up. "Mr. 1. Have you ever been involved in an effort that was half- Stephens, we're just going through the motions to keep hearted because the leader of the effort didn't seem to corporate off your back," he said. "We know you don't be enthusiastic about it? If so, what happened? If not, buy this total quality nonsense." Merrill had to admit discuss what it means for the person in charge in a given that the employees were reading him like a book. Sure, he situation to set the tone. had followed the implementation guidelines to the letter. His executive team was the quality council. Policies had ENDNOTES been developed and deployed. Employees were working in teams, and training in the use of quality tools was being 1. Brien Palmer, "Selling Quality Ideas to Management." provided. The problem was that Merrill himself was just Quality Progress 39, no. 5. Retrieved from www.asq.org going through the motions. He didn't really believe in on February 15, 2011. total quality and had hoped it would turn out to be just 2. Joseph M. Juran and Joseph A. Defco, Juran's Quality one more corporate-mandated initiative that would fizzle and eventually go away. Handbook, 6th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010). 267. He had only 4 more years until retirement and didn't 3. Ibid., 268 need this in his life right now. His managers, middle man- 4. Ibid., 269. agers, supervisors, and employees knew him and sensed his indifference and halfheartedness. Part of the organizational 5. Rick Mauer, "The Resources You Need to Lead Change Without Resistance." Retrieved from www.beyon- culture at this plant was that the employees took their lead from the plant manager. If Merrill was really behind an dresistance.com on March 1, 2011 effort, they got behind it. If he wasn't, they didn't. When 6. Juran and Defeo, Juran's Quality Handbook, 312. they accurately sensed his indifference to total quality, they 7. Frank M. Gryna, Quality Planning and Analysis, 4th ed. responded accordingly. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), 68-75