Juran on Leadership

     In an address on 7 October 1992, Joe Juran noted that the
vast majority of companies and agencies that undertook the
quality journey during the 1980s failed. The most important
reason, according to Joe, was the failure of the upper managers
to make quality happen. He listed the following as tasks that
organization leaders need to do personally, tasks they cannot
delegate :

     1. Take charge of the quality journey.

     2. Form and be an active member of a quality council.

     3. Take an instrumental role in the drafting of the vision
     and the quality policy.

     4. Assemble and push relentlessly for quality goals.

     5. Actively deploy those goals with the rest of the work
     force (what the Japanese call playing catch ball).

     6. Provide resources for the quality journey.

     7. Launch quality improvement initiatives in upper level
     management processes.

     8. Review organizational performance against the established
     quality goals.

     9. Change the reward and recognition system so that quality
     is recognized and rewarded and anti-quality performance is
     not.

     10. Lead the change effort so that people in the workforce
     do not feel threatened.

     11. Actively avoid a situation in which downturns lead to
     layoffs.

Comment: Joe never used the word "leadership."  He's a statisti-
cian. Statisticians don't talk much about leadership.  My trans-
lation of what he had to say is that you can't manage quality;
you have to lead it.  And leadership is one of those things in
life that can't be delegated.

                                        --Tom Glenn
                                        The TQM BBS
                                        301-585-1164