[This file is the text of a series of messages Bob Moran posted
in the TQM Conference on the TQM BBS. It recaps "The Portable MBA
Series," "Total Quality Management; Strategies and techniques
Proven at Today's Most Successful Companies." Steven George and
Arnold Weimerskirch. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1994.  $27.95
retail. In Bob's words: "In my mind I was presenting a book
report in the Pete Seeger sense: this is what I learned in school
today. I tried to take the materials in the book and present them
in way that would be interesting to our colleagues.  I have not
plagiarized to the best of my knowledge.  The ideas came from the
come from the book, but I tried to use my words and my phrases.]

                                MATURE TQM

     Often enmeshed in birthing the process, overlooked is the
coming epoch of maturity; a time when terrible twos are ended;
when the conflicts within teams and among individuals have
respite; when the team wars are hazy history, and when no one
recalls or associates with the time lost sleuthing hidden
motivation in all that was transpiring.  In short, there is time
when the quality is well managed and the management is of highest
quality.  As in all things, a vision of destination is not a road
map, but without vision all road maps and no road map are equal.
     In the matured organization executives have a systems view
of their organization.  They see interrelationships, not things. 
Change is a mosaic of processes and people.  The shifting,
understood patterns of change are controlled.  Controlled not
because the ton and a half ape is atop all the processes and
information, but because:
     *    Customers and their requirements are known;
     *    Processes translating those requirements into action
          are well defined, understood by all, and improving;
     *    Self control and management by fact result from
          institutionalized key measures; and
     *    Improvement is continuous--everyone is included and
          focused on the customer.
     In the matured organization it all begins and ends with the
head and tail of the same coin: customer focus, customer
satisfaction.  The requirements of customers, upon which all are
focused, are also measures of satisfaction.  Changes in
requirement, changes in satisfaction change the business of the
organization.
     In the matured organization quality planning and business
planning are inseparable; there are no distinctions.  Environs
for ceaseless improvement are clear: Quality is indigenous to
everything everyone does all the time.  Planning involves
everyone (i.e., suppliers and customers, internal and external);
planning benefits from the involvement of all, and is made
possible because everyone is trained to plan.
     Planning is based on data and information accurately
describing customer needs and organizational capability.  "The
plan" is grounded in reality and reflects aspirations all can
support.  Because the goals are universally supported within the
organization, improvement of processes is concentrated first and
primarily on the most important processes.  And through the
strategic planning process, all organizational activity is
aligned making it possible to concentrate resources on the
strategies and goals critical to success:  Everyone knows what is
important to the organization, to the organizational components,
to the teams on which one serves, and to oneself.
     In the matured organization management works.  Management
includes all the people and all the processes because it is the
system that is managed; it is the quality that is managed. 
People mostly manage themselves.  The patriarch in charge is
extinct.  Managers see a totality from, and including, external
suppliers to, and including, satisfied customers.  The mosaic
within the purview of management is lush and vibrant with
planning, measurement, analysis, improvement, and inclusion.
     In the matured organization competitive advantage sprouts
from inclusion; everyone is involved.  No longer worrisome, no
longer contented are the realizations that those who do the work
are in the best position to protect and improve quality, to
eliminate waste, and to save time.  Those who do the work are the
perfect instruments for change.  They know the processes; they
are trained well, and they are empowered to act decisively.
     In action, employees in the matured organization are members
of self-directed teams.  They plan, hire, improve, and control. 
They work with the customers.  They work with the suppliers. 
They are, in short, responsible for the health of the
organization.  In introspect, they know and practice personal
quality.  They treat each other and all others with respect and
deference.  [For elaboration see "rule, golden."]
     In the matured organization all employees have the knowledge
necessary to work in teams, to collect and analyze data, to
initiate activity, and to satisfy customers.  Collectively and
individually they have the knowledge needed to be responsible and
effective with their empowerment.  Training is continuous as
improvement is continuous.  Training in the fundamentals of
quality (relative to organizational goals) is universal.  It is
augmented with specified training specific to the needs of
components, teams, or individuals.  And it is constantly in flux,
responding and anticipating new customer requirements, new ways
to satisfy, new conditions, new realities.
     In the matured organization compensation and recognition are
aligned with organizational aspirations.  Alignment of
compensation and recognition, like all the other aspects of the
organization, begins and ends with the head and tail of the
aforementioned coin: customer focus, customer satisfaction. 
Employees are involved with the design and constant improvement
of compensation and recognition.  Recognition and reward are
subordinate to the attainment of team goals, not to individual
accomplishment.  They are based on measured team performance from
data developed, collected, and controlled by the teams, by the
employees.
     In the matured organization employees are the paramount
asset.  It is clear the work force, interacting with customers
and suppliers, turns customer needs into products and services,
develops, collects, and analyzes the data that are used in the
measures that improve the processes.  The work force is
recognized to be the determining factor in success and failure
and to be the competitive edge.  Management serves the work force
in the matured organization.

     In the matured organization bringing customers into the
organization is intense work.  Contact with customers is
continuous.  It involves many employees--perhaps them all. 
Mechanisms for contact are many and varied, formal and catch-as-
catch-can.  Executive responsibility includes interaction with
peers at customer organizations.  Lessons learned from these
interactions are shared at the executive levels and communicated
to everyone.  Planning and designing include customers.
     In the matured organization the design process is not a
closed, aristocratic undertaking; no stone tablets are delivered
to a tired and untidy multitude in waiting.  All organizational
components converge and participate.  Customers are part of the
team, as are suppliers.  The exchange of information may be
unencumbered, but the goals are rock solid: satisfy the customer,
design quality into the soul of the service (or the product), and
produce the service in ever decreasing time cycles.
     A matured organization is customer-driven.  Because it is
customer driven, it is organized to discharge the processes that
meet customer requirements.  Processes that meet customer
requirements are at the organization's core; the organization is
organized around them.  This is possible because:
     *    Customer requirements are understood;
     *    Processes have owners, and they have teams;
     *    Processes serve customer requirements;
     *    Processes are defined, mapped, measured; and
     *    There are plans to improve the processes.
     The process oriented thinking in the matured organization is
mandated by circumstance and reality: "What are our processes for
understanding the customer, for communicating the customer's
requirements throughout the organization, for determining key
measures, for tracking them, for planning, for inclusion, for
managing processes, for everything key to our survival and our
vitality?  How do we do it?  Why do we do it?"  Repetitious
questioning asked ad nauseam--except for changing answers.  All
the questioning is in the context of satisfying the customer. 
(Without that context, the questions have no purpose and they
consume a lot of time.)
     In the matured organization the basics of improvement remain
constant regardless of issue, regardless of participants. 
Service emanates from the intertwined activity of customers,
employees, and suppliers.  The personal quality of treating
everyone with respect stretches without strain from executive
suites to cubicals.  It includes partnerships with customers and
suppliers.  The treatment of, and the relationship with suppliers
is on par with that of employees and customers; none of whom are
commodities or children.  Suppliers are integral and important
parts of the systems managed.  And because they are, and because
they must be as committed to quality as the matured organization
if they are to be integral to it, in their essence they are
indistinguishable from the organization served.

     In the matured organization actions are based on reliable
data, information, and analysis.  Data and information come from
all segments of the organization, customers, and suppliers as one
would anticipate.  They come also from competitors and from the
world beyond the business environs.  Within the matured
organization key measures tethered to customer and organizational
requirements for performance are a lucid, unprejudiced foundation
for alignment of process with goals.
     Only what can be controlled is measured.  The emphasis is on
actual performance versus expectations.  Data are easy to
collect, easy to understand.  Management initiates data;
employees initiate data.  Data are expected and reviewed.  They
are used to improve.  Delivers of mail are not assassinated, and
improvement is rewarded.
     In the matured organization benchmarking is an applied
science.  It is a part of the continuous review of assumptions
and processes that are the quintessence of the organization.  The
process of benchmarking is well delineated, but it can, at times,
be informal.  The matured organization knows exactly what it is
doing and uses benchmarking to learn how the best do what is
does.  The purpose is improvement.
     The matured organization assesses the entire business
system.  The Baldrige criteria are an important tool.  The
assessment process in the matured organization has been
undertaken many times, and it will be again.  The matured
organization understands the process creates and hones systems
thinking: the assessment criteria are metabolized and applied
routinely; consideration is more critical; questions are better;
causes (not fixes) are sought and identified, and improvement is
made more natural.  The assessment process improves personal
quality.

[Source: (from "The Portable MBA Series") "Total Quality
Management; Strategies and techniques Proven at Today's Most
Successful Companies.  Steven George and Arnold Weimerskirch. 
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1994.  $27.95 retail.]