Yonatan Reshef
School of Business
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 2R6 CANADA

American managers have become enamored with TQM following the NBC program, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that was aired in June of 1980.  TQM gurus have been clear about their expectations of a quality-based ideal-type organization where every effort is made to stay close to the customers and internalize their needs, preferences, and expectations; quality becomes a common language of problem identification and problem solving; quality is the competitive strategy; quality is integrated into the corporate-wide control system of goals, plans, and actions; a well-defined problem-solving methodology is established; there are extensive training activities which are tied to quality improvement; all employees are involved in quality improvements; there is a heavy emphasis on cross-functional cooperation to achieve quality improvement objectives; and customer needs are sometimes anticipated even before customers are aware of them (Robert Cole. 1998. "Learning from the Quality Movement: What did and what didn't Happen and Why?" California Management Review, 41: 43-73).

1. Is TQM a theory?  Deming emphasizes the importance of theory to effective management.  Theory makes it possible to predict future  and understand past and present events. It follows that without theory there is no management.  For Deming, a theory of management seems to be tantamount to "profound knowledge," that is appreciation of a system, knowledge about variation, understanding of the theory of knowledge, and a deep understanding of human behavior.  A scientific theory, on the other hand, is a tool that makes it possible to predict the occurrence of certain events given the behaviors of specific antecedents, and understanding the reasons for past and current events.  Seen this way, TQM is not a coherent theory.  Rather, it is a story with a (more or less) known beginning, a wishful ending, and a thick and messy plot.

The upshot is, TQM is not a sceintific theory.  However, it can be viewed as a paradigm, a theory of life.  It provides a set of assumptions on how an orgnaization should be run economically and socially.  It provides very useful information on the role management, workers, customers, and suppliers should play.  It gives us a good idea on desired and undesired practices and behaviors, how we should view an organization, the role of quality in business strategy, etc.

2. TQM's theoretical ambiguity breeds practical uncertainty.  The middle part of TQM, the plot that should take users from the beginning to the coveted ending (i.e., implementation/TQM becomes the way we operate), is rich with practices, processes, n-point lists, and enlightening philosophical notions about the roles and relationships of people with other people within and without the employing organizations.  However, the "gospel" fails to provide a clear path to reaching desired goals.  TQM's theoretical vagueness breeds practical ambiguity, which renders the implementation process a challenge.  This ambiguity manifests itself in several ways.  At a most basic level, TQM advocates provide no guidelines for implementation.  How should management enroll employees/unions in the TQM vision and campaign?  How should management encourage employee creativity and, at the same time, control the production system?  How can fear be driven out of the North American workplace where job security is a rarity, and downsizing a prevalent HRM practice?  How does the notion of continuous improvement, the core of TQM, squares with the request for standardization?

TQM advocates fail to deal with the effects on the employment relationship of the introduction of TQM.  Implementation may affect the mix, content, status and number of jobs, and employee entitlements.  This may introduce anxiety to the employment relationship that may be detrimental to the implementation process.

The meaning of "teamwork," a core element in TQM, is unclear.  Does it mean self-managing groups of workers whereby members are allowed to decide on work methods, pace, and personnel issues?  Or, does it mean a new form of control, whereby a small number of highly disciplined employees are grouped under the direction of a management-appointed team leader?  The small group may thus become a mechanism to secure worker consent for management policies.  Similarly, what is the meaning of "coach," the new role managers should assume?  How should managers step out of their traditional roles and become coaches?

TQM experts advocate abandoning traditional HRM practices, such as individual-based evaluation and reward systems.  Yet, they do not suggest any clear alternatives.  It is important to create HRM systems that are consistent with the overall thrust of TQM and, at the same time, with the North American culture that puts a premium on individualism.

3. Paradigm issues.  TQM advocates fail to recognize that each of the different workplace groups may react differently to TQM's promises/threats.  The reason being, each group operates out of its own paradigm regarding the TQM intervention, its own understanding of the important variables involved in the TQM transformation, and its own perception of the likely sequence of events once the change process is initiated.

Paradigms, are cognitive structures, or frameworks, that people use to impose structure on and impart meaning to events.  Or, paradigms are self inflicted rules that set an emotional and cognitive boundary to our thinking and feeling.  Paradigms thus are data reduction mechanisms derived from the perceiver's past experience.  They guide people to attend to some aspects of their current experience and ignore others; they also guide subsequent behavior.  Paradigms make us know how to behave without knowing how we know.

People who are accustomed to one particular paradigm often have great difficulty adopting, or even understanding, a new one.  Rather than immediately accepting a new perspective, even when there are problems with an old one, people often try to fit information that seems ambiguous to them into their preexisting paradigm to preserve their existing cognitive and emotional structures.  This is why, often, subordinates deduce superiors' intentions from the subordinates' own fears.  Unless the new approach is convincingly and coherently articulated, it may have little chance of making the expected impact.

In addition, multiple paradigms due to differing positions (top management, middle management, clerical employees, line employees, etc.) and demographics are likely to generate resentment as well as   conflicts.  The reason being, as mentioned before, each of the different workplace groups may operate out of its own paradigm regarding the TQM transformation and consequences.  For example, top management might be mainly interested in increased productivity; front-line employees may be more interested in keeping their jobs; skilled workers may wish to preserve their status vis-a-vis the rest of the workforce.

If none of the groups appreciates the different perspectives of the other groups, the intervention will likely intensify existing conflicts, and/or create new ones.  Unfortunately, change agents, such as consultants, may overestimate the similarities among the various group paradigms and thus might be unprepared for conflict.  When a paradigmatic conflict occurs, a comparatively powerful perspective, likely the one held by top management, is likely to prevail.

If a paradigmatic change is likely to succeed change agents must not only propose an alternative unifying paradigm, but also initiate new ways of handling conflicts that are consistent with the new paradigm that acknowledges the merit of consultation, cooperation, respect, and the existence of different perspectives. 

4. Context.  Organizations are influenced and shaped by the social world in which they are embedded.  Cultural effects, external and internal to the organization, on TQM implementation should be understood.  Looking externally, TQM should be compatible with the larger societal system.  For example, in North America, as long as the labor-management relationship is governed by an adversarial philosophy, relying on a single supplier may give some employees a political advantage.  Yet, TQM writers assume that industrial conflicts are either do not exist or  have only little effect on the production process, so little that TQM experts hardly mention such conflicts. 

The education system offers an example where the quality of the product may not be sufficient to attract customers.  The success of the education system depends not only on the quality of the education it offers, but also on factors such as peer pressure, family circumstances, the economic situation, school location.

Measures of individual performance (e.g., ranking, evaluation, rewarding, status) are a cornerstone of our social world, the one that lies outside business.  Can TQM disregard this, and other, macro social constraints? 

Looking internally, before launching TQM, managers should investigate how the organization culture may affect (moderate) the relationship between quality improvement and competitiveness.  Are they themselves ready for the transformation?  Is their management team on-board?  Are their employees going to pull in the expected direction?  Will the customer buy into the new system?  An internal factor that can influence TQM implementation is tenured and/or professional employees.  Such employees may resist the change process with management finding it difficult to sell these employees on the idea.  Deming (Out of The Crisis: 85-6) believes that "the 3 per cent that apparently don't care will erode itself by peer pressure."  This scenario, however, should be confirmed. 

Moreover, implicitly, TQM is geared toward high performers, that is people who are willing and able to assume new responsibilites, learn new skills, desire to be empowered, work in teams, etc.  Is there a room for low-performers in a TQM-based work system?

Bottom line, we may need to adopt a contingency approach to TQM implementation.

5. Built-in Contradictions.  TQM contains contradictions that should be acknowledge and addressed.  Below, I provide a few examples:

• standardization vs. continuous improvement
• do it right the first time vs. innovate, take risks
• quality enhancing practices may upset customers (security checks at airports; no smoke rules; phone calls to collect feedback info)
  
• commitment to the customer vs. commitment to the bottom line
• empowerment vs. control
• empowerment vs. employees who do not want to be empowered/employees who ask for more empowerment
  
• management by fact vs. hard data may not tell the full story; hard data may tell a wrong story; not every important element can be measured; not everything that is measured is important
  
• you are not smarter than your customers vs. exceed customer expectations
  

6. Does TQM fit with our society's outlook?  TQM is a long-term organizational transformation.  A transformation of such magnitude creates new competencies and at the same time renders existing ones obsolete.  This may make the achievement of a short-term success difficult.  At the same time, our natural tendency is to look for short, intensive bursts of activity in search of breakthroughs that represent a whole new approach to a problem.

Another potentially problematic aspect of the long-term nature of the TQM transformation is that if the market shifts suddenly in a way that threatens the company's existence, the long-term is likely to  give way to the urgent.  To deal with what is urgent, the organization may revert to the old ways of doing business (a survival instinct).  Once a long-term strategy has been shelved, it may be hard to get it back on-track and re-generate the commitment necessary to move it forward.

Therefore, whereas it may take years before TQM comes to full fruition, an organization may have less time to arrive at a-point-of-no-return where, notwithstanding mounting pressures to revert to the "dethroned" system, TQM cannot be undone.

TQM gurus preach the elimination of individual ranking.  Yet, society "admires" ranking and find it a very effective means to dealing with individuals (e.g., job applicants, grant competitions, applications to university).

7. Getting bogged down in process.  During the gestation period of the TQM transformation, employees and managers are involved in extensive process (procedures, measurements, data analyses, training, team meetings, presentations) that may not be directly related to the company's core mission.  This process should be managed carefully lest it becomes an end in itself.

8. Size.  The transformation can be very costly and, therefore, may be less feasible in small businesses.  Yet, small businesses are the fastest growing segment of the Canadian economy.

9. Unions.  The role of unions under TQM presents a conundrum.  According to Deming (Out of The Crisis: 47), "company unions are the rule."  Yet, Japanese-style enterprise unions, or any other version of company-controlled unions, is forbidden by law in Canada (and the USA).