Business Excellence Model - Essay Example

Business Excellence Model Organizations are ‘structures’ with a ‘collage’ of individuals doing their allocated work under the supervision of a leader, for the benefit of the organization as well as them. These employees will normally be apportioned into different departments for better arrangement and streamlining of work. These departments and its constituent employees will be involved in many processes, which will be initiated by the leader or the management team. The main function of the departments and the employees is to successfully accomplish those processes with quality. Quality is the key because any process completed without the expected quality will be abhorred by the intended customers, leading to problems for the organization. So, Total Quality Management (TQM) is the management function, which should be incorporated in all the processes that will happen in an organization. Furthermore, if Excellence is inbuilt into that TQM, then there will be optimal quality in all the processes, making organization’s every initiative a successful endeavour. So, this paper by focusing on the term “Excellence” from the perspective of TQM, will discuss how excellence can be managed optimally in an organization. Understanding the term Excellence According to princeton.edu, Excellence can be defined as the “quality of excelling and also possessing good qualities of highest degree”. The term gives the same meaning when analyzed from the organizational perspective as well. That is, when the organization produces products or offers services, they have to incorporate quality in it. Only if there is quality, it can succeed, otherwise it will be disliked by the customers. While trying to maintain that quality, the organization will also or should also try to achieve excellence. This state of excellence could be some thing that is set by the organization themselves or by certain external agencies. So, only if organizations achieve excellence in quality, it can reach the ‘minds’ of the customers, then entice them and eventually ‘push’ them to buy the organization’s products or use their services. “Quality is ensuring everything we do has the customer in mind... Quality is about building reputation, performance and an attitude of winning in everything we do.” (Zafirovski) Excellence Models The leader or the management team should always put a lot of emphasis on the concept of TQM, to provide a quality end product or service to the customer. TQM is “an organizational undertaking to improve the quality of manufacturing and service. It focuses on obtaining continuous feedback for making improvements and refining existing processes over the long term” (Pcmag.com). When this TQM function is carried out by the organizations to improve quality, they will try to achieve “excellence”. That is, organizations while implementing TQM will follow certain guidelines to achieve excellence, which are set by Excellence models. So, Excellence models are actually a set of guidelines or standards, an organization can follow to achieve quality. There are different Excellence models created indigenously in different countries. “Frameworks to guide your organisation towards achieving success exist in various forms across the world -- we call these Excellence Models” (excellencemodels.org). The EFQM Excellence Model is the model which is followed by the European organizations. The EFQM Excellence Model was introduced at the beginning of 1992 and it is now the most widely used organisational framework in Europe, becoming the basis for the majority of national and regional Quality Awards (efqm.org). Another important model is the “4P” model, which can be used for achieving organizational excellence (OE) (Dahlgaard-Park, 1999a, b). The basic assumption behind the model is that OE is a result of building excellence into the following “4P” – people, partnership, processes and products (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2007, p.372). As mentioned above, various countries have also formulated excellence models like the American model called The “Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence framework”, Australia’s “Australian Business Excellence Framework”, “The Japan Quality Award’s assessment criteria”, etc. Despite their different originations, all the models including European centric EFQM sets mostly similar standards of excellence. That is, all the models, without any major differences, stipulate similar standards for the organizations to follow, and importantly to maximize their excellence in quality. So, excellence can be managed optimally in the favour of the organizations, if the organizations follow certain standards based on the Excellence models. Role of the Leaders and the Management team in managing excellence Excellence can be managed optimally, only if the leader firstly imbibes it, in his/hers own functioning. Then only, he/she can set example and imbue it, in his/hers employees. The success or failure of any organization depends on the role, the leader plays. The leader is the one who can lead humans under him/her to ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’. So, if the leader follows set standards regarding quality, he/ she can “seduce” the workers to follow the same quality standards of the excellence model. “He had to seduce the employees into a situation in which they had no choice but to rethink their identity” (Schein, 2004, p.306). “Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people” (Rockefeller). So, leaders’ behaviours will largely determine if core values regarding many issues particularly TQM will be diffused and will become a part of the organizational culture (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 1999). Xerox’s MD David Kearns did exactly this, when its products particularly photocopying machines faced a downslide in sales, due to its same style of functioning without any changes. To correct the problem, he once opined that “We are determined to change significantly the way we have been doing business.” (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2007, p.376) Managing Excellence by incorporating it at recruitment and training stage When prospective employees are being recruited, they should be cross-checked to know their affinity to quality aspects. This should be very particular for the personnel, who man the quality department. If the recruited employees fall short in the quality aspects, he/she be trained or coached or mentored to manage excellence in quality. “Impart greater know-how and effectiveness through coaching and people will work smarter. (Luecke, 2004). W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran did that exactly as they coached many Japanese companies, and if ever there were a Dream Team on quality in the workplace, it would be made up of them (Landesberg, 1999). So, organizations should recruit “the right people,” and also train them right values and competencies regarding excellence in quality (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2007, p.383). Xerox for example, struggled to hold on to its position as world leader in 1970’s, when competitors reduced its market share with cheap products. To counter this domination, Xerox showed that buying its product will be very safe, as it followed the Six Excellence criteria including Human Resource management to recruit and train optimal employees, who will provide quality products. Managing excellence as the main vision After recruiting and training the employees and setting personal examples, leaders can manage excellence by focusing the employees on quality, as one of the main visions for the organization to achieve. “The start of inspiring (literally ‘to breathe life into’) the vision of the learning organization.” (Senge 1990, p.340). This single focus on quality as the company’s vision, mission or philosophy will surely motivate or even push the employees to achieve quality by managing excellence Managing excellence as a form of Teamwork For the excellence to be managed optimally, the employees should be allowed to work as a team. This way, the teams can be imbued with TQM aspects en masse and importantly drive them to do the work, they are currently doing with excellence. “Stick to the knitting, meaning that the excellent companies stay close to the business they know (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2007, p.373). American Energy Company also did this to improve his TQM, “the Company has generally organized itself into multi-skilled teams to develop projects” (Grant). Integrating the management of excellence as form of organizational culture The workers like the five different fingers in one’s hand will be different from one another having different characters, attitudes, education, background etc, etc…and the unison of these different humans under a single organization to reach a target is, and will always be a difficult proposition. As these different humans could only create a different working culture, the success rate will be minimal. And, if a common and feasible working culture is ‘operationalised’, through out the organization particularly in the aspect or TQM, the organization will be able to manage excellence optimally. The ‘script’ for this ‘success story’ can only be scripted, by an effective leader. Normally, organizational culture is created by the shared experience of the group working, but it is the leader who initiates this process by imposing his or her beliefs, values, and assumptions at the outset (Schein 1978, 1983). And there are many ways; an optimum work culture can be formed in an organization with leaders playing the prominent role. The leader as a founder of an organization will have to create a culture incorporating the excellence component, and then as the MD or CEO needs to manage and implement that culture. “Leading in a culture of change means creating a culture: (not just a structure) of change” (Fullan, 2001). Then importantly, if that culture has to be modified according to the needs and realities of the organization particularly in managing excellence, the leader has to tune it. That is, “It is clear that the implementation of a TQM initiative such as the EFQM Excellence Model involves a culture change, and the cultural realities of an organisation need to be understood. It is advocated that a cultural assessment should take place and that, subsequently, a contingency-sensitive approach to implementation should be employed in which the implementation approach is tailored for the organisation” (Davies, 2007, p.384). But, sometimes excellence can be managed, only if the existing but failing organizational culture is changed and replaced by a optimum one. “Cultural changes sometimes involve a complex process of replacing an existing paradigm or way of thinking with another.” (DeSimone, Werner & Harris, 2002, p.594). So, the organization to manage excellence has to formulate and implement an organizational culture, incorporating the set standards of Excellence models (Zairi 2005). If it is done that way, the employees will follow it en masse without dissenting to it. Toyota did this by creating an optimal organizational culture based on a set of 14 principles and the 4P model. So, when the principles became practice in the organization culture, every strategy was automatically and optimally executed (greathumancapital.wordpress.com) Involving workers productively and managing excellence optimally In organizations, the leaders or the management team should involve all the employees from lower level staff in all the processes including the TQM process that may take place inside the organization. Optimum Management involves a process where lower management are invited to comment and come up with suggestions for improvement of the company’s strategic plan (Kondo, 1995).That is, the leader or the management team should place their thoughts, strategies, targets, organizational goals, etc, for discussion among the workers. Then importantly should elicit their suggestions, ideas or even criticisms, for consideration and implementation. This way the workers as a form of group will contribute productively in making correct decisions. “Good decision-making starts from the right place” (Paul & Elder, 2006). That is, the workers can input their gained knowledge and experience in the different steps of quality management. This strategy will have unexpected at the same time favourable results, because one may never know from where, when and importantly from whom a great idea could come. “Dont tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results” (Patton). Also, participation in goal-setting was found to be an effective method for enhancing goal commitment (Latham, Locke & Erez, 1998). So, involving and allowing co-workers to play a part in the different processes including in the management of excellence would surely yield optimum results. Conclusion Unison of humans with an urge to usher an organization into a successful endeavour will actualize, if the organization incorporates quality in all aspects of its management. Achieving excellence in Total Quality Management, by managing excellence inside organizations is one of the crucial works of the leader and the employees, and which will surely optimize the success of the organization. That is, any organization’s success will depend on the quality of the products or services, it provides. If the quality drops even once, the product will acquire a negative image, affecting the product and the company, in the short as well as in the long run. So, providing products and services to the customers, only after checking it on the basis of quality is the main option that will provide the organization, safety as well as success. Then, if excellence is incorporated into the quality aspect, the organization will become a successful endeavour and will have ubiquitous presence all over the world Reference: Dahlgaard-Park, S.M 1999a, “Understanding human needs and core values – the prerequisite for building people and organisational excellence”, Proceedings of the Italian Conference on Quality in Healthcare, Keynote paper. Dahlgaard-Park, S.M.1999b, “The evolution patterns of quality movement”, Total Quality Management, Vol. 10 Nos 4/5, pp. 473-80. 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