Why did TQM Fail?

-	Employees take their cues from mgmt. more
-	Executive & middle mgmt. oversights more
-	Didn't integrate quality into organizational structure more

Why do major change initiatives fail?

-	Part 1: The eight major reasons for failure.
-	Part 2: Consequences of these errors?

Confessions of a shot messenger

Like it or not, 'change' has become a constant in today's society. The changes being asked of our society in 10 years used to take two to three generations to assimilate - in much calmer times! Given our "bigger... better... faster... more... now!" world and its stressful manifestations, 'change' must now be managed formally as a process. A grieving for the "simpler" times of the past has created a pervasive 'victim' mindset that has crept into work places.

Any change requires new skills, thinking, tools, and information; however, these are secondary to the quality of the processes needed to communicate them: individual feedback, interpersonal relationships, cultural perceptions & feelings, and, ultimately, each individual's mindset.

'Harmony' refers to a holistic approach - combining left-brain (analytical) & right-brain (emotional) elements - to launch an organization towards unprecedented levels of quality and productivity.

The goal is a cultural transformation integrating skills needed by everyone in everyday work for "Getting better faster" - a synergistic harmony among the elements of product quality, service quality, administrative quality, management quality, employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction that continuously adapts to economic realities.

The common emphases:

1. Looking at all work as a process... that is currently perfectly designed to get the results it is already getting... and will continue to get,
2. Statistical thinking (not techniques), i.e., learning how to ask better questions,
3. The deceptive power of simply plotting process data over time,
4. Recognition of all process breakdowns as variation - some of which is a result of unique events, but, in most cases (85-96%), unintentionally "designed" into the current process,
5. Reduction of unintended and inappropriate variation for more consistent process prediction,
6. Management by facts through simple, efficient data collection, ("The plural of 'anecdote' is 'NOT data!")
7. Obsession with eliminating waste,
8. Creation of a common language to depersonalize issues,
9. Performance measures that are consistent with the goals of the organization,
10. Developing emotional skills in the organizational culture to keep the focus on, and solve inevitable conflicts through, identifying and respecting the needs of the business.

• Whether or not people understand statistics, they are already using statistics.
• Stop talking about 'full customer satisfaction' until your work force knows its jobs.
• You can't even begin satisfying your external customers until the work force is aware of and satisfying its internal customers.
• Change would be easy if it weren't for all the people.
• People don't mind change... for other people; they just hate being changed themselves.
• Do you want to know what "empowerment" truly means?

- What is the Harmony Consulting rationale for organizational transformation?

• Executive Team Assessment
• Are You Trying to Make Your Organization or Team into Something You're Not?

• Dialoguing Honestly About the Issues
  • Outstanding Teams Checklist
• Developing a Common Language of "Process" & "Variation"
• Developing the Organizational Communication Infrastructure for Results

What if we need a project "success" to justify a more inclusive organizational effort?

• What is a "Blitz Team?"

• Data "Sanity": Statistical Thinking Applied to Everyday Data

• Organizational Change & the Human "Wildcard" Factor

• "Oh... so THAT'S What Deming Meant!"
• Quality Professionals as Change Agents

• Quality Professionals as Change Agents
• Organizational Change & the Human "Wildcard" Factor
• Data "Sanity": Statistical Thinking Applied to Everyday Data
• Data "Sanity": The Need for Statistical Thinking in Everyday Work