Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EdNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University

1) You have just returned from doing a keynote presentation at a conference in New Zealand. What did you talk about?

I was invited by the Center for Organizational Excellence to keynote at the 11th World Conference for Total Quality Management (please see www.worldconferencenz.com for more information). The title of my keynote was, "From Ordinary to Great: The Fishmonger's Way" referring to my book, Catch! A Fishmonger's Guide to Greatness.

I presented ideas about the changing face of business, current thinking patterns about quality, and some reasons why we still see – and work – for ordinary organizations. I also shared a new business model, new definitions of organizational greatness and leadership, which are all main topics of my next book.

2) What were the main points you were trying to make?

One of my primary intentions for the presentation was to provoke thinking about how we think and behave in our organizations. I believe that increasing our awareness of our thinking patterns and becoming more familiar with how we define common organizational terms – i.e. leadership, excellence, teams, quality, etc. – results in long-term, sustainable results. Many organizations get caught up in attempting to emulate the outcomes of other successful organizations without taking into account what makes their organization unique, and the thinking that is necessary for them to achieve their desired outcomes. Many organizations I work with have goals, but very few have specific meaning attached to their goals – which leads to a lot of problems and symptoms of problems. This tends to result in companies becoming very reactive to their environment, rather than being the drivers of organizational greatness.

Another main point was to really get people thinking about what organizational greatness means (or what is more commonly referred to as performance excellence). As can be found on my website, www.guidetogreatness.com, greatness is uniquely defined as having three elements: 1) the organization must have extraordinary products and/or services, 2) the people must be treated impeccably well, and 3) the organization must have a vision that goes far beyond the boundaries of the organization. While it is not unusual for a company to exhibit one (sometimes two) of these qualities, it is rare to find one exhibiting all three. If these elements are in place, it tells me they have the appropriate thinking and are taking the appropriate actions to allow for organizational greatness to be a natural outcome of who they are and what they do.

3) From your brief visit, what seems to be the current "state of the art" of quality management in that part of the world?

This is a difficult question to answer because what is considered to be "state-of-the-art" is as varied as the companies defining it. Where a company is on the path to quality management and quality excellence is based on a number of variables, i.e. type of industry, size of company, length of history of the company (and products), and most certainly correlated to the company's culture, among many other variables. Quality is an interesting little monster – and a field that I am absolutely fascinated with. What continues to keep my interest is that it is an ever-increasing dynamic field of study and practice. From having visited a textile manufacturing plant in Romania (NEO) that had quite an amazing level of quality assurance/controls and equipment and a automobile manufacturer in Mexico (General Motors of Mexico) who also impressed me with incredibly high-tech equipment and controls (real-time control charts displayed on flat-screen monitors on the manufacturing floor), to listening to a Russian quality manager talking about their use of quality circles, which were introduced in the post World War II era – you can see that various parts of world can be a very different places on the path to quality excellence.

4) Have things changed much of recent date in terms of total quality management?

Our tools and names of quality initiatives has changed, or has been repackaged/reorganized/restructured/reengineered…however, most of the thinking driving the use of these tools and initiatives has not. One major change that I see taking place is that the initiatives are becoming more systems-based, and this is a very good thing. I also think executive leadership and managers are beginning to recognize that to achieve desired outcomes, they must not only manage people and processes, but the integration of people and the processes they manage. There continues to be a lot of silo-ing going on in business and industry which tends to be based on a "parts mentality" type thinking, meaning, if I do my part of the process to the best of my ability and stay within my defined specifications, I am not responsible for the final output.

5) What kinds of issues (e.g. cross training) seem to need to be addressed by the U.S.

?

To carry on my thoughts from question number 4, the "parts mentality" type thinking needs to be addressed. However, it is a tricky area to address because so many companies base their reward (or punishment) structure based on individual work. W. Edwards Deming lectured about this idea for decades. As long as I am rewarded for my part, I have no need or desire to take interest in how well other people are doing. As long as we continue to believe this myth, U.S. companies will not be performing to their potential, and worse, we will continue to see wonderfully creative and innovative thinking leak out the corporate door.

The management of internal talent is another issue in dire need of addressing in the U.S. and is a primary topic of my next book. My next book addresses our need to create some balance between the prevailing corporate structure (with its inherent strengths and limitations) with entrepreneurial thinking. We also need to address if there is an alternative way to identify and mine our talent. It seems like we've known this for ages on an intellectual level but are slow to incorporate it into practice. I believe it is because we have so many embedded thinking patterns about how business is and how it should be, and we haven't opened our minds to many alternatives. The companies that are doing so are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest.

6) What seem to be the expanding or evolving paradigms? Anything new on the horizon?

One expanding or evolving paradigm is raising one's awareness of "systems" – everything is connected to something else, and there a lot of good books on the market depicting these ideas. There are more conferences, workshops, and training being offered that address simple business operations from a systems thinking perspective.

An evolution (or revolution) of thinking needs to take place as current thinking patterns that we automatically deploy just are not cutting it anymore. We are now experiencing the largest money flows taking place in history, the largest succession of management taking place in history, and technology allowing virtually anyone to do virtual business with virtually anyone else! I have a "virtual" Greatness Coordinator, living in a different state than I, and we do business via phone, email, teleconference, Skype, instant messaging, etc. Today, companies must realize that the planet is a potential market, and at no other time in history could we actually live it! These are exciting times to be in business!

7) What seems to be happening in other nations in terms of quality management? Is this concept catching on?

I do believe concepts in quality management are catching on. My contribution addresses the thinking behind the actions and finding strategies to achieve desired outcomes based on three distinct paths – all of which have varying degrees of overlap – including process improvement, problem solving, and performance management. One thing that is very exciting to see now is the number of nations becoming familiarized with ISO (International Organization of Standardization, the Baldrige Performance Criteria and the American Society for Quality. I am most pleased to see the countries now participating in the ISO Action Plan for Developing Countries 2005-2010, as well as those participating in the environmental management family of ISO – the 14000 series. Please visit www.iso.ch for more information.

As mentioned above, the Baldrige National Quality Program is also finding its way to the radar screen of many organizations. Please visit www.baldrige.nist.gov for more information.This is a great resource for all types of organizations to use for addressing quality management from a systems-based approach. Many other countries have or are in the process of developing similarly-based programs with the help of the Baldrige Program and ASQ (please visit www.asq.org for more information). As you can see, there is surely not a shortage of information and resources out there – the challenge is understanding one's thinking and actions collectively in a company to know when and how to appropriately use what! One of my favorite lectures is looking a variety of characteristics of six sigma, lean, and the theory of constraints. It's truly amazing to see participants eyes light up when they begin to understand the thinking behind each.

8) What have I neglected to ask about your presentation? How can readers get a copy? (if you would be so kind as to share?

Unfortunately, I do not have a recording of the presentation. However, readers are more than welcome to email me for a copy of my slides, or if they have any questions or want to further discuss any of the ideas presented. My email address is [email protected].

Also, if people are interested and want to send me their e-mail address, I would be glad to send them information about my next book!

My e-mail address again is [email protected]

Published March 22, 2007