OD interventions and their implications

IIPM

Organization
Development & it’s
Interventions
Surabhi Aarwal
PG/FW/10-12

WHAT IS OD?

Beckhard (1) defines Organization Development (OD) as "an effort, planned, organization-
wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through
planned interventions in the organization's processes, using behavioral-science knowledge."
In essence, OD is a planned system of change.

Planned. OD takes a long-range approach to improving organizational performance
and efficiency. It avoids the (usual) "quick-fix".
Organization-wide. OD focuses on the total system.
Managed from the top. To be effective, OD must have the support of top-
management. They have to model it, not just espouse it. The OD process also needs
the buy-in and ownership of workers throughout the organization.
Increase organization effectiveness and health. OD is tied to the bottom-line. Its goal
is to improve the organization, to make it more efficient and more competitive by
aligning the organization's systems with its people.
Planned interventions. After proper preparation, OD uses activities called
interventions to make systemwide, permanent changes in the organization.
Using behavioral-science knowledge. OD is a discipline that combines research and
experience to understanding people, business systems, and their interactions.

What is an OD Intervention?

The term Intervention refers to a set of sequenced, planned actions or events intended to
help an organization to increase its effectiveness. Interventions purposely disrupt the
status quo; they are deliberate attempts to change an organization or sub-unit toward a
different and more effective state.

Criteria for Effective Interventions
In OD three major criteria define the effectiveness of an intervention:

1. The Extent to Which it (the Intervention) fits the needs of the organization.
2. The degree to which it is based on causal knowledge of intended outcomes
3. The extent to which the OD intervention transfers change-management
competence to organization members.

Factors That Impact the Success of OD Interventions

I. Factors relating to Change Situation: These relate to the environment of the
organization and include the physical and human environment.
1. Readiness for Change: Intervention success depends heavily on the organization
being ready for planned change.
2. Capability to Change: Managing planned change requires particular knowledge
and skills including the ability to motivate change, to lead change, to develop
political support, to manage transition, and to sustain momentum.

3. Cultural Context: The national culture within which an organization is
embedded can exert a powerful influence on members’ reactions to change, and so
intervention design must account for the cultural values and assumptions held by
organization members.
4. Capabilities of the Change Agent (OD Consultant): The success of OD
interventions depend to a great extent on the expertise, experience and talents of
the consultant.

II. Factors Related to the Target of Change: These relate to the specific targets at
which OD interventions are targeted. The targets of change can be different issues of the
organization and at different levels.
A. Organizational Issues
1. Strategic Issues: Strategic issues refer to major decisions of organizations such
as what products or services to offer, which markets to serve, mergers,
acquisitions, expansions, etc.
2. Technology and Structure Issues: These refer to issues relating to how
organizations divide their work amongst departments and how they coordinate
between departments.
3. Human Resource Issues: These issues are concerned with attracting competent
people to the organization, setting goals for them, appraising and rewarding their
performance, and ensuring that they develop their careers and manage stress.
4. Human Process Issues: These issues have to do with social processes occurring
among organization members, such as communication, decision-making,
leadership, and group dynamics.

B. Organizational Levels
OD interventions are aimed at different levels of the organization: individual, group,
organization and trans-organization (for example different offices of the organization
around the globe; or between organization and its suppliers, customers, etc.)

INTERVENTION CATEGORIES

Human Process Interventions

A. The following interventions deal with interpersonal relationships and group
dynamics.
1. T Groups: The basic T Group brings ten to fifteen strangers together with a professional
trainer to examine the social dynamics that emerge from their interactions.
2. Process Consultation: This intervention focuses on interpersonal relations and
social dynamics occurring in work groups.
3. Third Party Interventions: This change method is a form of process consultation
aimed at dysfunctional interpersonal relations in organizations.
4. Team Building: This intervention helps work groups become more effective in
accomplishing tasks.

B. The following Interventions deal with human processes that are more system
wide than individualistic or small-group oriented.
1. Organization Confrontation Meeting: This change method mobilizes
organization members to identify problems, set action targets, and begin working
on problems.
2. Intergroup Relations: These interventions are designed to improve interactions
among different groups or departments in organizations.
3. Large-group Interventions: These interventions involve getting abroad variety
of stakeholders into a large meeting to clarify important values, to develop new
ways of working, to articulate a new vision for the organization, or to solve
pressing organizational problems.
4. Grid Organization Development: This normative intervention specifies a
particular way to manage an organization.

Techno-Structural Interventions
These interventions deal with an organization’s technology (for examples its task
methods and job design) and structure (for example, division of labor and hierarchy).
These interventions are rooted in the disciplines of engineering, sociology, and
psychology and in the applied fields of socio-technical systems and organization design.
Consultants place emphasis both on productivity and human fulfillment.
1. Structural Design: This change process concerns the organization’s division of
labor – how to specialize task performances. Diagnostic guidelines exist to determine which
structure is appropriate for particular organizational environments, technologies, and
conditions.
2. Downsizing: This intervention reduces costs and bureaucracy by decreasing the
size of the organization through personnel layoffs, organization redesign, and
outsourcing.
3. Re-engineering: This recent intervention radically redesigns the organization’s
core work processes to create tighter linkage and coordination among the different
tasks
4. Parallel Structures
5. High-involvement Organizations (HIO’s)
6. Total Quality Management
7. Work design: This refers to OD interventions aimed at creating jobs, and work
groups that generate high levels of employee fulfillment and productivity.

Human Resource Management Interventions
1. Goal Setting: This change program involves setting clear and challenging goals.
It attempts to improve organization effectiveness by establishing a better fit
between personal and organizational objectives.
2. Performance Appraisal: This intervention is a systematic process of jointly
assessing work-related achievements, strengths and weaknesses,

3. Reward Systems: This intervention involves the design of organizational rewards
to improve employee satisfaction and performance.
4. Career Planning and development: It generally focuses on
managers and professional staff and is seen as a way of improving the quality of
their work life.
5. Managing workforce diversity: Important trends, such
as the increasing number of women, ethnic minorities, and physically and
mentally challenged people in the workforce, require a more flexible set of
policies and practices.
6. Employee Wellness: These interventions include employee assistance programs
(EAPs) and stress management.

Strategic Interventions
These interventions link the internal functioning of the organization to the larger
environment and transform the organization to keep pace with changing conditions.
1. Integrated Strategic Change: It argues that business strategies and organizational systems
must be changed together in response to external and internal disruptions. A strategic
change plan helps members manage the transition between a current strategy and
organization design and the desired future strategic orientation.
2. Trans organization development: This intervention helps organizations to enter
into alliances, partnerships and joint ventures to perform tasks or solve problems
that are too complex for single organizations to resolve
3. Merger and Acquisition Integration: This intervention describes how OD
practitioners can assist two or more organizations to form a new entity.
4. Culture Change: This intervention helps organizations to develop cultures
(behaviors, values, beliefs and norms) appropriate to their strategies and
environments.
5. Self-designing organizations: This change program helps organizations gain the
capacity to alter themselves fundamentally. It is a highly participative process,
involving multiple stakeholders in setting strategic directions and designing and
implementing appropriate structures and processes.
6. Organization learning and knowledge management.

To effectively adapt and thrive in today’s business world, organizations need to implement
effective OD interventions aimed at improving performance at organizational, group and
individual levels. OD interventions involve respect for people, a climate of trust and support,
shared power, open confrontation of issues, and the active participation of stakeholders. OD
interventions are broader in scope, usually affecting the whole organization (socio-technical
systems). OD interventions are sponsored by the CEO and supported and “owned” by staff at
the different levels of the organization.

OD professionals must have a solid understanding of the different OD interventions to choose
the most appropriate, or “mix and match” them -based on the expected results and a solid

analysis of the organization and its environment.

Measuring their impact on organizational effectiveness and employees’ well being
OD interventions encompass other change initiatives, that is why it is difficult to identify
their impact and effectiveness in isolation, nevertheless, the 2008 ASTD State of the Industry
Report revealed that organizations achieved important benefits for their investment in
learning activities “Almost all BEST organizations reported improvements in employee and
customer satisfaction, quality of products and services, cycle time, productivity, retention,
revenue, and overall profitability. BEST organizations had clearly defined processes to link
learning strategies and initiatives to increases in both individual and organizational
performance".

OD interventions require visionary and participative leadership
OD interventions are initiated at the top and require employee participation and commitment,
therefore, visionary leaders that work as change agents, developing a vision, and providing
continuous and sustained support is paramount. Kanter, Stein & Jick (1992) consider that OD
interventions require a strong leader role. “An organization should not undertake something
as challenging as large-scale change without a leader to guide, drive and inspire it. These
change advocates, play a critical role in creating a company vision, motivating company
employees to embrace that vision, and crafting an organizational structure that consistently
rewards those who strive toward the realization of the vision”

WHY DO OD?

Human resources -- our people -- may be a large fraction of our costs of doing
business. They certainly can make the difference between organizational success and
failure. We better know how to manage them.
Changing nature of the workplace. Our workers today want feedback on their
performance, a sense of accomplishment, feelings of value and worth, and
commitment to social responsibility. They need to be more efficient, to improve their
time management. And, of course, if we are to continue doing more work with less
people, we need to make our processes more efficient.
Global markets. Our environments are changing, and our organizations must also
change to survive and prosper. We need to be more responsible to and develop closer
partnerships with our customers. We must change to survive, and we argue that we
should attack the problems, not the symptoms, in a systematic, planned, humane
manner.
Accelerated rate of change. Taking an open-systems approach, we can easily identify
the competitions on an international scale for people, capital, physical resources, and
information.

WHO DOES OD?

To be successful, OD must have the buy-in, ownership, and involvement of all stakeholders,
not just of the employees throughout the organization. OD is usually facilitated by change
agents -- people or teams that have the responsibility for initiating and managing the change
effort. These change agents may be either employees of the organization (internal
consultants) or people from outside the organization (external consultants.)

Effective change requires leadership with knowledge, and experience in change management.
We strongly recommend that external or internal consultants be used, preferably a
combination of both. ("These people are professionals; don't try this at home.")

Bennis (2) notes that "external consultants can manage to affect ... the power structure in a
way that most internal change agents cannot." Since experts from outside are less subject to
the politics and motivations found within the organization, they can be more effective in
facilitating significant and meaningful changes.

WHEN IS AN ORGANIZATION READY FOR OD?

There is a formula, attributed to David Gleicher (3, 4), which we can use to decide if an
organization is ready for change:

Dissatisfaction x Vision x First Steps > Resistance to Change

This means that three components must all be present to overcome the resistance to change in
an organization: Dissatisfaction with the present situation, a vision of what is possible in the
future, and achievable first steps towards reaching this vision. If any of the three is zero or
near zero, the product will also be zero or near zero and the resistance to change will
dominate.

We use this model as an easy, quick diagnostic aid to decide if change is possible. OD can
bring approaches to the organization that will enable these three components to surface, so
we can begin the process of change.

Implication
Total Quality Management

2. TARGET LEVEL OF ANALYSIS:

TQM programs are directed at the entire organization including the suppliers and its
customers. Although quality at the individual level is important, the successful TQM
program calls for quality from every person, at every level of the organization, in every
capacity within the organization. In short, TQM programs require a change in the
organizational philosophy and culture.

3. PURPOSE OF THE INTERVENTION:

The purpose of Total Quality Management is to increase customer satisfaction by improving
the quality of the goods or services offered by the organization. This improvement is
centered on the product or services, and the processes involved in making or delivering the
product or service to the customer. Ultimately the goal of TQM is to make quality the way of
doing things within the organization.

4. EFFECTIVENESS CRITERIA:

In all Total Quality Management programs the ultimate effectiveness criterion is customer
satisfaction. According to the research, to reach this ultimate goal of effectiveness requires
that the organization measure several other criteria on a continual basis (Weaver, 1991;
Hackman & Wageman, 1995; Dahlgaard, 1999; Clark, 2000). The appropriate criteria to
measure depends on the type of organization, and whether they deliver a product or a service.
In a production-based organization, the effectiveness criteria are divided into product
measures and employee measures. The possible measures for the product include: increases
in production, increases in sales, increases in market share, increases in stock prices,
reductions in the product cycle time, reductions in the number of reworks, reductions in the
inventories, and reductions in customer returns. The employee measures include: satisfaction
with the company, commitment, performance, turnover, absenteeism, and grievance activity
(Clark, 2000). In service organizations the measures of effectiveness may include reductions
in customer complaints, increases in return customers, increase in customer referrals, higher
customer volume, higher employee satisfaction and commitment.

5. EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVENESS:

Research into the effectiveness of TQM programs focuses mainly on the increase in market
shares, and the increase in stock prices. Many organizations measure the success of their
programs in the reduction in cycle time and product failures. The success of quality
programs are most often related to percent increases in the market share, and overall capital
of the organization. (Creech, 1994). Successful organizations like Harley-Davidson, Ford
Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Xerox, and others, tell of a long, arduous
journey and complete re-organization of their companies from centralized, out-put focused, to
de-centralized customer focused before they were capable of reaching their goals of Quality
at all levels of the organizations.

6. HOW/WHEN WILL OUTCOMES BE ASSESSED:

In order for TQM to be successful, outcomes should be measured frequently and on an
ongoing basis throughout the entire organization (Cartin, 1993). The main idea behind this
intervention is to increase and maintain customers through the ongoing improvement of the
products or services offered by the organization. To follow this ideology requires that all
phases of the manufacturing be monitored and evaluated on a continual basis. According to
Cartin (1993), most TQM programs ultimately fail because management mistakenly assumes
that the first successes are the end results of the program. When this happens, the
organization cries victory, and the TQM program eventually fails in the absence of continual
monitoring. Cartin argues that TQM is an ongoing intervention with no end, therefore
assessment of outcomes must also be ongoing and continuous if the TQM program is going
to succeed.

7. CHARACTERISTICS OF TYPICAL PARTICIPANTS:

The participants involved in TQM programs are many and varied in their education and
experience. According to Deming (1986) TQM involves the leaders, the employees,
suppliers, and the customers of the organization. Once the organization has decided to
implement the principles of TQM into the organization culture every person in the
organization is affected. The key to participation within the organization is a willingness to
embrace quality and as noted by Creech (1994), a willingness to live quality. Key to
successful TQM programs, is the attitude of upper management. It is through upper
management that the ideas of total quality take root and grow within the organization.
Without the total commitment of upper management TQM programs lack the role models
central to changing the employees.

8. TIME FRAME OF THE INTERVENTION:

The time frame of implementing a TQM program is dependent on several factors. The
organizational structure, the resources available to change from out-put based to quality-
based operations, the actual structure of the facilities, the processes, the product, the
suppliers, the employees and finally customer acceptance of the end product. The actual
organizational change may occur in a relatively short period, however, the ongoing revisions
in the process and the ultimate goal of winning back customers, or acquiring new customers,
may take years to complete. It is important to keep in mind that a successful TQM program
is an ongoing program, which involves all phases of the organization at all times until the
organization is no longer viable. If a TQM program is to succeed quality has to become the
culture for the organization (Deming, 1986; Weaver, 1991; Cartin, 1993; Creech, 1994;
Reylito, 1999; Clark, 2000).

9. TIME FRAME OF THE ANTICIPATED CHANGE:

The time frame for TQM programs are in theory endless. According to proponents of the
intervention, the intervention by nature requires that the organization change in such a way
that rather than being a quick fix with immediate results, it becomes the way to solve all
problems with beneficial long-term outcomes. According to Robert Heller (1995), the key
word is “long”. You can win quick and great benefits from TQM, but establishing a lasting
culture takes several years. Most successful TQM programs see documented results within
the first few years after implementing the programs. However, for some organizations the
market climate may be such that immediate results are virtually nonexistent and success can
only be measured in the continual survival of the company. This is not to imply that TQM is
an all or nothing intervention, throughout implementation of the program it is necessary to set
small obtainable goals, which have to be achieved before the entire organization is
completely quality oriented. The most common short term goals achieved are reductions in
operating cost, reduction in inventories, decreases in product cycle time and decreases in the
number of reworks (Hakes, 1991).

10. RESOURCES TO CONDUCT THE INTERVENTION:

Implementation of TQM programs may require tremendous resources, including capital,
people, and mostly time. In some organizations implementation of a TQM program required
the total restructuring of the organization toward a more de-centralized structure. Resources
may also be required if the physical structure of the organization (i.e. facilities) need to be
changed in order to facilitate the necessary process changes. Training programs are also key
to the success of quality programs. There is little argument that to successfully implement
TQM programs, requires a huge investment of time, indeed time is the one resource that all
organizations will require if they are going to be successful at implementing a TQM program
(Creech, 1994).

11. EXPERTISE OF CONSULTANTS:

Many organizations attempt to implement TQM programs without assistance from outside
consultants, with mixed results. Many organizations bring in technical consultants to identify
problems with the processes, and the product. In addition to technical assistants managers
often seek out consultants to assist in the empowerment and training of employees. Although
there is no research to indicate specific consulting needs, it is important for the leadership to
seek advice from qualified individuals. Ideally, consultants should have experience in
guiding the organization away from out-put production techniques to team based quality
programs.

12. DO PARTICIPANTS NEED TO PREPARE:

In order for TQM programs to work they must be accepted and taken into the very core of the
organization. This involves communicating the need for change to every person in the
organization. The success of the program depends on its acceptance by the employees and
management as the right method to remain competitive. It is important that employees are
prepared to assume the role of managers within the organization, because TQM requires that
all employees be able to recognize and correct problems in the process. In addition,
employees must be prepared to accept the possibility of job loss, and the need for additional
training. Empowerment of the employee means that each employee be prepared to assume
responsibility for their own work and the work of others in order to guarantee success. The
entire focus of the organization shifts from focusing on the individual to focusing on the
system as a whole. The emphases of TQM is on group performance, it focuses on changing
the system and the total work process not the individual workers productivity.

13. HOW IS THE INTERVENTION CONDUCTED:

o According to Deming (1994) to succeed in implementing a quality program a company
must adopt a 14-point system at all levels of the organization. These points are:

1. Drive out Fear: The organization must communicate the plan of action to
every employee, supplier, including short term and long-term goals. If the
program is to be totally accepted management must communicate to the
employees their vision for the future.

2. Eliminate quotas and numerical goals: According to Deming, quotas and
numerical goals force employees into an out-put frame of mind, leaving little
chance of quality thinking.

3. Break down all barriers between departments: In most centralized
organizations there are definite lines of communications that must be followed
and a division of labor according to departments. In order to implement a
TQM program requires that the organization move toward a de-centralized
system in which communication between departments is frequent and
ongoing. In many organizations, this meant the creation of work teams and
quality circles in which each employee’s inputs were actively sought and
followed up on.

4. Eliminate inspection. Learn to build products right the first time: This is
perhaps the hardest point in the implementation of TQM. According to
Creech, (1994), inspection of products is necessary until that point in time
when the processes and the product is at the highest possible quality. Only

when the product is quality can inspection be eliminated. The idea that one can
learn to make a product right the first time is great in theory, but often it takes
many prototypes and revisions before the product is superior in quality. In
addition to the need to design and try the products for production,
improvements may be needed and the easiest way to measure if the improve-
ments are effective is to inspect the product before releasing it to market.

5. Institute a vigorous program of education: This means that the company
must educate all people involved in the implementation of the program as to
the purposes, the ultimate goal of the program, and the anticipated benefits for
everyone involved with the organization. This education may involve training
managers and employees to work together to achieve quality. Often
management must be educated in the workings of team based production
systems, and employees must be educated on how to work effectively in
teams. Without education as to the purpose, and benefits of the program,
employees and managers alike are likely to sabotage the entire program before
it is fully implemented (Hakes, 1991; Kanji, 1990; Maccoby, 1992; Wilkinson
& Witcher, 1993).

6. Remove barriers that rob workers of their right to pride of workmanship:
According to Deming, organizations often fail to recognize employee
contributions to the bottom line. If TQM is to be successful employees must
have a sense of accomplishment and pride in the product they are producing.
In order to foster this sense of pride the organization must empower the
employees. Empowerment means that each individual employee has the
knowledge and training to inspect his or her own contributions and make
necessary improvements (Blake & Mouton, 1981). Management’s job is to
recognize each employee’s unique contributions to the process and to
recognize employees for their contributions to the overall quality of the
product. (Hall, 1987). In Deming’s program, performance appraisal systems
are inappropriate measures of employee contributions. Performance
appraisals should be used to measure product performance not individual
employees. In order for TQM to succeed management must instill a sense of
pride in their employees. This sense of pride can be realized by creating a
vision of the future to which employees can strive. Harley Davidson created
such a vision for their employees, “Well made in America” meant that
employees were rewarded for reducing the overall number of reworks and
scrap components, while working toward making a Harley Davidson the best
made motorcycle in the world. This quality focused incentive program led to
a greater commitment and pride in producing quality above quantity (Reid,
1990).

7. Institute leadership: The aim of leadership should be to help people do a
better job: This is perhaps the most vital part of any TQM program.
Leadership serves as the role model for the rest of the organization. If the
leadership is not fully committed to quality, the program will fail (Juran,
1989). According to Cartin (1993), the critical role of managers is to
understand the TQM philosophies, tools, and techniques, and regularly
participate in their application at every level of the organization. The old
analogy of a company leader being the captain of the ship is no longer
appropriate. The leader of an organization cannot just set the course and bark
orders when corrections are needed. He or She must set the objectives but
solicit the employees on the best methods of reaching the objectives. This
willingness to lead instead of manage is key to the success of the program.

8. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and production targets: In order to do this
the leadership must be willing to let the quality process take hold regardless of
the time constraints. Deming and others argue that in successful TQM
programs the production will surpass any possible production targets the
leadership might set. The idea that quality is worth the wait is central to the
success of the program, production targets shift employees’ attention away
from quality and toward out-puts thus reducing the overall quality of the
product.

9. Adopt a new philosophy: According to Deming, the organization must adopt
a new philosophy, which has quality at its core. This new philosophy should
provide the vision and direction of the company and its employees. Failure to
make quality a philosophy of business means that the whole system will
crumble upon itself. “The philosophy of the organization is the center pillar
on which the TQM program is built upon, without which the entire system
falls to ruin” (Creech, 1984).

10. End the practice of awarding business based on the price tag. Move
toward a single supplier for any one item. Base this long-term
relationship on loyalty and trust: One of the keys to successful
implementation of TQM programs is identifying your suppliers, and
communicating your philosophy and visions to them. According to Deming
organizations must end the practice of selecting suppliers based on price. The
organization must seek out suppliers that share their vision of quality and build
a relationship with these suppliers built on loyalty and trust. This is a crucial

step in insuring that the implementation of a quality program succeeds. The
structure of organizations is such that often completion of a single product
may involve the utilizing the products of several different organizations. This
dependence on others for the necessary parts or services means that
organizations must actively seek out suppliers who are willing to meet the
quality standards required, and abandon those suppliers whose products are
sub-standard (Burt, 1989). Often the failure of TQM programs can be traced
back to poor quality parts of services from suppliers (Gurnani, 1999).

11. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service:
This is perhaps the heart of any successful TQM program. Improving the
quality of the product or service is key to remaining successful. The
implementation of quality programs means that the processes and products are
constantly measured against the products of competitors. If an organization is
to remain competitive they must implement improvements in the entire
production system. Quality must encompass all phases of production,
including improving technology, processes, machinery, and communication
throughout the entire system (Hill & Collins, 1999).

12. Put everyone to work to accomplish this transformation: As mentioned
earlier, the implementation of a TQM program involves every person in the
organization. Leaders must work to ensure that every person is contributing to
the success of the program, from the janitor to the CEO (Savolainen, 2000).
The implementation of a successful TQM program hinges on the willingness
of all involved parties to actively pursue quality.

13. Institute job training: Training new employees in quality production is
central to a successful TQM program. When instituting a training program,
management must determine, when to train and what to teach their employees.
There are two general approaches that identify when to train. One is to
determine the kind of TQM training appropriate for the various classifications
of employees and then to train all employees. Every employee is then
equipped to be effective in the analysis of his or her own job and is prepared
when he or she becomes a team member. This approach is somewhat
mechanistic and, for large organizations, less effective. It has been the
experience of organizations that used this approach, that if skills are not
applied a short time after training they are lost. A more effective approach is
what the Northrop Corporation calls just-in-time training. After each team is
formed, it is trained in the skills needed to begin, and then during its operation,
it is trained further as specific new skills are needed. The learning is then

immediately reinforced through application (Cartin, 1993). In order to be
successful a team or individual must know how to solve problems, know the
processes, know the work rules, how to plan, conduct good meetings, manage
logistics and details, gather useful data, measure process performance, analyze
data, implement change, and measure its effectiveness. The ability to do these
things effectively is called having the soft skills of decision-making and
problem solving. This is compared to the many hard skills of various job
specialties, which are traditionally all that are taught. Implementing TQM
involves a planned change form one management system to another that is
quite different. It is a management process improvement. Everyone in the
organization from the top down must understand its scope direction objectives
and methodologies. It requires extensive ongoing training, this training must
be planned so that all the required skills are identified and scheduled. The plan
must also be able to identify the resources required. . If employees are not
trained to think in terms of quality, they cannot recognize the need for changes
within the process. Training employees to be aware of the process and what
the end result should be is crucial. Too often organizations fail to realize that
employees can be taught how to make the product, but they may not b able to
move form making the product to improving the product. Training is
necessary and should be ongoing if the organization is to maintain a quality
driven production.

14. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service
to become competitive and to stay in business and to provide jobs:
Although the implementation of TQM programs often means the loss of jobs,
the key success is to communicate the purposes of the lay-offs and to
emphasize that layoffs may be a necessary part of the program. The ultimate
goal of TQM is to increase the quality of the product in the hopes of remaining
in business and to become competitive in the market.

**Note: In practice most organizations tailor their TQM programs to meet their own
organizational needs and goals. Deming’s original fourteen points serve as a basis for
designing these programs. As noted by Creech (1994), “Although, the name Total Quality
Management now covers a very broad tent encompassing all sorts of management practices
and has become the buzz phrase to describe a new type of quality-oriented management,
there are no bad TQM programs, only incomplete programs that lack in the total involvement
of all employees and all processes within the organizations.” According to Creech, all TQM
programs must meet four criteria if they are to be successful: first they must be based on a
quality mindset and quality in all activities at all times (every process and every product),
second, they must be strongly humanistic to bring quality to the way employees are treated,
included, and inspired; third, TQM must be based on a de-centralized approach that provides

empowerment at all levels especially at the frontline, so the enthusiastic involvement and
common realities are realities and not slogans. Finally, TQM programs must be applied
holistically so that its principles, policies, and practices reach every nook and cranny of the
organization.

14. RESISTANCE TO CHANGE:

Employees generally resist TQM programs for two major reasons-they believe that is will
cause job loss and that management would refuse to share the fruits of such programs. If the
employees (union members or not) are not consulted or involved, it will likely reinforce the
same perception-that TQM is a threat to their well being, or the union organization, or both.
It is only through greater level of employee involvement and commitment that management
can ensure the success of TQM. This resistance to change may be minimized by empowering
the employees to act independently or in groups to implement changes needed to insure the
success of the program.

15. MAINTAINING CHANGE:

As previously noted TQM programs are not quick fixes that disappear after the organization
has regained its original standing; successful TQM programs change the entire organizational
culture, to one of quality. Given this fact, maintaining change is relatively simple. During
the reorganization phase of the program, the organization has either dismissed or retrained
employees who insisted on the old way of doing business, with this new mindset, and
continuous improvement at the core of the program, TQM programs become the way things
are done at the organization, therefore maintaining change is not difficult to achieve.

16. FOLLOW-UP:

TQM programs by nature dependent on constant follow up. Following the product
throughout the entire production process is crucial to maintaining the quality of the product.
If changes are implemented in the process, follow up must also be implemented to ensure that
the change leads to improvement of the product. Failure to follow up on product changes can
lead to substandard products and less customer satisfaction. To implement follow up on the
effectiveness of TQM programs, management must facilitate feedback from within the
organizations and create opportunities for customers to provide feedback to the company.
Harley Davidson sponsors Bike Weeks, through which they actively seek follow up
information from their customers (Reid, 1990).

17. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS/CRITIQUE:

Although many organizations utilize TQM programs, they are often modified versions of
Deming’s original concept. Since it conception Total Quality Management has become the
buzzword in business, however, few organizations embrace the philosophies of TQM fully.
In most organizations, TQM principles are applied to the processes and product, but not the
employees. Many spin-offs of Deming’s original principles abound in organizations
worldwide, examples of which include ISO-9000, Sigma-Six, a Taughchi systems.

OD interventions and their implications

OD interventions and their implications

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