IIPM

Organization Development & its Interventions

WHAT IS OD? Beckhard (1) defines Organization Development (OD) as "an effort, planned, organizationwide, 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 topmanagement. 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 organizations 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 organizations 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 organizations core work processes to create tighter linkage and coordination among the different tasks 4. Parallel Structures 5. High-involvement Organizations (HIOs) 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 todays 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 qualitybased 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. 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.

2.

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 employees 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 improvements 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). Managements job is to recognize each employees unique contributions to the process and to recognize employees for their contributions to the overall quality of the product. (Hall, 1987). In Demings 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. Demings 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 Demings 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 Demings original principles abound in organizations worldwide, examples of which include ISO-9000, Sigma-Six, a Taughchi systems.