TQM and the Four Olds

Leadership in Total Quality Management (TQM) involves inspiring individuals to pursue excellence within a motivating environment that fosters trust, commitment, and shared values (Goetsch & Davis, 2021). Followership is cultivated through voluntary engagement, requiring leaders to demonstrate authenticity, clear communication, and accountability to build an environment that encourages initiative and teamwork.

TQM can be extended in several ways. One, advocated by Dean and Bowen (1994) involves integrating technical systems (statistical process control, quality verification, etc.) with social systems (people, relationships, and culture). Dean and Bowen seem to imply informal means of developing employees and building trust such as through coaching, mentoring, and employee recognition. This fosters loyalty and effort – in other words, it builds followership. Dean and Bowen also assert that leadership must be theory-based and value-driven, rooted in principles like customer focus and teamwork. This makes expected organizational norms parallel the requirements of total quality norms.

Another way of extending TQM is to emphasize the importance of creating an organizational culture open to change, innovation, and learning. This critical dimension was advocated by McNabb and Sepic (1995) as another way of building a loyal following. The environment that McNabb and Sepic conducted their study, the public sector, is not exactly known for change and innovation, but there is a culture of learning.

All this may seem like a good thing, until McNabb and Sepic pull back the curtain:

Western managers have a model of thing based on individual-oriented motivation, conflict and competition with one’s peers, and autocratic controls for containing costs. Consequently, TQM cannot take root in the culture of an organization of until old values are changed and new values are built into the underlying structure. (McNabb & Sepic, p. 381)

Failures when adopting TQM are not failures of management but “they may be attributed to deeper, more critical sources: the fundamental, persuasive culture of the organization and the operating climate the culture the instills in its employees.” (McNabb & Sepic, p. 369)

In many ways, this is reminiscent of the “Four Olds,” the cultural elements to be destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution – old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits (Durdin, 1971).

One must then ask McNabb and Sepic just how far they are willing to go to achieve total quality goals in environments resistant to change?

References

Dean, J. W. & Bowen, D. E. (1994). Management theory and total quality: Improving research and practice through theory development. The Academy of Management Review, 19(3), 392–418. https://doi.org/10.2307/258933

Durdin, T. (1971, 19 May). China transformed by elimination of the ‘four olds.’ New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/19/archives/china-transformed-by-elimination-of-four-olds.html

Goetsch, D. L. & Davis, S. B. (2021). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9^th ed.). Pearson.

McNabb, D. E. & Sepic, F. T. (1995). Culture, climate, and total quality management: Measuring readiness for change. Public Productivity & Management Review, 18(4), 369–385. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3663059