Values, Ethical Decisions, and Total Quality Management

Introduction

This post explores how ethics and values relate to total quality management. It shows that ethical behavior both supports and reinforces a total quality environment. It considers some ways for managers and organizations to achieve (or not achieve) an ethical workplace, with focus on codes of conduct. Next, an approach to making ethical decisions is considered. Finally, the situation where there are no ethical actors in an organization is briefly examined.

Values and Total Quality Management

Values are qualities or things that we act to gain and/or keep. It is not something that’s just desired but something actively perused and maintained through one’s actions. The most important values in a business situation are honesty, confidence, initiative, and decisiveness, for it is through those values that a strong forward momentum is established and continued in any business or other organization.

Between individuals, the fundamental quality in relationships is trust, which is earned through repeated demonstrations of honesty. Trust can be built by being loyal to those not present, keeping promises, and apologizing when necessary (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 54).

In turn, trust is the most important quality for total quality management (TQM). This is because trust is needed for building responsibility and accountability (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 54). Trust among employees is also necessary for teamwork, communication, and smoothly operating interpersonal relationships. Trust is needed between managers and employees for purposes of conflict management, problem solving, and ensuring employee involvement and empowerment (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 52-53). All these features result in a business dedicated to total quality and thereby placing the focus on the customer.

When trust and ethical values are consistently demonstrated by managers and employees, the company as a whole can earn a reputation of being trustworthy. Bad decisions, broken promises, and unethical behavior will occasionally be demonstrated by employees or managers of a trusted company, but those lapses will be seen as rare exceptions.

Individual Manager’s Approaches to Ensuring an Ethical Workplace

Goetsch & Davis (2021, p. 55) lists three managerial approaches to evaluate and motivate employees to be ethical. The best-ratio approach, also called situational ethics, requires the manager to “create conditions that promote ethical behavior and try to maintain the best possible ratio of good choices to bad choices and ethical behavior to unethical behavior.”

The black-and-white approach requires managers to view ethics in a more absolute manner, where conditions are irrelevant to matters of right and wrong. Managers must then make fair and impartial decisions regardless of short-term outcome.

With the full-potential approach, managers act so that employees will achieve their full potential, and that deciding according to this standard allows employees to be involved and empowered. This approach as well as the best-ratio approach both assume that people are fundamentally good.

Organization’s Approaches to Ensuring an Ethical Workplace

Two actions that organizations can take to create an ethical workplace are ethics training and establishing codes of conduct. Ethics training is straightforward, but there are numerous problems with codes of conduct (COCs), especially as they are used in the information technology and software development industry.

In software companies and software projects, COCs are used as Trojan horses to smuggle in politics into companies and projects. The types of politics imported are far left “woke” politics and are enforced through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring and promotion practices.

COCs and DEI standards are used to violate the First Amendment rights of employees and managers and are also used to terminate employees or project contributors on political grounds. Conservatives and Christians are the most common targets (Wakabayashi, 2017). The workplace environment becomes one where there is a breakdown of trust between employees and managers, and this interferes with teamwork, combined problem solving, and interpersonal relations. The environment no longer becomes one of total quality.

All this agitation can and has endangered the stability of software projects and entire software organizations. A current example of this is the Mozilla Foundation. Their original purpose was to create and maintain the Firefox web browser as well as to develop and advocate various web technologies. Recently, they have moved away from these core missions and now focus on initiatives such as "digital justice," "queer youth inclusion," "engaging race, gender, and sexuality perspectives," "LGBT climate change," and "digital activism for young feminists." (Mozilla Foundation, 2023, p. 38-43)

These initiatives were funded by taxpayer money through USAID. Now that USAID has been abolished, Mozilla is facing serious financial problems, and it may have to dissolve itself.

Such are the results of codes of conduct.

Model of Ethical Decision Making

Goetsch & Davis (2021, p.57) list nine ethical theories, methods of determining the ethical course of action in various situations. I take a different approach.

The model I use for making difficult ethical decisions is as follows: I ask myself what would one of my personal heroes (either real-world or fictional) do in a comparable situation? The real-world heroes I admire include Ethan Allen, Francis Marion, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Lt Gen Chesty Puller, General Patton, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. For fictional characters I consider heroic, I would list Lantenac and Gauvain from Victor Hugo’s novel Ninety-Three, and Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Conclusion

TQM assumes that the participants within an organization and its customers act ethically, as Goetsch & Davis (2021) make clear. They also provide sample ethical dilemmas (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 59-62) for the reader to consider. All these examples assume that unethical actions are taken by a few “bad apples” and that the majority of the organization acts ethically.

Something not discussed in Goetsch & Davis are situations where all actors are unethical. Two recent examples of such organizations are the USAID and the Afghan National Army. Large scale fraud was common in both organizations, and all actors were in on the grift. TQM may be able to improve the ethical standing of an organization if there are at least some managers who could enforce ethical standards, but TQM seems powerless when everyone is corrupt.

References

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

Lunduke, B. (2025, 25 February). How is Mozilla Spending that $1 Million from US Taxpayers? https://lunduke.substack.com/p/how-is-mozilla-spending-that-1-million

Mozilla Foundation. (2023). Public Disclosure of Form 990. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/b200-mozilla-foundation-form-990-public-disclosure-ty23.pdf

Wakabayashi, D. (2017, 7 August). Google Fires Engineer Who Wrote Memo Questioning Women in Tech. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-engineer-fired-memo.html

National Security Strategy and Politicizing the Military

What is a National Security Strategy Document?

The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a report prepared by the Executive branch and delivered to Congress that describes the major national security threats and how the current administration intends to address those threats. The NSS report can be presented in both classified and unclassified forms. This document is mandated by section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 and must describe and discuss the following[1]:

1. “The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the national security of the United States.”
2. Foreign policy and national defense capabilities necessary to deter aggression and implement part (1)
3. Proposed short-term and long-term uses of national power to achieve (1)
4. Evaluation of the adequacy of national power to achieve (1)
5. Any other information to help inform Congress related to (1)

Problems with the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance of March 2021

The NSS released in March 2021, entitled “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance” (INSSG)[2], lists some of the priorities that the Biden Administration will address[3]: the pandemic, economic downturn, racial justice, and “climate emergency.” Exactly none of these are military threats, and whose gravity depends on a specific political bias. It attributes our current geopolitical situation to changes in the “distribution of power across the world,” which is an explicitly Marxist interpretation of history[4].

Another non-military threat discussed in the INSSG is domestic violent extremism, against which the Biden Administration promises[5] to

work as a coordinated, unified federal government to use the full array of tools at our disposal in concert with state, local, tribal, private sector, and foreign counterparts. Robust law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, as well as strong cooperation and appropriate information sharing, will be critical to understanding and addressing the broad spectrum of violent extremism America confronts today.

This part appears to directly target January 6th Protesters. It is interesting to note that the NSS that was released the year following the Oklahoma City Bombing of 19 April 1995 made no mention of domestic violent extremism[6].

For the national security to be effective[7], “[w]e will enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion, and prioritize flexibility and improve training across our national security workforce.”

Unlike NSS documents released by the George W. Bush and the Trump Administrations, the INSSG explicitly mentions the policies of the previous administration when it comes to immigration, stating that the Biden Administration “ended the previous administration’s family separations policy and discriminatory travel ban.”

Finally, beyond the above mentioned changes to immigration policy, the territorial integrity of the United States is given almost no attention, beyond stating that the administration “will not be able to solve all of the challenges we face at the southern border overnight.[8]”

Overall, many of the supposed threats listed in the INSSG are chosen to match the Biden Administration’s political leaning, and the major threat – the unsecured southern border – is downplayed and no plans to apply national power to counter this threat are given. It is clear proof of the politicization of the military by that administration.

Footnotes

[1] Goldwater–Nichols Act
[2] The White House, “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.”
[3] Ibid, 6
[4] Sherman, “The ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of Power”
[5] Ibid, 19
[6] The White House, “A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement.”
[7] The White House, “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.”, 21
[8] Ibid, 19

Bibliography

Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986, Pub. L. 99-433 (1986), Retrieved 22 August 2024 from https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/dod_reforms/Goldwater-NicholsDoDReordAct1986.pdf

Sherman, M. “The ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of Power: from Marx to Foucault to Power Today.” 13 April 2015. Retrieved 22 August 2024 from https://melinasherman.com/2015/04/13/the-how-and-why-of-power-from-marx-to-foucault-to-power-today/

The White House. “A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement.” February 1996. Retrieved 22 August 2024 from https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nss/nss1996.pdf?ver=4f8riCrLnHIA-H0itYUp6A%3d%3d

The White House. “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.” March 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2024 from https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf