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Ken,
Let's finally retire the tired old example of the Edsel....

This century (just in this decade!) has seen countless examples of
strategy design by top management teams that created prolific new
opportunities with only "ritual" consultation from those not placed
high enough to either understand the company's environment, or have
access to the all the information, or be conversant with the field's
analytical tools, or have some sense of its underlying disciplines,
AND have the time at work to pull away from turning out gadgets to
reflect upon where the organization is headed.

In some trivial sense, everyone is a participant to
everything. However, traditional management theory is correct to
represent managerial work in the common allegory of the 2 triangles
displayed in most Principles of Management textbooks. They show that
lower-level employees do most of the direct work (as symbolized by
the upright triangle) and the upper-level employees do most of the
INdirect, conceptual work (represented by the upside-down triangle).

This classic representation may be a tad simplistic but it's
basically on target: TQM is not a major issue in strategy design --
that's why the strategy literature is rather silent on the subject of
TQM.
Not to say TQM is totally gone, but I see it more connected
to Organization Theory than Strategic Theory.

Will Acar



**************************
Will(iam) Acar
Grad. School of Management
Kent State University
Kent OH 44242
wacar@bsa3.kent.edu 330-672-2750 x305

Will,
In the "big picture" of TQM, don't you think that all the disciplines you mention can and do benefit when seen through the lens of TQM? As just one example, we as managers of American business have for too long developed our Strategic Plans (if we developed them at all) behind the closed doors of the executive board room. That type of planning and marketing gave us the Edsel. How much better the plan if we had included customers and employees in the process?

Ken Miller, Instructor of Health Services Management and Business
Massey School of Business and
School of Health Sciences
The College of West Virginia
kmiller@cwv.net
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Dr. Martin Luther King, JR.)

Home Page: http://spitfire.cwv.net/~kmiller

William Acar wrote in part...

> ...traditional management theory is correct to
>represent managerial work in the common allegory of the 2 triangles
>displayed in most Principles of Management textbooks. They show that
>lower-level employees do most of the direct work (as symbolized by
>the upright triangle) and the upper-level employees do most of the
>INdirect, conceptual work (represented by the upside-down triangle).
>
> This classic representation may be a tad simplistic but it's
>basically on target: TQM is not a major issue in strategy design --
>that's why the strategy literature is rather silent on the subject of
>TQM.

Hmm. I've been at the top and the bottom and I've headed up the strategic
planning unit. I'm not familiar with those two triangles but I haven't
cracked open a principles of management textbook in 10 years. That aside,
I think it is a little misleading to suggest that lower-level employees do
most of the direct work and upper-level employees do most of the conceptual
work. The "conceptual" component is present in just about everyone's work.

It might be more accurate to say that lower-level employees typically have
little to do with or to say about the company's strategy and that the folks
at the top tend to stay out of "operating" matters. That, at least, is
closer to my experience of the world. It's a terribly flawed world by the
way. The folks who "push" TQM and other operating level issues tend not to
see the strategic issues and the folks who are occupied with strategy often
fail to see the operational implications of their thinking. The
result? Disconnects all over the place. The inability to link operations
with strategy results in organizational "drift" and the inability to devise
a workable strategy results in a work force full of employees who wonder
what top management is smoking or to conclude that they've chose to
relocate their heads to some other part of their anatomy.

I've always thought of the vertical axis in an organization as something
akin to a set of stacked Dixie cups. Take three of those, set one open end
down. Set the second on top of that and the third on top of the
second. The three cups represent three levels of organization: top
management, the middle, and the work force. The folks at or near the top
of the work force are in fact quite close to the folks at the very top of
top management. All three levels fit together.

Now, take those same three Dixie cups and whether you set them open end
down or up won't make any difference in the following exercise. Set one
cup down. Lay a playing card across its top. Set the next cup on the
card. Set a card on top of the second cup and then set the third cup on
top of that. This is a stacked hierarchy and the three layers are quite
distinct and only loosely connected.

Which do you prefer?
--

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@worldnet.att.net
(609) 490-0095

William Acar wrote:

<< TQM is not a major issue in strategy design --
>that's why the strategy literature is rather silent on the subject of
>TQM. >>

Mr. Acar's observation is unfortunately correct for Western literature on
TQM and strategy literature. The fact of the matter is that if one closely
studies the Japanese utilization of Hoshin Kanri, one would see that the
Japanese use their TQM Hoshin Kanri for the development and deployment of
their strategic plans. Their Hoshin systems are quite complicated but the
end result is an organization that is aligned around what is strategically
important to the entire organization.
Here in the West it is unusual to find a direct connection between
strategic planning deployment and TQM efforts. IMHO this is one of the major
reasons why TQM has not had the impact it could have had here in the US.
I disagree that TQM has little to do with strategy design ( and
deployment ). The tools of Hoshin Kanri can power up the design process (
whether it be the "five forces" or the " Long view." It can also enhance the
capability of an organization to engage a larger number of individuals (
employees, customers, board members ) in the planning process. Most of all,
it can have a powerful cross functional alignment impact on deployment and
audit of the strategic plan.

Happy holidays to all....

Joe Colletti
The Woodledge Group
Hoshin1@aol.com