Consider, for a moment, your own body. Is it one body composed of a collection of mutually dependent parts or a collection
of semi-autonomous parts that happen to be in physical proximity? If, for instance, one portion of your body were facing a challenge of some nature, would it be allowable for another part of your
body to contribute or even take over a particular function --or would you want the over-taxed body part to solve its own problems? Put that way, the answer is obvious. For the
greater good of the body as a whole, spreading the burden around only makes sense. But consider the following true case. At company A, the definition and implementation of a
quality process had been greeted with different levels of enthusiasm and involvement by different departments within the company. No surprise there; if a company is made up of humans, there will
always be variation in the reaction to anything. In this particular company, one of the routine things that happened was that department X initiated the sending of checks to a
large number of customers each month. Most of these checks ended up in the hands of the intended recipients --just as quickly as the U.S. Postal Service could get them there. A certain percentage
of the checks, however, found their way back to company A. Because the envelopes contained cashable checks, the company mailroom sent them directly to the accounting
department. These returned checks fell into three categories: * Returned with a yellow label attached, giving the addressee's new address (which the post office provides if the
address change occurred before a certain time) * Returned with no yellow label, but an investigation of company records reveals that a new address is on record (it was missed when
the now-returned, check-containing envelope went out) * Returned with no yellow label, and there is no new address anywhere in the company's database
The long-established procedures were: 1. Accounting would open the envelopes, make a copy of the check, put the check in its vault and send the envelope (with or without a yellow
label), original letter and the copy of the check to department X. 2. On an as-time-allowed basis, someone in department X would deal with the returned mail --either by updating the
address from the yellow label or company records, then requesting the accounting department to dig out the check and send it to the correct address, or by beginning a search for the correct
address, a process that included waiting until the checkless customer called in and then asking him or her for an updated address. 3. Accounting, once it received the request to send
the original check to the new address, would locate the check and try again. 4. If, during the time the returned mail was working its way through department X, the intended recipient
got pushy enough over the phone to cause a new check to be generated, accounting would issue a "stop" on the old check (cost: $6) before sending out the new one. With some frequency,
the customer would end up receiving two checks and cashing them both, one of which may or may not be rejected by the bank. As a "Quality Idea," a
team in accounting proposed that its department simply handle the redirecting of those returned checks that fell into the first two categories, while continuing to forward on to department X
those envelopes for which there was no readily available correct address. For the large majority of cases, this new procedure would allow the checks to be sent to the corrected address within 24
hours rather than three to five weeks, department X's workload would be reduced, and money and time would be saved. The reaction by department X's head? A flat refusal. Reason?
It was their "mess" and they would "take responsibility for cleaning it up." The reasoning holds up only if it is assumed that (a) department X had made the
deliberate decision to inconvenience the company's customers, was intentionally wasting company time and funds, and needed to make recompense for its harmful practices; and/or (b) the departments
of the company were competing for favor and fame. Neither condition applied. A quality process, correctly or incorrectly implemented, will change an organization's culture.
However, the change won't be instantaneous, nor will it take place uniformly across a company. In this case, the folks in accounting had determined that what counts is what makes things better
for the customer --and what makes things better for the customer quite frequently makes things better for the company, even if this means that one section of a company needs to take on additional
(or different) responsibilities. With that understanding, the accounting department was volunteering to take on an ugly little job that was being poorly performed by department X.
There's no question that, depending on the personalities involved, some people will need to swallow their pride as duties are shifted about to better serve the customer and, therefore, the
company. But imagine your right hand refusing help from the left in lifting something simply to prove the right hand was capable of doing it. Would you rather have the weight lifted smoothly by
both hands or dropped by one while it's trying to cling to the weight and its "honor" at the same time? A quality process doesn't just make it inconvenient for people
to hide in their organizational silos; a well-implemented quality process makes silos obsolete. About the authors
Pat Townsend and Joan Gebhardt have written more than 200 articles and six books, including Commit to Quality (John Wiley & Sons, 1986);
Quality in Action: 93 Lessons in Leadership, Participation, and Measurement (John Wiley & Sons, 1992); Five-Star Leadership: The Art and Strategy of Creating Leaders at Every Level
(John Wiley & Sons, 1997); Recognition, Gratitude & Celebration (Crisp Publications, 1997); How Organizations Learn: Investigate, Identify, Institutionalize
(Crisp Publications, 1999); and Quality Is Everybody's Business (CRC Press, 1999). Pat Townsend has recently re-entered the corporate world and is now dealing with
"leadership.com" issues as a practitioner as well as an observer, writer and speaker. He is now chief quality officer for UICI, a diverse financial services corporation headquartered in
the Dallas area. E-mail the authors at ptownsend@qualitydigest.com . |
