Service Quality
by Karl Albrecht
Management fads are no substitute for visionary leadership,
and systems are no substitute for brains.
Looking in on the Patients
The mortality rate of management fads has been distressingly high of late.
The fad life-cycle is now shorter than the product cycle of the book publishing
industry. Before the publishers can get the second and third waves of books
out the door, someone will likely pronounce the latest fad dead, or at least
terminally ill.
This is a good time to make the rounds of the terminal ward and look in
on some of the various patients there. Then we can move on to the maternity
ward for new business ideas.
Room 101. Patient's name: The Quality Movement. Oops! The patient seems
to have disappeared. The idea of a "quality movement" was probably
always too vague and diffuse to serve as a focus for business leadership.
Many organizations now attack their problems with strategies more specific
than "quality." This patient didn't actually die; it was more
like a long-overdue check-out.
Room 102. Patient's name: TQM. Condition: stone cold dead. Those three initials
are fast disappearing from business cards and department titles. Only the
university extensions still offer TQM seminars, a sure sign it's a goner.
Cause of death: wrong mind-set. The attempts to resuscitate TQM by injecting
the customer serum delayed the demise but couldn't prevent it. Actually,
this patient has reincarnated as the patient in the next room.
Room 103. Patient's name: Reengineering. Diagnosis: terminal, with possibly
another year or so to live. In the sequel to his highly acclaimed book Reengineering
the Corporation, professor Michael Hammer acknowledged that the only key
points he missed in the first book were the elements of culture and leadership.
Otherwise, he says, it was fine. Without a focus on the business vision
and strategy, and a means for engaging the organization's brainpower, most
reengineering efforts fail. In their new book Customer-Centered Reengineering,
my colleagues Edwin Crego and Peter Schiffrin point out the necessity of
reinventing the core business processes by aligning the strategy, people
and systems around the premise of customer value.
Room 104. Patient's name: ISO 9000. Diagnosis: severe anemia; recovery doubtful.
The number of consultants promoting ISO 9000 may outnumber the firms that
want to apply it. Its only real voice in the United States is the publication
Quality Digest, which has been taken hostage by the firms advertising ISO
9000 services in its pages. Even the European Commission, in its role as
quality promoter, has distanced itself from the obsession with certification
and raised concerns about misplaced emphasis on ISO 9000 certification.
Prognosis: ISO 9000 will likely fade into oblivion over the next five years.
Now let's see what we can learn about some of the next key business ideas
that may be headed for the delivery room.
Room 201. Patient's name: Strategic Customer Focus. After years of introverted
focus on structure, process and procedure, organizations are waking up to
the need for an external strategic focus. Leading businesses are aligning
their strategy, people and systems around a unique value proposition designed
to win and keep the customer's business. This places a premium on skilled
customer research, thoughtful strategy formulation and the ability to deploy
the strategic concept throughout the organization.
Room 202. Patient's name: Service Leadership. As business organizations
move more fully into the third-wave environment, with all of its downsizing,
delayering, outsourcing, partnering and alliances, management-through-meaning
becomes ever more critical. As more employees do knowledge work, managers
must become better leaders.
Room 203. Patient's name: Continuous Reinvention. One of the world's leading
manufacturers of typewriters, Smith-Corona, recently filed for bankruptcy.
It simply failed to reinvent itself for a new world. In many lines of business,
the pace of change is increasing and the stakes for survival are getting
higher. Reinvention must become a fact of life at all levels.
We can learn some lessons from the last 20 years of management fads. We
can learn that management fads are no substitute for visionary leadership.
We can learn that there is no one magic wand for business success. We can
learn that systems are no substitute for brains and that creating meaning
may ultimately be the most important act of leadership.
The lessons are there. Those who won't learn them get to take the course
again. Those who do can move on to higher levels of business success.
About the author
Karl Albrecht is chairman of Karl Albrecht International, which implements
his concepts through a consulting firm, a seminar firm and a publishing
company. Albrecht consults and lectures worldwide.
© 1995 Karl Albrecht. For reprint permission, telephone (619) 622-4884
or fax (619) 622-4885.
