21.7 Pitfalls and problems of TQM

Like any management approach, TQM does not protect from failures and implementation problems. According to data provided by the Juran Institute,9 80 per cent of the companies that tackled TQM in the 1980s failed. One of the reasons is that the origin and dissemination patterns of TQM are quite different from those of almost every other management innovation of the past 30 years. As a result, many companies have misunderstood and misapplied it. It has not received the careful academic scrutiny that has served to give credence and authority to other innovations in organization and management.

Management may well go into a TQM process without a proper understanding of the necessary organizational conditions for its successful implementation, or of the barriers existing in the company. Some of these barriers are:

●Lack of awareness among top managers about TQM, its potential, when to use it and their own role in managing quality.

●A company culture that is not conducive; changing culture is difficult.

●Middle managers who are reluctant to change their attitudes and behaviour.

●Lack of time and funding for the training and development of teams.

●Difficulty in quantifying tangible benefits, leading to a feeling that the effort is not worth while.

However, in most cases, poor results of TQM are caused by top managers. They often have an incorrect vision disconnected from organizational values and behaviour, and their objectives are vague and short-term. They do not understand TQM and fail to set an example, believing that others have to change and perform better but not them. Very few senior managers understand statistics, and do not look at the world in terms of data and facts but rather through gut feeling. Also, employees are often not well trained in the new skills required by TQM; they may feel threatened and are not properly motivated since they do not see the potential benefits of TQM. Too much emphasis on doing things right the first time often kills creativity and initiative, and deprives employees of learning from experience.

In many organizations, CEOs and senior line managers are late in confronting issues of software quality. As a result, many companies have accumulated a lot of incompatible, customized software systems designed to handle the same applications. IT companies often face similar problems, particularly if they have grown rapidly through a series of acquisitions.10

Ignoring the customer is another common mistake in implementing TQM. And certainly one of the major management mistakes is selecting TQM for the wrong task. TQM cannot be used, for example, to introduce very fast and radical change. It is not a cure-all. It does not directly address such factors of success as competitive positioning, marketing, financial structure, diversification, organizational structure and corporate strategy, nor does it adequately support aggressive cost