MAKING THE "SHIFT" HAPPEN IN YOUR ORGANIZATION

LORI L. SILVERMAN, OWNER
Partners for Progress
1218 Carpenter Street
Madison, WI 53704-4304
800.253.6398 (voice mail)
pfprogress@aol.com (e-mail)
www.partnersforprogress.com

Changes have been underfoot in the quality movement for several years. But the magnitude of these changes are just now starting to make themselves known. What do they result from? From initiatives that have gone awry, expectations that have not been met, and a business climate that
is more demanding than ever. Forces that are impacting our workplaces—employees acting like "free agents," the move for organizations to be socially responsible citizens, the aging of baby boomers and the like are also contributors.
These challenges and the shift they require within organizations from the work of internal/ external consultants and quality professionals were highlighted in the talk, "Improving Organizational Performance in the Workplace of the Future," presented at The Hunter Conference last
May. This talk was based on the research findings presented in the 1999 book, Critical SHIFT:
The Future of Quality in Organizational Performance, authored by Lori Silverman with Annabeth Propst. Quality is no longer the objective of a business. Creating value is. Value is much more than an economic calculation. It is the perception that the resources one receives in
an marketplace exchange are greater than those that are given up when compared to an alternate choice. These resources may be easily measurable and come in the form of money, information, or time; they can also encompass intangibles such as love, status, and sensory gratification.
Once an organization is clear on its mission and vision, its task is to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage based on them. In order to do so they must create ever-increasing value simultaneously for four constituents—employees, consumers, shareholders (stakeholders) and society at large. Improving quality is necessary but not a sufficient means for creating value.
Today, organizations must continually improve their overall performance and the concepts, tools, and methods of quality are but one approach for doing so. In the process, the "Q" has lost its tail—total quality management has become total organizational management.
What organizations need is "a systems approach to change and improving performance" according to Bill Anderson, Training Specialist for the Kohler Co. He goes on to say "the basics—such as quality assurance—are as important as work in alignment and integration and attending to human/spiritual needs." Karen Bennett, Training Manager for Discover Color, elaborates on this. "a piecemeal approach is easy—and it fails often. We need to have a more complete picture of what is needed to improve performance. As Tedd Snyder, C.Q.E., formerly of Florida Power & Light and now with the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership
states, "we need to take companies from being tactically successful to being strategically strong.
…To do so quality professionals, as change agents, must see the entirety of improving the quality of management. Early on we were focused on the content [of quality]—now we need to [talk about] how to enable organizations to do these things. The challenge for American firms is
that they are not improving fast enough."
The Starburst ModelTM, the centerpiece of Critical SHIFT, is a comprehensive framework for improving organizational performance that ultimately helps organizations to create value.
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