Project teams are made up of employees from different departments. Unlike problem- solving teams, they have the authority to implement their own recommendations, which often relate to work organization reforms and the introduction of new products or technology. Self-managed teams are self-contained work units that are responsible for producing a product or providing a service.
Self-managed team members make decisions traditionally made by managers relating to scheduling, ordering materials, staffing, job assignments, team leadership, and team goals. Many organizations that have implemented self-managed teams have experienced increased productivity and improved quality. General Motors' Saturn division is a celebrated example of a self-managed team. Self-managed teams differ from problem-solving teams in that they fundamentally change how work is organized and assigned.
Implementing ideas often involves the cooperation of many people and, of course, requires money and manpower. In addition, only those individuals who develop the ideas, not those who implement them, receive recognition and rewards. Time is also a factor. Staff engineering groups, maintenance people, and middle managers are often faced with a choice between continuing their normal activities and picking up on ideas that the QC groups have suggested.
Unless they are willing to put their regular duties aside, these organization members will never implement the ideas. Just as with approval, if the ideas are never converted into action, QC programs usually lose their momentum and die. People need to see their ideas in action and to receive feedback on how they are working out.
Because it is so hard to effect change in organizations, a significant percentage of QC programs end at this point. In some cases, however, some of the ideas from the program are implemented and produce large savings. In these situations, the program moves on to the next phase. During this phase the program is often expanded to include new groups, and old groups are either phased out or told to work on additional problems.
In general, if the program gets this far, management has committed a considerable amount of resources to it, and it has become a part of the organization. Threats to continuation do, however, appear during this phase. Simply reaching this phase provides no guarantee that the program will continue. Problems that confront a program at this point are many and varied. Some of them are a product of the initial success of the program, while others are related to the fact that the circles are a program that requires a parallel organizational structure.
The initial success of the program spurs formerly disinterested people to want to get into a circle. Nonparticipants become jealous of circle members and wonder why they cannot have the luxury of meeting and solving problems during work hours. They also resent the recognition and status successful circle members receive. To a degree, managers can meet this issue by expanding the number of groups to include more people, but almost always an insider-outsider culture arises.
These increased hopes can take several forms. They may, for example, lead people to desire greater upward career mobility as well as additional training. Also, circle members often become uncomfortable with the split between the way they are treated in quality circle meetings and how they are treated in the day-to-day operations of the organization. As their desire for influence rises they may ask for more participation in managing the daily work of the organization.
Having initially picked off the easiest problems to solve, some groups run out of problems. They then find themselves in a situation where, with the limited charter and training they have, they can do little more. At this point, the circle may simply go out of existence or take on other areas—even those beyond its mandate. The initial success may also lead participants to ask for financial rewards.
They are particularly likely to do this when management talks about the great savings the circles have produced for the organization. In the American culture, people who have contributed to gains perceive that they have the right to share in them. Management can deal with this issue through various financial sharing plans, but to do so requires changing the basic structure of the quality circle program. Expanding the program may boost its price tag.
The need for training time rises, as does the need for time to coordinate, facilitate, and meet. All this costs a great deal, and ultimately many managers question whether the savings justify the expense. Unfortunately, when executives try to document the savings from the early QC ideas, they often turn out to be smaller than originally estimated.
It often turns out that management based the initial expansion of the program on optimistic estimates of just how much it was going to save and, indeed, may have rewarded people for projected, rather than actual, savings. Disappointment over the actual savings from early ideas and the significant expense of running the QC program often combine to provide the single most serious threat to its continued existence. Given the many forces and pressures that develop during this phase, it is not surprising that the typical program either begins to decline or becomes a different kind of program at this point.
In our experience, few QC programs turn into other kinds of programs; more commonly, decline sets in. During this period, groups meet less often, they become less productive, and the resources committed to the program dwindle. As managers begin to recognize this, they cut back further on resources. As a result, the program shrinks.
The people who all along have resisted the program recognize that it is less powerful than it once was, and they openly reject and resist the ideas it generates. In summary, then, circles encounter many threats to their continued existence. Because of these threats, it is not likely that managers will institutionalize and sustain programs over a long time. Ironically, circles contain in their initial design many of the elements that lead to their elimination and destruction.
This raises the issue of how, if at all, executives can effectively use quality circles. Although we have tried to show that circles are an unstable organizational structure that is likely to self-destruct, this does not mean that management should avoid them. Companies can use circles in three sensible ways.
Group suggestion program. Quality circle programs can effectively collect the ideas of the individuals closest to the work. If management has no interest in shifting its style toward participation or in creating an elaborate parallel structure, it can create quality circles, capture the ideas they produce, and then stop them. This approach recognizes the strengths and limitations of the circle process and capitalizes on them.
It relies on the initial enthusiasm and knowledge of workers who get an opportunity to meet and make suggestions. It recognizes that circle programs are difficult to maintain and therefore plans for their being phased out. If management takes this approach, it should rotate circle membership, thereby continually introducing new blood into groups that may be running out of ideas.
In addition, executives should rotate the circle program, along with its training and facilitation resources, among various work areas so that the circles work on the most obvious problems and then move elsewhere. These programs need to be carefully introduced. Management should give the groups a very narrow mandate with no indication that the program represents the arrival of a new management style.
The chief benefit of this approach is the good ideas that result in savings. The approach also improves communication, particularly upward, and raises the consciousness of employees concerning issues of quality and productivity.
In addition, managers who have used it mention that as a result of exposure to the circles, supervisors develop more skills and have an opportunity to identify workers with a lot of potential.
The danger of this approach is that workers may feel that they have been manipulated: they see their ideas saving the company money, but they find no change in their daily work lives or in their opportunity to get involved on an ongoing basis. Also when employees become aware of the difficulty of getting ideas approved and implemented as well as of the cumbersome organizational decision-making and resource-allocation processes, they may become cynical about their organization and its management.
Special projects. Executives can also use quality circles effectively to deal with temporary or critical organizational issues. For instance, in introducing new technologies, retooling for new product lines, or helping to solve major quality problems, management can use circles to work out the bugs as well as to help workers accept the change.
This approach implies a limited degree of movement toward participative management. For example, the circle should disband when the new technology has been debugged or when quality has been brought within acceptable bounds.
We found a few companies that have used QC programs for more than ten years and have gone through successive cycles of start-up and decline. A start-up typically occurred when the company was introducing a new product or a new technology and wanted employee input. At those points, managers seemed to almost spontaneously rediscover quality circles and start the activity again.
Experience made the start-up and development of the circles much quicker and easier. This approach to circles represents a significant but limited development in the direction of employee participation. The problems of adaptation, which have caused quality circles to be abandoned, are made plain by a look at the conditions two experts think are necessary for the success of quality circles. Ron Basu and J. Nevan Wright, in their book Quality Beyond Six Sigma another quality management technique specified seven conditions for successful implementation of quality circles.
These are summarized below:. Any experienced manager, contemplating the rules shown above and the typical management environments in which he or she works or has worked in the past will be able to discern quite readily why QC has not taken a firm hold in the U. As for the small business owner, he or she may actually be in a very good position to try this approach if it feels natural.
An obviously important element of success, confirmed by Basu and Wright, is that QC must be practiced in an environment of trust and empowerment. Cole, Robert. Oxford University Press, Robbins, Harvey, and Michael Finley. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Zimmerman, James P. January Top Stories. Top Videos. Quality circles must be staffed entirely by volunteers.
Each participant should be representative of a different functional activity. The problem to be addressed by the QC should be chosen by the circle , not by management, and the choice honored even if it does not visibly lead to a management goal. Management must be supportive of the circle and fund it appropriately even when requests are trivial and the expenditure is difficult to envision as helping toward real solutions.
Circle members must receive appropriate training in problem solving. The circle must choose its own leader from within its own members. Management should appoint a manager as the mentor of the team, charged with helping members of the circle achieve their objectives; but this person must not manage the QC. Nevan Wright. Quality Beyond Six Sigma. Elsevier,
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