THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506240353
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Stepping into the car with my date, I glimpsed flip cards in the back seat, familiar to me from a management program at work.
At the restaurant, he suggested that we brainstorm over the menu. As the night went on, he said we made a great team and that he believed in managing family relationships from the bottom up. And, he said, we could chart a course together.
At the end of the evening, as we pulled into my driveway, he gazed into my eyes. I knew what he wanted: a paradigm shift. I told him, as one of my co-workers said, I never paradigm shift on the first date.
But seriously, Total Quality Management, a philosophy and practice that has swept the corporate world, really was the main topic on a recent date. And I don't think that was a reflection on my conversational skills or his.
TQM has worked its way into the American psyche. It is becoming a way of being, a way of approaching reality, not unlike a religious doctrine.
The TQM gospel began spreading in America nearly a decade ago as U.S. corporations sought to bone up for global competition. After World War II, Japanese factories had been the proving ground for statistician W. Edwards Deming's philosophy.
Its main principles:
Paradigm shift - a willingness to change the way you think about running a company, factory, store, etc.
Put the customer first - quality and service over quantity.
Manage by teams - instead of traditional management, organize groups of workers to make decisions, solve problems and lead.
Municipal governments have adopted TQM. Norfolk recently appointed an assistant city manager for ``continuous improvement.'' Last month, Portsmouth's schools received an award for TQM endeavors.
Mass media agencies, such as these newspapers, are going full speed ahead with TQM.
As TQM has taken hold, I have come to see it as the closest thing to a national ethos, or dare I say nationalism, that I've witnessed in my lifetime. Now, nationalism usually has a bad connotation. But what I'm talking about is a national sense of a common mission toward global competition, a common philosophy on how to achieve the mission and the esprit de corps to expedite it.
Two other movements currently afoot also reflect TQM principles: multiculturalism, which seeks to establish a harmoniously diversified work force; and nationwide community-building efforts in which residents seek solutions themselves rather than wait on government.
Of course, cynics abound for all three. And to tell the truth, I have not been totally proselytized to TQM. Playing on a team doesn't come easy for me. I'm a middle child. And the endless, sometimes touchy-feely, meetings that TQM, diversity training and community work require can wear on one.
But from the brainstorming and flip charts have come dialogue that was once practically taboo in the workplace, schools and government offices. There's been criticism of management, and talk about race and gender inequities. And that is good if it yields change.
Together these three movements could be strands woven into the powerful rope we need to pull ourselves into the 21st century fighting hard as a nation, a novel concept.
As for my date - let's call him Teddy TQM - well, we haven't been out since. But he certainly left an impression. by CNB