All entries for Monday 07 October 2013
October 07, 2013
Creating Business Excellence 1
Dr. Deming believes that organisations do not need competition but cooperation. His principle is one that supports an organisation as being a whole system responsible for quality management. One of his key message from the video we watched today in class was to eliminate waste and incentives given to individuals at workplaces as a reward for better input.
The importance of Deming's principle I believe is to help every single one in the organisation to grow and really an organisation cannot grow if the people are not growing and this cuts accross all the levels in the organisation. The Senior Tutor Paul Roberts who taught the course, with series of relevant illustrations made me understand that the "Aim is to create safe working environment" for the employees
Most companies and organisations which I have heard of practice this e.g Ford as the Executive Director mentioned in the video. Employees especially in the sales and marketing departments are given some sort of targets sometimes its so huge that it seems really humanly impossible to achieve those in the time frame set. Having had some friends who have been in this shoes make me realize how stressful the task is and inconsiderate the managements can be. There is usually a reward set for the employees who would meet these target in time. And this can even result in creating sales demands to exceed supply.
Now personally I think yes the incentives (always monetary) are good and they are made to push one. But I use to ask what if they are being made in form in training? yes it might sound funny but I think knowledge has power. For instance a sale representative meets his/her targets and then he or she is sponsored on a trip abroad for training on an international Sales course and this knowledge when applied will boast the companies sales.
I will say that I agree with Dr. Deming on his view on recognition and reward, as in the past this has driven employees to begin to work under so much pressure thereby not able to be freely creative.
As a future manager I will like to encourage my team members to grow both individually and most importantly as team because no man knows it all and can do it all. Once competition sets in, information begins to be hoarded. If I head a Sales Departments in a company, I would make sure no one handles more than three (3) clients at a given time, especially when they are new clients (still the decision process) because one person might not have the ample time to respond very well to all the clients unique requirements, meeting schedules, etc and I think this is to enable information sharing and allow other sales reps to support when necessary. I will closely monitor these.
It helps build a good support system at the end of the day. Yes...We are a Team, aren't we?