applying total quality management to the media organization

8/10/2019 Applying Total Quality Management to the Media Organization

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Applying TQM to the Media Organization

2001 Bradley Osborn

1

Applying Total Quality Management to the Media Organization

Bradley Osborn

JOUR 7100: Media Management

Instructor: Dr. James Redmond

The University of MemphisMemphis, Tennessee

Fall 2000


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Applying TQM to the Media Organization 2

Introduction

The American worker is not unfamiliar with a certain nomenclature made of terms such

as brainstorming, feedback, just- in-time, first in- first out, audits, cross-functional training, cycle-

time reduction, preventive maintenance, statistical controls, goals, and vision statements. What

(s)he may not know is that these are specific concepts and tools born out of a larger model of

ongoing, pervasive excellence that values team-based decision making, customer-driven

performance, and continuous quailty improvement known as Total Quality Management or

TQM.

Post-World War II (WWII) Japanese industry stood in ruin, TQM was developed to aid

its phoenician rise (Redmond, 1998). Originally successful in manufacturing environments, non-

manufacturing, public, and service sectors of the economy have adopted Total Quality

Management principles, as well.

A further leap for TQM would be its application to the media organization, where the

product requires employment of a number of creative, independent minds, and where there exists

at least one unique, external customer, the audience.

Origins of TQM

Everyone is a customer, either internal or external in TQM; it is not a transient

management fad, but a permeating, enculturating operations philosophy. All persons share in

facilitation. All are shepherds. All are stakeholders. TQM is the business kin to Integrated

Marketing Communications (IMC) in that it fully integrates all disciplines within an

organization, exploiting the best of each component. Any invested party is a stakeholder,

customer, or audience. All differently disciplined folk are given seats at the table so that a unified


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goal (TQM) or message (IMC) is effected (Harris, 1998). Quality is not a separate, altruistic

goal, but an organization-wide orientation towards excellence at every level, an ethic that fosters

business success.

TQM is management and control activities based on the leadership of topmanagement and based on the involvement of all employees and all departmentsfrom planning and development to sales and service. These management and

control activities focus on quality assurance by which those qualities, whichsatisfy the customer, are built into products and services during the above

processes and then offered to consumers. --Japanese Society for Quality Control

Modern quality control started in the 1920s with Walter Shewhart; his Economic Control

of Quality of Manufactured Product points to subjective quality as the "goodness of a thing"

(Kondo, 2000). In the 1950s W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran lectured industrie japonais

on the subject of quality. They are often credited with Japanese ascent to international quality

leadership. Juran counters, saying that he and Deming provided the jump-start those companies

needed, and Asian CEOs were keen listeners and implementers.

Japan has a centuries old tradition of producing quality craft products. After WWII, the

country faced translating this quality into produced goods. Before 1945, the essence of

Nipponese quality was embodied in its war machine; business executives were in charge of

quality management and goal setting. Juran believes CEOs must take the lead in the corporate

push for quality (Juran, 1993).

Juran authored the Quality Control Handbook, affirming that our modern dependence on

technology and the interdependence of service and production makes quality a very important

issue (Stewart, 1999) .

Deming defined quality as "a product that is useful and good enough for the purpose

intended", while Juran defined quality as "meeting the needs of customers." Quality is key to


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modern competitiveness, market growth, and profitability (Kondo, 2000). The Japanese took

Deming seriously, with their sense of responsibility to both superiors and subordinates Mazur,

2000).

All TQM philosophies state that businesses, first and foremost, must be customer-

driven, (Salkin, 1992). Customers are allies in an organizational quest for quality. Teams power

TQM, and are made of management, shop-floor personnel, and all those in between, empowered

as a group to stomp out nonproductive practices.

Quality in the West

Western quality emissaries brought the TQM ethic to the Eastern isles, but change came

slower to American firms. The Second World War had boosted US industry; it was a military

victor, if not savior, and was not likely to espouse an Eastern management philosophy. Some

Western companies did embrace the Team concept early, which empowered workers or groups

of workers, while others maintained a strict centrally controlled management style. The two

extremesearly adopters and rigid conservatives--appear to be coalescing to some extent;

however, there remain certain vocational, regulatory, and legal decisions that must be left to

management.

Creech (1995) emphasizes the Five Pillars of TQM: Product, Process, Organization,

Leadership, and Commitment. He stresses that all five pillars must be in alignment in order to

reap benefits. Organizations need to understand. The service sector has the most to gain from

TQM because of its strong need to satisfy customers, (Warren, 1996). Managers will find the

use of teams to be a beneficial means of achieving quality control,(LePree, 1995).


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Employee empowerment can enhance competitiveness; they can work in teams, Teams

can progress to self-direction where members are expected to acquire multiple skills and to

perform managerial tasks. Team development includes team design, choosing team players,

training, facilitating leadership transitions, and establishing performance awards (Wellins, 1992)

According to Bowman (1994), performance appraisals focused on assessing and

changing individual behavior are is misguidedDemings management-by-feardestroying,

morale, inhibiting motivation, discouraging innovation, and supporting the status quo. No

evolution occurs. By contrast, TQM promotes teamwork, coaching, listening, and leading

(Bowman, 1994).

Recently TQM has become sort of a social movement in the US (Hackman, 1995),

generating new ideas and keeping track of what works (Levine, 1995). Doubts persist, however.

Some say assumptions and theories underlying TQM are incompatible with the economic model

that under girds western management practices, while innovations are usually developed in the

United States and delivered top-down by leading companies. TQM differs in that its primary

objective is customer satisfaction (Western management versus TQM, 1995).

TQM does not easily blend with certain dynamic realities: restructuring, downsizing, and

reengineering (Straining of quality, The, 1995). Progress toward total quality in the west may be

slow and uneven, but Kano (1993) finds reason for optimism (Kano, 1993). TQM appears to

reduce costs in the end (Straining of quality, The, 1995).

The Media Organization

Finessing TQM into the specific area of media management requires skills of both

counselor and bureaucrat. Taking the pulse of human interaction within a media organization


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involves the unique challenge of managing the oft autonomous, artful worker. The removal of

management from daily operations can foster golden children or stars. Trenchwrork by

management can mitigate these developments.

Do all media organizations subscribe to a management system? Lusting after profits is

not management, but rather an example of high-level, single-issue decision-making. True

managersthose supervisors who nurture quality--realize there are human persons involved in

all processes. A decision made anywhere in the system potentially affects all others.

Recognizing subordinates as stakeholders allows for the injection of a new idea, the

planting of a seed of creativity, or a mutational change potentially cultivating traits within an

organization, which can aid in its survival within the competitive field of media. Encouraging

technical writing skills, an incredulous nature, professional training, and a business acumen

builds a better journalists.

The market currently defines the media menu. Dollars are key to content. Competition is

key to capitalism. If there is no competition, then the market dollars do not work fairly to

determine content. Government is charged with balancing these forces. It is important to

promote corporate responsibility while avoiding censorship.

Traditionally TQM has applied to production or operations-based industries not to those

who craft the creative word. Organized media provide services, such as broadcasting, or a

tangible product, such as a newspaper or magazine

The model shows that managers consume rhetoric of success about TQM, use that

rhetoric to develop their TQM program, and then filter their experiences to present their own

rhetoric of success. Consequently, the discourse on TQM develops an overly optimistic view of


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TQM. The models demonstrate how individual actions and discourse shape TQM and fuel

institutional forces (Zbaracki, 1998).

Implementation of total quality management (TQM) or continuous improvement (CI) in

U.S. industry has not met with original expectations. The literature suggests a primary reason for

this failure is lack of top management support (Krumwiede, 1998).

Many programs fail because of preoccupation with technical issues and pay too little

attention to the human factor. Recognizing that it is necessary to identify the behavioral skills

needed to achieve and sustain successful change (Wellins, 1995).

It is also revealed that the manner in which employees perceive the beneficial effects of

TQM is of greater importance in predicting subsequent participation in TQM than is their initial

participation. It is found that there is no relationship between employee organizational

commitment and employee participation in TQM (Coyle-Shapiro, 1999).

Since their fiduciary duty to their clients usually translates into seeking the highest

possible rate of return, these multibillion-dollar institutions -- public and private pension funds,

insurance companies, banks, foundations, and endowments focus on increases in company

earnings and, thus, higher stock prices. In the case of newspaper companies, this may mean that

no matter how committed the companies are to quality journalism, they face enormous pressure

to cut costs, which often means cutting staff and news hole.

Recently, with changes in certain federal regulations, the institutions have increasingly

thrown their weight around. They have a lot of weight to throw. For example, Gannett's board of

directors and executive officers might run the $9-billion company, but they do not own it;

together, they own only 1.3 percent of Gannett's stock. The University of California, the

company's largest institutional investor, owns three times that much. Over all, institutions own


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72 percent of Gannett stock. Gannett is hardly alone. Institutions own about the same percentage

of Knight-Ridder and more than half the publicly traded shares of Media General, The New York

Times Company, A.H. Belo, The Washington Post Company, and the Tribune Company (see

table). Even companies like the Times that are controlled by family rusts, and thus immune from

hostile takeovers as long as the family members remain united, rely on the market for capital to

finance acquisitions, growth, and development. No company that raises money by selling stock

can be entirely free from stockholder pressure. (Newhouse is privately held, so while it may

have to please some bankers, it has no public investors to contend with.) (Soloski, 1996)

Team Journalism

Around the mid 1990s, some journalists were dealing with "grid system," designed to

numerically measure reporters' work: assembly-line journalism. There are also more traditional

systems assessment systems that avoid statistical calculationinstead offering a supervisory

critique in narrative form. But many other newsrooms still quantitate performance issuing report

cards.

Media defend such codified evaluations systems as necessary for reduce inefficiency,

manage cost, and encourage performance along with professional growth. But many reporters

find this inappropriate for a creative professional activity. felt insulted by the company's

terminology in characterizing their work. She blames the low ratings on the company's attempt to

save money.

Journalists have come to make many adjustments to a corporate management structure

increasingly focused on profits, management efficiencies, and higher productivity. But

newsroom managers who believe they can treat professionals as just an extension of the

corporate spreadsheet may find themselves facing an alienated workforce. Having their work


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reduced to scores or grades or statistical measurements can be "traumatic" for journalists If you

overlay some factory model onto the newsroom, you begin to detract from the thing that makes

for a good newsroom -- creative freedom. You can put a quantified system into any newsroom,

but good journalists won't work there," (Underwood, 1998).

Communications is key comm professionals News librarians, analysts, IT, Contractors,

freelancers. uses and gratifications: cognitive needs, affective needs, (emotional), personal,

social, and institutional needs (strengthening), tension release, personal identity, personal

relationship, active audience, time spent viewing, reading, listening, surveillance, information,

communication tool, entertainment, diversion, amusement.

news editors, news researchers, or data-processing staffers (also known as information

systems people).2 The advent of increasingly sophisticated computerized information search,

retrieval and analysis programs changed journalists' investigative methods. The "lone-wolf"

investigative journalist has given way to a newer concept of "team journalism."3 This conceptual

approach is one in which the talents of news researchers, editors, systems specialists and

statistical analysts combine with journalists and high technology to become a powerful force for

truth and justice (Semonche, 1993).

Evolutionary management system still offers promise in new millennium Total Quality

Management has been a source of constant discussion among American management for more

than a decade. By all indications, TQM will continue to evolve (Youngless, 2000).

Natural selection, the process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its

environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its constitution though mutation, a

spontaneous change. (Darwin, 1993).


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Social darwinism proposes the same process occurs in a suprabiological mannerin

society, organizations, and newsrooms. To foster the mutations or creative ideas, TQM should

come down a notch once it enters the creative venue of modern journalism. A more appropriate

model for this milieu is that of Integrated Communication. All functionalities should work to

produce a unified message, yet retain their separate skill sets and work ethics. Cross-training is

possible, but full integration may not be practical. Specialization can be beneficial coupled with

a mutual respect for all contributors and stakeholders. Stakeholders include internal publics, as

well as the external audience, be they subscribers, listeners, or viewers.

The unique media customer is that audience. Creativity, fiscal health. performance issues,

and responsible and effective communication are all braided together. To tease them apart would

weaken their synergistic tensile strength. The onus falls on the media manager to be the conduit

from corporate TQM to scoop IMC. Supervisors play a crucial role in communicating to the rank

and file a company's TQM goals and the means to achieve these objectives. The effectiveness of

TQM strategies in any company will therefore depend on the level and quality of its supervisor's

participation (Golhar, 1997).

Included in the situation analysis is "Identifying SWOTs," as Harris refers to

discovering/researching the client's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.(Harris,

1998) .

Conclusion

The 20th century began with scientific management and it will end with total quality

management, different sides of the same coin, (Ciulla, 1997) TQM achieves productivity and

quality by digging into the very hearts and souls of workers. Although TQM enriches the quality

of work life for people, it is difficult for companies to live up to its espoused values of


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commitment, trust, loyalty and teamwork. These are reciprocal moral values that you cannot get

from people without giving something back. (Ciulla, 1997)

earthy basin of humanity/imc-tqm for comm disc/orztn=organism

evolution mutational

change organic being nemeses Dynamic corporate mergers stifle creativity and a sense of

consistency (Brown, 1994).

U&G (Severin, 1997)

Companies once gung-ho about quality have become disillusioned and discouraged and

have dropped out. Moore, 1995).

Total Quality Management is fully appropriate for manufacturing environments,

especially those with a traditionally Eastern sense of community. As TQM moves west, its all

for one mantra weakens. Insert its principles into a nonmanufacturing setting, and more

concessions must be made. Imposing TQM principles on a media organization requires further

compromise. The application pure total quality management to the working journalist seems

doomed to fail without incorporation of integrated communications ideals, allowing the creative

worker to flourish within an otherwise deontological workplace. As one moves from the well

regulated production setting toward the art of compostion and story-telling, a finer fraction of

this useful management device must be distilled, always retaining quality while adapting for

survival.


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applying total quality management to the media organization

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