Much has been written about the new re-engineering efforts and how they are dissimilar and more rewarding than using TQM (Total Quality Management). Reports say that re-engineering provides a quantum leap in improvement while TQM contributes small, incremental change. It is also reported that highly motivated re-engineering teams climb the "mountain of change" with a unique sense of a new mission. Yet, they live long enough to see themselves fall hard when it is time to implement.
MRI's 15 years experience as designers, practitioners and consultants in both Re-engineering and TQM has given evidence of a better way. It is important to note that many TQM efforts today are only activities with little or no emphasis on results. These activities include creating teams, training employees in TQM, placing slogans on walls, and using problem-solving techniques. Shortly afterward, employees begin to lose interest in TQM because results did not happen as predicted. TQM efforts are reduced and TQM gets blamed for the lack of success. In re-engineering, for the most part, efforts to change the way things have been done have been based on a "divine inspiration" that flows from some of the members of the re-engineering teams. It seems that these few have received a unique knowledge of what has to be done. They have become the new "gods" of the organization with power and change everything.
Processes that have been in operation for years are changed, new rules are set up, people are retrained and resources are committed based only on the perception that the new way will work better. Soon afterward, corporations find a need to return to the "old way" because the re-engineering did not go deep enough into the process. The business world is littered with this kind of re-engineering.
Some TQM efforts have included re-engineering and have resulted in major improvements. Why is it that some efforts work and others fail?
The main reason is that efforts that succeed are based on pursuing results and those that fail are only pursuing efforts. By pursuing results, concentration is on outcomes of the process, the customer and customer needs. By pursuing efforts, the concentration is on how things are done, the company and the company's problems.
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