Destroying through labelling LO19417

David Faulder (d.faulder@hesin.ac.uk)
Wed, 07 Oct 1998 10:28:50 +0100

Replying to LO19410 --

Roald Nomme's posting rang bells with me and I recalled the following
article that I came across recently on the confusion of symbols and
things.
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html

The TQM/ISO/IIP programmes seem to be about acquiring the labels when done
*badly*. (IIP is Investors in People - a programme in the UK to encourage
companies to take training & development seriously - the literature makes
it sound a good idea in the same way as TQM; implementations sometimes
make me feel that companies are chasing the plaque for the reception
area.)

In Q2 in his posting Roald questions how we can explain the success of
programmes like ISO9000. I look forward to replies from people who have
done research in this area but would question what is meant by "success".
If success is a lot of people doing it and a lot on consultancies making
money from "helping" them do it, the success might be due to:

a) companies making it a "condition of business" because they know that
they have some poor suppliers, but are not able to deploy a proper
supplier development programme to assist them, so hope that "forcing ISO"
will force improvement. In this case "success" for the poor supplier
often means "survival".

b) senior management "looking for universal remedies" and hence
"launching "initiatives" without actually understanding them, but putting
extreme pressure on their people to "do them" without setting out the
strategic context. Consequently "getting the badge" becomes more
important than "getting the benefit". Unfortunately the same is true in
many parts of my current field (higher education) where many students seem
more interested in "getting the letters", than in "developing the thinking
ability" - with part-time students pressures from their employers can
encourage this attitude.

Regards

David Faulder, http://www.hesin.ac.uk/
HESIN Higher Education Support for Industry in the North
A voluntary association of the Universities of Northern England

-- 

David Faulder <d.faulder@hesin.ac.uk>

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