Quality - Quantity Tensions
Driving Performance
Performance does need to be driven. But driving staff relentlessly is often a pragmatic or power-centred means to produce results quickly, regardless of long-term effects on staff or the organization. As such, it is antithetical to the spirit of the taxonomy.
But Don't People Sometimes Need to be Driven?
People enjoy working hard so long as the system and culture enables that. However, what counts as «working hard» for each of us tends to be a constant within a rather narrow range. If pushed, we can exceed that intensity for brief periods. If we try for more, we soon fall ill or burn out.
Driving people hard is commonly associated with using output targets to simplify line-management. But targets are likely to drive out an employee's many other important contributions: e.g. attending to the customer, being creative and innovative, cooperating on a colleague's issue, attending to unrelated crises, and adhering to procedures and standards.
In pushing people, including oneself, there are two primary concerns: the throughput (quantity) and the standard (quality) of that output. This leads to a natural tension that is handled differently at each .
There are characteristic and level-specific:
■ emotional states when managers get it right,
and
■ leadership is built around distinctive values
both of which seem miles away from «driving people hard».
The full picture is summarized in a matrix below.
At
The aim is to perform a series of concrete tasks to a specified quality according to instructions and set procedures. Balance is essential here.
- Too many tasks leads to a backlog, or an unacceptable fall in quality.
- Too few tasks results in staff waiting about.
staff work at their own natural pace, which varies from person to person. If they stick to given rules and standards, they have little scope to alter either throughput or quality. Getting more speed is possible via specialization. At the extreme, however, assembly-line ultra-simplification of manual jobs becomes inhuman.
Staff experience satisfaction and develop good attitudes if the type and flow of tasks and standards suit them, and become dissatisfied and negative if there is a mismatch.
The here is accuracy—ensuring everything is done exactly as specified/expected.
At
The aim is to manage a workload case by case to a given standard. Staff must allocate due time and attention to each situation or case and use their judgement in finding a resolution within given methods and policies.
While quality of handling a particular instance can be varied, there is less scope to alter overall throughput. Again, specialization can improve both quality and throughput.
Where this work is professional, there is commonly a preference for a lower throughput to a higher standard. Working in teams often assists in balancing the quality-throughput tension and a good team spirit develops.
The here is consistency—ensuring a dependability of satisfactory appraisals and diagnoses.
At
The aim is to set up systems which ensure day-by-day balancing of quality and workload in relation to fluctuations in staffing or demand. Quality is handled by ensuring staff are proficient and providing training in new methods and systems.
Professional or technical standards and methods in use must be monitored and kept up to date. Quality control is therefore designed into systems. Quality at any particular time requires both setting priorities and also active management of demand. Resource availability is relevant and and staff look to the manager to mobilize and allocate concrete resources as necessary.
Ensuring that the best possible is being achieved with available resources is crucial to maintaining morale.
The here is excellence—ensuring both that quality is high and that efficiency inheres in the systems.
At
The concern moves to ensuring a general level of achievement in terms of quantity and quality. Average throughput or workload is a prime concern, but demand not currently met, or needs for new products/services for which there is no current demand, require consideration. So minimum standards and general quality criteria come to the fore (as distinct from quality in a particular case). However, the primary way to deliver actual quality efficiently is to set up a viable structure.
The provision of management control and the development of costed plans is typically performed in a characteristic way in a division and leads to a noticeable ethos.
The here is progress—ensuring that plans are viable and changes get implemented by the various department heads.
At
The distance from daily realities is now great. The concern for quality is expressed by affirming and defending values: ideally putting service to customers/clients first, and integrating with the community. This may mean limiting what the organization is attempting, in keeping with resources and higher level requirements.
The result is development of a philosophy for operations and putting that into practice by what is said, by priorities, by conventions, and by actions. The result is a culture that pervades the organization.
The here is integrity—walking the talk, and meaning what you say in relation to values.
At
In HQ, there is no direct experience of quality or workload issues. Perhaps that is why HQs are so often grotesquely over-staffed or so often disconnected from customers. There is, however, an indirect awareness through feedback from customers or the public, nowadays via social media. The response may be to launch general initiatives (e.g. training) or to introduce highly targeted changes (e.g. a product recall).
-HQ behaviours determine the climate in an organization. The -leader who emphasizes the values of autonomy-creativity, equality and commitment can generate an experience of the organization as a community.
The at is perhaps tolerance—of inevitable subsidiary differences and of necessary compromises within operations.
The at is vision—ensuring that the entire organization is unified in its pursuit of an abstract integrated conception of the future.
Matrix Summary
| L | Organizational Label | Need to be Met | Social Atmosphere | Leadership Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WL7 | Total Coverage | Determination of a mission-based identity |
Community life | Vision |
| WL6 | Multi-field Coverage | Policy formulation and control |
Conglomerate climate | Tolerance |
| WL5 | Field Coverage | Strategy design and implementation | Organizational culture | Integrity |
| WL4 | Comprehensive Provision | Management control of developments |
Divisional ethos | Progress |
| WL3 | Systematic Provision | Operational control of concrete systems | Group morale | Excellence |
| WL2 | Situational Response | Resolution of open-ended concrete cases | Team spirit | Consistency |
| WL1 | Prescribed Output | Responses to concrete demands. | Personal satisfaction | Accuracy |
- Return to the list of additional perspectives.
Originally posted: 8-Feb-2014