CONTENT:

1. Preface
    
2. Introduction
• Quality as we understand it
• Managing quality
   
3. Quality factors
• Human element
• Quality workers
• Achilles heel
• Do we know what we're talking about?
• Control process in social environment
• The regressive process
• General methods of control
• Social programming in working environment

 
4. Case studies

 
• The human behaviour
• Procedures
• Technology
• Quality chains
• Management
• Customers' relations

 
5. Conclusions

 
1. Preface


The new trends in the quality management and in management itself bring new challenge for professionals. There are several different schools of thought so one trying to make a better choice may find himself completely lost. Classical: Taylor, Fayol, Weber then Human Relation School of Organizations, Ecological, March & Simon, Political - Crozier & Friedberg, Motivational school of organization, Content Theory - Herzberg, Process Theory - Vroom, Equilibrium Theory, Satisfaction Theory and so on.

All these create a normative chaos and problems with proper definitions and information exchange. Who's right? The answer is simple - all of them. The potential problems within those theories is their purely conceptional, descriptional character based on observations. How to apply them in practice that is another question.

The usefulness of any science domain can be measured by the new means possible to withdraw from the existing stage of knowledge then verified by experience i.e. proved. It is however not so easy in a case when the lack of proper definitions is common and their meanings are often discussed (?!) instead of being used to develop thesis...

In the following pages I present an analysis based on facts observed in the real life. It is preceded by introduction which recalls some basic knowledge concerning the issue.

 

2. Introduction

 
Quality as we understand it

Quality is simply meeting the customer requirements, and this has been expressed by many authors. This is usually clearly communicated in the Company Policy. By consistently meeting customer requirements, time and time again, we are creating reputation for excellence and developing customer loyalty.

The bad quality comes through the acceptance of failures. We do not normally accept failures but they often just happen if no precautions are taken. Throughout and beyond all organizations there are quality chains of customers and suppliers. Any of these chains can be broken at any point causing the failure of the final product or service.

We usually define customers as external people. Inside the organisation any given process involves cooperation of many employees and the final effect depends on every one of them. Every employee becomes a customer while receiving a product or service from others and plays the role of a supplier while giving or passing a product or service to others. Failure to meet the requirements in any part of this quality chain results in accumulating errors and creating problems elsewhere, leading to more failures and so on.

Paying price for the quality means to have to continuously examine requirements and have ability to meet them. This reduces cost, increases competitiveness, improves productivity, delivers performance, eliminates waste and results in customer and employee satisfaction.
 
Managing quality

The typical attempt in quality is a high level of inspection at the end of the process when it is usually too late. We are spending our time on wasteful detection of bad product or service just before it hits the customer or often after that, then apologizing to customers for lateness, bad quality and so on. In the broken quality chain we are constantly forced to make choices between bad and worse, passing wrong elements through the process, closer and closer to the customer.

Instead of asking if a job has been done correctly we should ask if we were able to do the right thing the right way. The answer to this question can be obtained only by the means of satisfactory methods, materials, equipment, skills, instructions and process.

Many successful tools have been developed for quality management, as the problems are common. It is well known that the management that heavily exerts the slogan: 'quality is your responsibility' usually fails to achieve quality and creates divisions and conflicts. However, most problems are not departmental and functional but interdepartmental.

To be able to analyse the quality factors we should specify the functional set that plays particular role in the quality achievements, i.e. describe what we need in order to do the right things the right way for the first time.



Teams	- cooperation and break down of interdepartmental barriers.
Tools	- methods and equipment
Systems	- organisation and procedures
Process	- with its quality chains built on good internal customer-supplier
Culture	- which plays enormous role whether the company is successful    or not
Communication	- the key to a quality performance
Commitment	- the most important element required at all levels   of the organization


 

3. Quality factors


There are many quality factors that should be considered in every organization but some of them are more important in the specific situations. I'm going to discuss those that I think are the most important in the case.
 
Human element

As the human element is considered to be the most important player in the quality management the human resources director is expected to undertake all necessary steps to induce the positive changes in the people and their attitudes. As a matter of fact according to the recent research most of the HR programmes aimed at the achievement of the required changes failed.
New structures for organizations, staff appraisal systems and seminars to change attitude brought little change or not at all in the actual organizational behaviour.

Why? - Everything was wrong including the subjects for changes and how the changes had to be done. The belief that the culture change programmes and new payment system will, by themselves, make positive transformations is wrong. The European Centre for Business Excellence research showed an inverse relationship between successful change and having formal organization-wide change programmes. That was particularly true if one of functional departments, such as HR, owned the program.

The programmes don't work because they're trying to change the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of individuals. The theory that it leads to changes in behaviour throughout the organisation is wrong because it's based on religion-like spreading despite of the fact that it concerns the people in business. Even if they believe they don't practice because the reality often shows contraries and the promised heaven does not come.

It is surprising that such methods based on 'the half of the true' known from the ancient communist countries still find followers. The abstract issues such as culture and participation can't be applied without the recognition that peoples' behaviour is determined by the roles they have to take up. If the new responsibilities, team roles, right working environment are created for them then this will create a culture. The theory and practice must go together.

The importance of every team member must be recognized and dignity restored. The call for the best performance must be accompanied by employee well-being and satisfaction. The power of decision-making should be largely spread among the staff and delegated to responsible people.

The practice of sharing knowledge and experience should replace the habit of isolation and independency. The true communication has to be developed in both horizontal and vertical directions. That includes verbal and behavioural. Managers must show responsibilities and good behavioural examples. They should listen to their staff and guide them by the effective planning.

Human Resources development requires particular skills and knowledge. This is important in the recruitment, team organizing and positioning people in management. Unfortunately professional skills and knowledge are often mixed up with leading and managing ability.
The manager should also be able to teach. While some of these skills can be learned others are naturally given and make up an individuals' personality; this should be detected and recognized by the HR specialists.

The correct habits of managers should give examples, and problem prevention mentality should replace the habits of covering, hiding and excusing.

One of the important issues to be analysed concerns the way the company achieves its goals, typically financial. When the market is unsaturated and work power easily accessed the short term actions take place and the performance is obtained at the staff expense and customers' unsatisfaction.
This can be easily detected by observing the much higher staff turnover and the increase of customer complains.
 
Quality workers

It is very easy now to get quality workers as we make a part of the European Union Community. The differences between the money value and the living conditions in the EU countries are still significant and many well qualified people search for a better place to live and work.

Quality workers also mean the workers of a good culture. In the case of the weak management the natural good behaviour ( habits and culture) of the employee, plays the most important role in the High Quality Service Assurance.

What about managers? Is there a chance to have good ones? I think it is but it is related to the correct HR politics. The managers are often selected in a wrong way and their jobs seem to be secure too much. Nobody realizes that bad managers make serious damages to companies and the profit lost much exceeds the cost of saying them thank you...
 
Achilles heel

As the role of HR department in the modern company constantly increases, we should take a special care of the sociological/socio-technical rules that are created by this department.
In fact HR became the most sensitive point in the company structure, the real Achilles heel of the organisation; the point of influence, an entry for poisoned ideologies and an easy target for external malicious control.

The rules created in the HR department may damage the company or can make it successful. This process is usually long and eventual resulting damage may be difficult to recover.
Another serious problem of HR department is its lack of competency in hiring people for specific jobs requiring specific knowledge. This is quite normal. HR people are not engineers nor scientist devoted to technology and science. They cannot asses technical skills and they must get support from experts in the field. This is not easy to get anyone opinion if necessary. There may be no such person in the company. In such a case the evaluation must be based on information given by the candidate supported by analysis of their previous employment. This may be confusing and difficult.
There is no place to discuss this issue in details here, however we should be aware that the presence of wrong socio-technical rules in the company, despite of the fact they were implemented intentionally or not, leads to its failure.

The wrong rules often create interest groups in the company structure. It happens especially in the case when they are different on different management levels. The interest group created by adaptive mechanisms in the work environment may set company for regressive process intentionally or not.
Such groups are not interested in any changes because the status quo assures their well-being. This is especially true in the case of big corporations.

 

Do we know what we're talking about?

Any proper analysis of business organization requires some basic assumptions to be set prior to. To do that let us remember some basic facts first:
- The purpose of corporation is to make profits for its owners, i.e. shareholders. According to the law, any other activities are illegal except if they serve to enforce the main purpose.

Let's use the term owner talking about a legitimate group that is supposed to get profit generated by company activities and use the term company, thinking corporation.

By the formal power group we will understand the group of decision makers that must, by law, act in the best interest of the corporation/company, and hence its owners. This group has a legal duty to the owner and this duty is to make money. The members of this group are in fact the employees of the shareholders.

Now let us assume the basic thesis:
i. Company is normal ,
   that is it acts in its own interest. If we think about a company as behaving
   in its own interest, we think about interest of the owner.
ii. People working for the company are normal,
    that is, they act in they own interest.
iii. There is a set of rules inside the company. The rules are correct
     i.e. created in the interest of the company, and understood by all staff.
iiii. Information distributed inside the company is always true
     which is usually not a case in regressive processes.
 

4. Control process in social environment


There are two types of control processes possible inside the company, stationary and dynamic.
The stationary process is to preserve the status quo, and the dynamic to make changes.
We can divide dynamic processes as progressive and regressive.

The fundamental test for a company is its performance. To improve performance the company should progress. We expect, therefore, the process running inside the company to be progressive, i.e. bringing better organization, better use of resources, better image^*, etc. , all of these in order to get more profit and better performance.

^*The corporate image is important because it serves as a source of competitive advantage over other companies. The reputation of a company has direct impact on its commercial fortunes; attraction and retention of good workers all depend upon employees feeling good about their company. Using this good image the company sells itself to the customers, however it should not try to sell it internally if the inside realities are different


It is important to admit that the interest and goal of the company (corporation) may not be conjoint with the interest of its workers nor the society. Of course it is much better if they are but there is no any legal obligation for the company to do so. In this sense any process inside the company should be analysed from different points of view: company's, that of the internal society and the one of the society in general.

As the concern of this work is the interest of the company we will be using the first point of view and the second one while supporting the first.

 
The regressive process

The regressive processes inside the company are the ones that are running against its interest. They seriously damage the company functions, reduce performance and may lead the company to the final failure.
The regressive process is caused by a false control process and/or incorrect rules.

Such a process itself may be initiated intentionally or not. If the regressive process is intentional, it is a case of sabotage, which might be run by individuals representing an external or sometimes internal interest group.
It may engage business intelligence, spies, diversion group, etc.

Sometimes the situation might be much simpler as regressive process might be run or use in the battle for positions or the control over a part of the company. In this case its purpose is to prove somebody's incompetency or mislead, the weapons used contain usually disinformation.

If the regressive process is internally unintentional it might be based on incorrect rules and even if run according to the good will of the formal power group, some questions should be answered.
- Whether the incorrect rules were initiated intentionally or not, who initiates them, who advises them, who accepts them, why, etc. These questions are subjects of detailed socio-technical analysis and exceed the frames of this article.


Analysing company behaviour we have to take into consideration the existence of groups of interest including company society, staff. As I have mentioned above the interest of these groups are not necessarily the same or they might be opposite. If the power group or its part does not realize that taking care of employee is usually an intermediate interest of the company this may initiate conflicts which if not properly solved leads to the malfunction of the company.

If a regressive process starts inside the company and the performance problem is tried to be solved by the methods typical for the very past, the situation goes really wrong. It is especially true if the company operates in a modern civilized environment.

Exerting its goal, - profit, the company have a choice of methods to be used and norms ( rules ) to be created. These internal norms should possibly accord with the general norms existing in the society in which company operates.
It means that it is much better if the rules are adapted to the local social environment.

I do not propose inhuman methods used by some companies in Dominican Republic, Honduras or China, that is about science of exploitation, I am telling that by adapting control methods to the social environment, performance may be easier obtained by the means of better organisation and technology, skilled workers, and possibly conjoint interest. I maintain also that such modern methods of operation and control should be used if possible.

Any attempt to create the internal social environment that is not in accord with external one is useless and creates resistance.

If the company or its part become unstable or fail to operate properly,
a corrective action is needed. Such action requires information, knowledge and tools. If the wrong methods have been used before, examples: excessive pressure, excessive cost reduction, cuts on security, technology, social benefits and employee conditions, decreasing staff politics, etc. the correction is difficult to be applied.

This is because despite of the fact that these methods are definitely wrong they seem to work for some period of time... The worst is, that their accelerator properties (or positive feedback - systems' theory) are causing farther escalation of existing problems and creation of new regressive processes inside the company.
 
General methods of control

While talking about the general methods of control we think about the process that controls the company society i.e. the group of people that work in it, staff. We abstract from what the company is doing. The purpose of the control is to accomplish the company goals.

There are two general methods of control:
- energetic
- informational

Energetic methods constitute a group of methods rather primitive.
They were used to control societies of the old political systems based on human exploitation, example: slavery or feudal system. Nevertheless some of these methods are still in use currently. They can be divided in three categories.
- direct energetic extortion
- indirect energetic extortion
- energetic stimulation

Direct energetic extortion shows up in the case of use of physical forces.
This is the most primitive and ineffective method.
Indirect energetic extortion is based on the reduction of the quantity of the energy (possibilities) that is in the disposition of the controlled system, society or individual.
Energetic stimulation is based on the economical norms that exist in the society (external and internal). In this case the extortion is obtained by use of intimidation or because of imaginable consequences of disobedience.
More sophisticated methods are not based on the constraint in form of intimidation but rather on the voluntary will of the controlled object to obtain a higher recompense (reward).

Energetic stimulation methods of nowadays rely on the modern economic norms in the society and may be expressed by the rule of obtaining the maximum effect at the minimum expense. This rule is however used by both controlling and controlled objects.

Informational methods use information as major stimulant in obtaining expected results. They may be divided as follows:
- Informational extortion
- informational stimulation
      - direct
      - indirect

Informational extortion based on information able to provoke an immediate instinctive reaction. They are often related to fear.

Informational stimulation is related to perceptional and constitutional norms, mainly esthetical and ideological. If such adequate norms exist in the society, information acts on the motivation level and stimulation is direct, if not, the information contributes to the creation of a new norm in the educational process, and the stimulation is indirect.

Direct informational stimulation is the most efficient method of control of the society. At minimal cost it can mobilize great quantities of social energy. However it can be used only if the proper, adequate norms have been permanently established prior to the stimulation.
It is important to admit, that the norms in question stipulate existence of attitudes allowing the (autonomous) control process according to the long term social interest and of course any stimulation based on these norms cannot be used against this interest for a long time.

Indirect informational stimulation contributes to the development of social norms and that is its role. This is called normative (social) programming and is related to educational efforts to create new standards (norms). It has no immediate effects, yet it is efficient on a long term and indispensable.
 
Social programming in working environment

Normative social programming to be effective should be based on existing social norms. These norms are different in different cultures, societies. If we have to deal with multicultural society, acculturation is difficult to obtain and is usually based on materialistic needs.
If the norms to be created are under the normal level of the external society, sometimes so called diversity is used. This method is ineffective and causes more problems than profits as it is obvious that it is easier to pull up social standards inside the company than pull them down. The social groups created in pull down conditions are unstable, difficult to control and must be continuously rebuilt.

Socio-technical methods have always been used in management consciously or not. They have been practiced for centuries to control societies and small groups. Now they are becoming one of the official tools used by HR departments in big corporations. Often elaborated by psychological or sociological advisers they are expected to raise productivity and resolve typical companies' management problems.
They are often full of errors and have no consistency; even if they are good for a specific social environment, a deep knowledge is required to apply them.
If consciously distorted they might be used to sabotage companies.

If the company is not minded as an open system but its management structure is raised and grows in the close internal environment then the implemented errors become attitudes.

 

5. Case studies
The observations conducted by the author are based on his own experience as well as on the experience of other people sharing their opinions with him. The following case studies are not complete as well as the observations and the access to necessary information. They are based on three particular companies which names remain confidential. The fact is that the behavioural patterns in these and other companies known from the stories brought by other people seem to be similar which encourages to make universal conclusions.
The following text presents some of observations that fit to this phenomenon.

• The human behaviour


The human behaviour is the one of the elements that can be easily observed and described. The common phenomena observed were:


- Insulation - no team work
- No communication - neither horizontal nor vertical
- Interdepartmental barriers and job task boundaries



These phenomena result from the management style that appointed narrow responsibilities for both departments and individuals. Take care only of what is yours creates the situations and places where nobody takes care about anything. They just belong to the fields of nobody responsibility.

To avoid problems and create self "well-being", departments and individuals make significant effort to delimit their areas of responsibilities by shrinking their fields and by creating solid boundaries.

Individual responsibility creates farther isolation and independence, fight for resources and information, hiding materials/information and not sharing knowledge. The staff members get their importance by knowing better, not doing better, than others. Micromanaging used by many bad managers support such insulation. Having only responsibility and no word to say enforce this behaviour.

This is because employees are usually ignored by managers and perceived only when a problem occurs. This leads to extreme cases where an absence from work is used by employees to show their importance.

Of course such human behaviour is usually induced by the work environment. From the employee view such behaviour is optimal in these particular circumstances and have been learned through months and years in the wrong work environment created by wrong rules and improper procedures.

People have to feel important and they deserve it. This importance can be obtained by many positive means profitable for them and for the company. Ignoring an employee means ignoring the company. Treating employees like children, humiliating them, ignoring their opinions are the common mistakes of many managers raised by wrong appraisal rules.

 

• Procedures


Procedures can be formal and informal. Informal procedures belong to the cultural behaviour and are able to distort many well minded formal procedures and make them useless.

The communication tools often don't work because they are much too formal or because they are not in use. It creates confusion and provokes question: Why are we doing things the way we are doing them? Employees easily spot chaos, mistaken procedures, and lack of communication but they are not usually listened and they are afraid of criticizing.

It is especially true in the every day task description. Very often an employee has to hunt for pertinent information that he needs to accomplish their task. The source of this information is often improper, even strange: colleagues, friends, rarely managers.

If you don't ask, you don't know (sometimes important details) and the fault is yours. Some people are frequently doing nothing because no manager told them what to do next and lack of the team spirit prevents them from helping their colleagues and others to help them.

When company introduces a computer added management it is expected that this tool should remove any discrepancies from the company procedures. In fact it is not always true as this requires knowledge of the computer system in place, professional management and lots of training for both managers and their subordinates.

When the knowledge about new procedures implemented by software supported management is kept only for 'chosen and deserved people' the new system may causes confusions and chaos. Firstly, employees should be aware of anything new and secondly, the system should be prepared and managed by somebody who knows the functionality of the software as well as the technology and product of the company. In fact what computer system generates does not come from itself but from what was put in it. Computer does not make mistakes, managers do.
 

• Technology


As company wants to expand and improve its functionality the first thing that comes to the owner/managers mind is IT technology. It looks modern and relatively not expensive. The problem is that IT people do not understand many particularities of the business in place and the company staff and managers do not understand to much what makes the IT concern. The solution are provided by Expert Systems or User friendly software supported by the producer during its setup and exploitation. In fact the second makes a kind of temporary expert system in the client place.

The implementation of IT based systems, no matter what kind are they, CAD, CAM, BOM or many others, may be painful and risky if the company is not well prepared before the implementation.

As an example, the BOM which stands for data base containing lists of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, components, parts and contains the quantities of each needed to manufacture the final product, requires understanding of relational data base and knowledge of design procedures, products and technology used.

It cannot be set by unqualified person as such can bring disaster. This mistake brings effect pretty soon and the chaos increases till the moment nobody understands what is going on. Missing parts and components, computer image of the stock does not correspond with the reality, etc.. Panicking managers blame everybody but not themselves.

 

• Quality chains


As it was already mentioned in the introduction there are quality chains of customers and suppliers in the production process. Customers and suppliers are the people who transform materials and create parts and components and finally assemble the final product. All people doing any operations in the production chain become finally the suppliers to other people (customers) who have to do the operations which follow.

If the quality chain is broken the final failure is possible or at least the final product internal cost and the production time unnecessary increase.

This is why all workers should understand the quality related company rules. As they can be different in different companies employees may be not aware of them. The staff is usually trying to meet the company standards and they fill responsible for their work but in some companies they often have to correct the mistakes done in the previous operations.

They may not know that it is often not their concern accordingly to the company rules. They are not even expected to give necessary feedback or they are not allowed to do so.

This is especially true in the assembling process when people try to make final product from faulty parts by adjusting and correcting them. This is frustrating and time consuming.

Such problems should not exist and if special quality control department does not make a part of the company it can be resolved by good communication and cooperation among the workers. The faulty parts and components must be reported, rejected and corrected by their suppliers.

To make it happen people should communicate and talk about it.


 

• Management


While thinking about management we expect to see it's results. We expect planning, guiding, employee supporting, decision-making and so on.
To do well employees have to understand at least the elements that concern them. Simply playing the game using employees as pieces on the game board creates chaos. People are used but they are ignored and not informed.

Managing chaos is more difficult than managing well organized company but surprisingly some people prefer the first. Why?
The chaos creates the situation where the responsibility may be easily shifted, incompetence hidden, and causes of the failures ascribed to employees or casual circumstances.

How some managers work? The ones created by negative selection or wrong appraisal system do some work but usually do not properly manage. Some probably do not know what managing people means. Some of them think that it is about the pressure they should use to force employees to do better job, other think they should control everything employee does and so on. They do not manage by means that they do not contribute to the employee quality work and success. It means also that they are not needed in organisation and self managing professional worker may be use instead. The problem is that they must be well paid...

Another problem is, that the quality employees are not very welcome and the HR department seems to make casual choices. Is this a search for chip labour, fear of competition or feeling that only unqualified employees can accept the job conditions?

If the people with no experience are preferred they should be selected carefully according to their good background, positive behaviour and culture. Then they should be respected. If the proper training is given they can become professionals with time. That requires well qualified managers with the correct background and culture.

In the absence of good managers the company must have good quality workers responsible, self-organized and self-motivated. Good managers are rarely created from ordinary workers.
The management skills are learned in schools and positive working environment. Their skills quality depends of the specific personal predisposition, accumulated knowledge and given talents of the person.

In the existing regressive process inside the organisation quality people are usually refused to become managers. The good quality workers resign and leave. They are usually discomforting a part of the establishment in place.

The lack of knowledge and understanding of the sociological problems in place leads GM's to apply well known primitive solutions to maintain performance of the company. The problem is that some GMs feel happy with it. They accept the fact some employees are leaving the company. As this way the cost decreases and more pressure on staff compensate the gaps everything seems work. To do even better let's hire less skilled, cut maintenance, don't pay the overtime. That's it !

Are they managers? - They create chaos that they are not aware of until the decreasing performance of the company becomes evident.

It is surprising that such panic driven methods are still used, and so many companies use them. Well, because they do not know what to do, they have no concept for improving the performance of the company by other means... The only things they know are their obligations.

It was definitely proven in many cases that methods described above never worked and led the companies to the final collapse...

If the company lose performance it may be detected by analysing the company inside communication. The symptoms are typical and appear usually as informational filtering. The information flow is reduced and rather unidirectional. The information flows but only from the top to the bottom in the management system. It looks like nobody wants to hear the bad news, so they are not supplied. It affects all levels of management including horizontal communication as well.

The new unskilled employee cannot do well, but there is nobody to teach them. The potential teachers have already gone. As a matter of fact there is no time to teach company employee, they stay in the company shortly.
In the emergency case external workers are used, agencies are making money, the company stays with problems.

The negative regressive process continues in such created loop. Cutting this requires the analysis of the managers competency and such situation creates resistance.

 

• Customers' relations


Customers' relations are perceived through complaints. The problems are organizational and are caused by the lack of good planning. Good planning requires knowledge of product, technology, processes, procedures, and so on. It cannot be done by computer software without adequate professional support and necessary feedback from employees.

Unfortunately employees are not often informed about final customers' complaints, nor they are aware about any details. Perceived as irrelevant in quality discussion the employees stay unaware until the time the problem becomes big enough. Then they are given managerial adjustment based on the conception that the faults were theirs.

While talking about customer relations we usually think about final customers that is the people who buy our products, ignoring the fact that in the quality chains inside the company there are more important suppliers and customers which effort make the final product available.

Good customer relation means exchange of information, efficient communication. Are these present inside the company? Probably not very often. Employees are not encourage to communicate. It looks like the quality and the good of the company should not make their concern. This is the managers' fault.

5. Conclusions



The conclusion is one. In the globalized world and competitive business environment continuous striving for the best quality is a must. That may lead to excellence and customers' loyalty. To achieve this we need teams, tools, systems, process, culture, communication, and commitment. To have these elements we have to pay more attention to the people and the quality of their work. They are the key to succeed. The quality work requires proper positive work environment, elimination of wrong rules and of regressive processes.

In the quality chain small changes bring often great effects but we have to understand the problems and take care of their causes. There's not any cost of a good quality but there's a serious loss caused by a bad one.

Taking care of the quality is everyone's responsibility but people need knowledge and should have commitment. This is the managers' role to create the proper work environment for the quality improvements in the company and they have to make this process functioning.

As usual in the most cases the employees are practically innocent. They follow the rules and given directives. In the wrong work environment their adaptive mechanism creates specific behaviour, which is optimal for them, not necessary for the company. This is normal as we are dealing with normal people.

What is usually wrong? I have shown some elements and I invite the reader to find more. This question should be answered as soon as possible.

We must be aware that it might be a negative selection mechanism inside the company that eliminates good workers and promote the worst ones. This is especially important in the choice of managers. They might be unable to manage properly because of the stereotypes learned during their professional life in wrong working environment under the wrong rules applied.

Witold Wojcik