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 Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Fall 2000

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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 top
management and based on the involvement of all employees and all departments
from planning and development to sales and service. These management and
control activities focus on quality assurance by which those qualities, which
satisfy 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=organismevolution 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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