Service Quality

by Karl Albrecht

Management fads are no substitute for visionary leadership,
and systems are no substitute for brains.



Looking in on the Patients

The mortality rate of management fads has been distressingly high of late. The fad life-cycle is now shorter than the product cycle of the book publishing industry. Before the publishers can get the second and third waves of books out the door, someone will likely pronounce the latest fad dead, or at least terminally ill.

This is a good time to make the rounds of the terminal ward and look in on some of the various patients there. Then we can move on to the maternity ward for new business ideas.

Room 101. Patient's name: The Quality Movement. Oops! The patient seems to have disappeared. The idea of a "quality movement" was probably always too vague and diffuse to serve as a focus for business leadership. Many organizations now attack their problems with strategies more specific than "quality." This patient didn't actually die; it was more like a long-overdue check-out.

Room 102. Patient's name: TQM. Condition: stone cold dead. Those three initials are fast disappearing from business cards and department titles. Only the university extensions still offer TQM seminars, a sure sign it's a goner. Cause of death: wrong mind-set. The attempts to resuscitate TQM by injecting the customer serum delayed the demise but couldn't prevent it. Actually, this patient has reincarnated as the patient in the next room.

Room 103. Patient's name: Reengineering. Diagnosis: terminal, with possibly another year or so to live. In the sequel to his highly acclaimed book Reengineering the Corporation, professor Michael Hammer acknowledged that the only key points he missed in the first book were the elements of culture and leadership. Otherwise, he says, it was fine. Without a focus on the business vision and strategy, and a means for engaging the organization's brainpower, most reengineering efforts fail. In their new book Customer-Centered Reengineering, my colleagues Edwin Crego and Peter Schiffrin point out the necessity of reinventing the core business processes by aligning the strategy, people and systems around the premise of customer value.

Room 104. Patient's name: ISO 9000. Diagnosis: severe anemia; recovery doubtful. The number of consultants promoting ISO 9000 may outnumber the firms that want to apply it. Its only real voice in the United States is the publication Quality Digest, which has been taken hostage by the firms advertising ISO 9000 services in its pages. Even the European Commission, in its role as quality promoter, has distanced itself from the obsession with certification and raised concerns about misplaced emphasis on ISO 9000 certification. Prognosis: ISO 9000 will likely fade into oblivion over the next five years.
Now let's see what we can learn about some of the next key business ideas that may be headed for the delivery room.

Room 201. Patient's name: Strategic Customer Focus. After years of introverted focus on structure, process and procedure, organizations are waking up to the need for an external strategic focus. Leading businesses are aligning their strategy, people and systems around a unique value proposition designed to win and keep the customer's business. This places a premium on skilled customer research, thoughtful strategy formulation and the ability to deploy the strategic concept throughout the organization.

Room 202. Patient's name: Service Leadership. As business organizations move more fully into the third-wave environment, with all of its downsizing, delayering, outsourcing, partnering and alliances, management-through-meaning becomes ever more critical. As more employees do knowledge work, managers must become better leaders.

Room 203. Patient's name: Continuous Reinvention. One of the world's leading manufacturers of typewriters, Smith-Corona, recently filed for bankruptcy. It simply failed to reinvent itself for a new world. In many lines of business, the pace of change is increasing and the stakes for survival are getting higher. Reinvention must become a fact of life at all levels.

We can learn some lessons from the last 20 years of management fads. We can learn that management fads are no substitute for visionary leadership. We can learn that there is no one magic wand for business success. We can learn that systems are no substitute for brains and that creating meaning may ultimately be the most important act of leadership.

The lessons are there. Those who won't learn them get to take the course again. Those who do can move on to higher levels of business success.


About the author
Karl Albrecht is chairman of Karl Albrecht International, which implements his concepts through a consulting firm, a seminar firm and a publishing company. Albrecht consults and lectures worldwide.
© 1995 Karl Albrecht. For reprint permission, telephone (619) 622-4884 or fax (619) 622-4885.