Untangling Organizational Gridlock: Strategies for Building a Customer Focus
Books / Hardcover
Books › Business & Economics › General
ISBN: 0814402038 / Publisher: AMACOM, June 1993
Explains why companies have difficulty implementing quality programs, tells how to connect customer requirements to daily work, and discusses problem solving, system dynamics, policy deployment, and organizational learning
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Service and manufacturing organizations are under the gun to change. Customers have raised their expectations and now demand that service providers and manufacturers take control of issues that have long fueled the customers' discontent. They insist that both public and private sector organizations simultaneously improve quality and reduce cost - or risk losing business. The ultimatum is change...or organizational demise.In Untangling Organizational Gridlock, author Michele L. Bechtell describes the fundamental requirements for companywide performance improvement. More than providing a better product or service, performance improvement is an organizational lifestyle that aligns the organization's activities and processes to create delighted customers through continuous improvement. This book will help you develop and implement sound, customer-focused strategies within your organization.If you are considering implementing - or just beginning to implement - quality improvement, or if you have tried it before and failed, Untangling Organizational Gridlock is must reading. It describes first the basics of continuous companywide quality improvement. The book goes on to define and explore the fragile process of changing an organization's culture - a challenge that many managers have never faced before in their careers, and one that requires skills most managers have not been taught. Key topics of the book include connecting customer requirements to daily work, the problem solving process, system dynamics, policy deployment, and organizational learning.Each chapter is summarized in full detail. Many of the chapters include exercises to help you better understand key concepts and to illustrate new management techniques.Untangling Organizational Gridlock is focused on change. Specifically, it provides you with a solid, practical base from which to create and launch a continuous improvement program. This book shows you how to realize how customer-focused quality differs from the way your organization currently operates; accelerate the speed with which you and others adopt new perspectives, learn new behaviors, and create trusting partnerships; identify and overcome the common barriers to being an effective leader; and use all of the organization's resources - human and informational - to build and sustain quality improvement as a way of life.Performance improvement is not a simple process. There is no technological miracle to save you. Any geographical advantage you may have leveraged in the past simply no longer exists in a global economy. The good news is that if you approach change the right way, you can make significant progress. Untangling Organizational Gridlock will show you how.
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