Beyond Bureaucracy
Quality Improvement Prototype Finalists , 1991
Federal Quality Institute
"Total Quality Management for the Federal Government"
Introduction
So far has the perception of governmental performance fallen that, to much of the public, quality and government are contradictory terms. Quality implies commitment to customers, accountability, a motivated workforce, flexibility and efficiency. Government implies, well, bureaucracy.
Not long ago, bureaucracy was not the evil it is considered today. Bureaucracy described a large system in which functions were separated for greater efficiency. If you needed help with a patent, you didn't ring the President's door; you went to the patent office. Bureaucracy, for better or worse, replaced political caprice with professionalism. Bureaucracy in the early days was a revolutionary improvement over the status quo. Today it's the status quo. And enthusiastic claims about the efficiency of bureaucracy have long since fallen by the wayside.
So it is time for a new revolution. Citizens everywhere are demanding more and better service, and funding for governmental bodies is harder to come by. Government at every level must somehow do more with less. It is being called upon to abandon old habits, to experiment, to reward excellence, to try new technologies; to work more closely with the private sector, and indeed, to work more like the private sector; to cultivate the same spirit of entrepreneurism and customer service we see there.
In their groundbreaking book, Reinventing Government, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler seize especially upon the image of the entrepreneur. "We use the phrase entrepreneurial government to describe the new model we see emerging across America." they write. "This phrase may surprise many ... who think of entrepreneurs solely as business men and women. But the true meaning of the word entrepreneur is far broader. It was coined by the French economist J.B. Say, around the year 1800. 'The entrepreneur,' Say wrote, 'shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and higher yield.' An entrepreneur, in other words, uses resources in new ways to maximize productivity and effectiveness."
When we speak of the entrepreneurial model for government, then, we are talking about public institutions that seek always to optimize what they can do with what they are given; and optimal, or "what is best," is always defined by the customer. Whereas bureaucracy has come, over the years, to appear to serve itself, this new vision of government seeks to restore primacy to the customer. In the case of the Federal government, it means changing the way we spend a trillion-plus dollars annually; it means changing the way millions of people think. If there has ever been a more daunting organizational task, we are not aware of it.
Moving beyond bureaucracy is not a move against the idea of government. Government is how communities make decisions, at whatever level. The movement underway seeks to refresh and update our ideas of what government can do, once it is in touch with and accountable to its customers . Its citizens. Us.
There is no better methodology for the kinds of improvements citizens are demanding than the quality management approaches pioneered by Wm. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Armand Feigenbaum and others. Quality management goes by a myriad different names and acronyms. TQM, for total quality management; TQC for total quality control, TQL for total quality leadership.
What you call it is less important than the simple truth behind this new movement -- that organizations succeed when they know their customers better -- what they need, what they expect -- and take measures to satisfy those needs.
More formally, quality management today is an assortment of criteria that together align the activities of all employees toward the goal of customer satisfaction, through continuous improvement in the quality of all processes, goods and services. For instance, quality management urges organizations to take a preventive approach to quality improvement; to empower all employees to do whatever is necessary to ensure quality service, etc. Quality management is a host of quality ideas; it is up to each organization to choose which ideas will best help it achieve its quality goals.
Quality management is the basis for the Federal Government's Quality Improvement Prototype Awards. "Lessons learned" is a phrase Joseph Juran coined to describe a structured approach of analyzing experience and then applying the results of that analysis to improving future efforts.
This book is a series of glimpses of the lessons learned by agencies and offices which have heard the call for quality management, and responded, as finalists of the 1991 Quality Improvement Prototype Awards. While each finalist was noted for achievements in eight separate quality elements -- Leadership, Measurement, Planning, Involvement, Training, Recognition, Quality Assurance and Customer Focus -- we focus here on one element per finalist.
This revolution is not taking place during a national hiatus, a time of national calm -- there is no such thing. The Department of Defense is undergoing massive reductions as the world adapts to the collapse of international communism. National elections keep occurring on schedule -- with the potential to upset our long-term-change applecart. Many of the units and agencies profiled here have already undergone additional transformation, merging with agencies that were former competitors, paring away the unnecessary or incidental in order to focus on identified customer priorities. These stories can not be more than snapshots of organizations in upheaval.
Likewise, the format for the QIP competition today has metamorphosed greatly since 1991. But somehow, amid all this turmoil, the theme of quality change seems to survive, even to thrive. It is our hope that the spirit of the criteria -- of a customer-driven government, and a never-ending quest for improvement -- has not altered one bit, and that these organizations and the lessons they learned will prove useful and practicable for many years to come.
Don G. Mizaur
Director
Federal Quality Institute