Loyalty - the key to success

There's a simple explanation for this. The key to Japan's supremacy in the quality wars is loyalty. Most

Japanese executives still expect to work for their company until retirement. And as Japanese production

managers rarely have the authority to hire and fire in the same way that their Western counterparts do,

re-structuring the team is seldom an option. So naturally the Japanese work together on the basis that they

will be doing so for the rest of their working lives. It's all long-term. Product development is obviously

important if you intend to be around long enough to see it through to completion. But it wouldn't be so

important if you were thinking of making a career move to another firm. Again, it makes sense for the

Japanese to be interested in fostering good on-going relationships with their customers, most of whom will

also have a life-long commitment to their companies. Perhaps the first rule of quality is continuity.

Commitment to Total Quality

We hear a lot about Japanese Quality Circles - groups of people from different levels in a production

department who are assigned to study ways of maintaining and improving quality. But QCs only work if they

are open and participative. Too many Westerners seem to be cautious about sharing ideas with colleagues,

whom they chiefly see as rivals. That's one reason why 80% of their TQM programs fail. And, though

Japanese corporate structure is changing and lifetime employment may soon become a thing of the past, to

the production manager in Osaka total quality is still a way of life. In Ohio it may never be more than a

gimmick.