Assignment 3

Agustin Quintana
IE673 - Total Quality Management

1. Discuss the importance of quality team works, and team building. How is your company
doing this?
The importance of team work and team building is critical to achieve total quality. Team work in
the workplace promotes workplace synergy and helps people connect to achieve goals beyond an
individual. Team work provides a greater sense of accomplishment and a collective
responsibility for the outcome of the group. This drives accountability and collective pride in the
products our company’s makes.
Fostering team work is part of QMS Corp. culture and competitive advantage. QMS Corp. has a
structure of cross functional team to design and develop products. This provides quality as every
function has a role to play in the developments of a process and all stakeholders are responsible
for the quality of the outcomes.
2. How would you handle conflicts in quality teams? How is your company doing this?
Conflict can be a consequence of cross functional teams which are working together. This is not
necessarily a bad thing as team members of different backgrounds will have different
perspective. In fact, the different perspectives are what drives quality in our products to assure all
aspects of development are covered. Yet, when conflict impedes the team from moving forward
or making a decision the company has a frame work to resolve conflicts.
This frame work includes the following:
• Plan and work to establish a culture where individuality and dissent are in balance with
teamwork and cooperation.
• Establish clear criteria for deciding when decisions will be made by individuals and
when they will be made by teams.
• Don’t allow individuals to build personal empires or to use the organization to advance
personal agendas.
• Encourage and recognize individual risk-taking behavior that breaks the organization
out of unhelpful habits and negative mental frameworks.
• Encourage healthy, productive competition, and discourage unhealthy,
counterproductive competition.
• Recognize how difficult it can be to ensure effective cooperation and spend the energy
necessary to get just the right amount of it.
• Value constructive dissent and encourage it.
• Assign people of widely differing perspectives to every team or problem.
• Reward and recognize both dissent and teamwork when they solve problems.
• Reevaluate the project, problem, or idea when no dissent or doubt is expressed.
• Avoid hiring people who think they don’t need help, who don’t value cooperation, or
who are driven by the desire to be accepted.
 • Ingrain into new employees the need for balance between the concepts of cooperation
and constructive dissent.
• Provide ways for employees to say what no one wants to hear.
• Realistically and regularly assess the ability and willingness of employees to cooperate
effectively.
• Understand that some employees are going to clash, so determine where this is
happening and remix rather than wasting precious organizational energy trying to get
people to like each other.
• Ensure that the organization’s value system and reward/recognition systems are geared
toward cooperation with constructive dissent rather than dog-eat-dog competition or
cooperation at all costs.
• Teach employees how to manage both dissent (not let it get out of hand) and agreement.
• Quickly assess whether conflict is healthy or destructive and take immediate steps to
encourage the former and resolve or eliminate the latter.
3. How do you reward quality achievements in a team? How is your company doing this?
Recognition is one of the most effective motivators for teams and individuals completing a job or
project. It is important that the behaviors and results that are positively recognized align with the
quality objectives of the company. At QMS corp. we recognize delivering results but more
importantly we recognize quality of everything. We have bonus potential related to our complain
response and our closure of non-conformances. This is important because it pushes everybody to
take costumers complaint seriously and report them within 24 hours. In addition, we reward our
merit increased for our project teams by monitoring the number of complaints for new material
collection in the next year after launch. Depending on the frequency and severity of complaints
our teams are rewarded. Purposely our merit and bonus increases are strongly based on quality
versus business objectives. See the graphic below to understand the break down.

Complaint reporting Non-conformances

Delivering Projects
within 24 hours and complaint rate
to Timeline
of new products
20% 40%
40%

Quality Bonus Potential

100%

Figure 1 – QMS Corp Quality Bonus Breakdown / Figure created by Agustin Quintana
4. How do you communicate effectively? Focus on communication skills and soft-skills.
In all engineering and manufacturing fields communication is critical especially when conveying
technical information to a non-technical audience. I always try to keep in mind that verbal
communication is only one aspect of communication. I try to keep my body language positive
such as keeping good posture, minimizing negative facial expression, and not crossing my arms.
When delivering information, it is important that body posture is inviting to those receiving the
information. The other important aspect of communication is preparation. If one is presenting, it
is important that one practices the information, anticipates questions, and has intimidate
knowledge of the topic. If one is getting ready to go into a meeting, its is important that you are
prepared to discuss the topic and understand what the goal of the meeting is. It is important to
remember that communication needs to be practiced and one needs to always improve. To
summarize communication, I think it can be defined by the 6 pillars illustrated above.

Open Mindedness
Assertiveness

Authenticity

Empathy

Listening
Clarity

Figure 2 – Communication Pillars / Figure created by Agustin Quintana

5. Why are listening skills important? How is your company doing this?
Listening is an essential part of communication and it is usually the characteristic that its more
overlooked. Listening is the ability to accurately receive information and retain it. Good listening
skills makes one a better speaker as one is always answering the real concerns of the audience
they are communicating with. Listening skills are critically important for our company’s
managers and for those speaking with the costumers. For managers communication is important
to make sure they are meeting their employees needs and that their employees feel like their
leaders are engaged with them.
At QMS Corp we make sure that we properly train our managers to communicate and develop
our employees. The main part of the training revolves around how to listen and how to
understand what people’s needs via communication. For our sales and marketing professionals
we have training which revolves around how to listen to our costumer. We review case studies to
understand how our costumers perceive our products and how they will communicate issues. In
addition, we train our costumer facing group by conducting scenarios to see if each individual
receives the same information when listening to a potential costumer. This is a really good way
to show how even when on is listening sometimes we are using our bias to perceive the
information differently. Our training programs are best in class and are what make our people
better than any other company.
6. What are the management strategies for quality-focused interpersonal needs?
Interpersonal needs are those needs we all have for inclusion, control, affection, and a purpose.
Every person has these needs and it is important for management to understand these needs.
Managers and leaders need to make sure that an environment is fostered where individuals with
great interpersonal skills thrive. The first management strategy is the recognition of need. This is
where managers are able to recognize the need for these interpersonal skills. The second step is
the careful selection of people who poses these qualities. This is how candidates are tested to see
their skills in listening, patience, empathy, and others. This can be done as part of an interview
process, but mostly it is done as a person in developing as a professional in the company. Its is
up to managers to guide them in the right direction and help those skills develop. This transitions
to our third step which is training. No matter how good one is with interpersonal skills, its
definitely something that needs to be trained. Finally, the last step is measurement and reward of
individuals who express these skills. Our company rewards interpersonal skills via performance
reviews as all of our goals for individuals have leadership expectations. These leadership
expectations are based on how the job is carried out and how interpersonal skills are leverages.
See figured 3 below that summarized the steps of managerial strategy for interpersonal skills.

Recognize the Careful Training Measurement

Need Selection and Reward

Figure 3 – Managerial Strategies for Interpersonal Needs / Figure created by Agustin

Quintana
7. What are the principles of overcoming negativity and conflicts in the workplace? How is
your company doing this?
Negativity is any behavior that on the part of any employee that works against the performance
or goals of the organization. Negativity arises when an employee is not engaged or does not
agree with the work, he is responsible. Or when employees feel as they are not being properly
rewarded or given an impossible task. It is important to address this as soon as negativity
becomes apparent as there is nothing more contagious than negativity. QMS corp. has many
strategies to dealing with negativity and they are described below.
Communication – Frequent, ongoing, effective communication is the best defense against
negativity within an organization. Typically, negativity in an organization raises from not having
alignment between teams on not having a consistent message from leadership. It is important to
always address negativity via communication and get ahead of it to keep it from spreading.
Established clear expectations – Each individual should have clear goals which they need to
accomplish and that expectations are set on their role within the company.
Provide for anxiety venting - The workplace will always be stressful with all deadlines,
performance standards, budget pressure etc. The managers must give them direct reports
opportunities to vent in a nonthreatening, affirming environment. It is important that during this
opportunity’s, employees are not punished or viewed as negative.
Build Trust – Managers can build trust between themselves and employees and among
employees by applying the following strategies: always delivering what is promised, remaining
open-minded to suggestions, taking an interest in the development and welfare of employees,
being tactfully honest with employees at all times.
Involve Employees – Employees must be involved in their work and should receive constructive
feedback on their performance. This will motivate them to continually improve.
8. How can you manage conflict in the workplace? How is your company doing this?
One of the many strengths of QMS Corp. is its diverse workforce which has many perspectives
and talents. This diversity is a competitive advantage for us and mixed with a “go getter” culture
it can sometimes lead to conflict. Conflict is an inevitable circumstance of working with
passionate individuals who are invested in their work. Conflicts can arise from lack of resources,
incompatible goals, communication problems, role ambiguity, and other related circumstances.
At QMS we make a conscious decision in training our managers so they can mitigate conflicts
between employees. This process can be best summarized in 5 steps which help managers
understand the conflict and deal with it appropriately. First, a manager should determine what the
level of importance is of such a conflict. Depending of the importance of the conflict a manger
can decide if the employees can handle the solution, if he needs to step in, or if he needs to
escalate. The second step is to determine the willingness of both parties to meet and discuss the
issue. If both parties are willing to meet and discuss then a resolution is much more likely. The
third step is to hear each side of the story and hear the solutions proposed by each side. This will
allow for each party to feel part of the solution. The next step is to evaluate the solutions
proposed and select a solution that best benefits the quality standard of the company and its
goals. Finally, the most important step is to reflect and evaluate the process. At QMS corp. we
want to continually improve in how we deal with conflict and make every conflict have a
positive outcome.
9. How do you communicate in conflict situations? How is your company doing this?
During conflict solutions communication is one of the most important factors in the equation. It
is important that our Managers have conflict resolution techniques that are based in good
communication practices. Our guideline for communication during conflicts are described below
and depicted in Figure 4 below.
Initial Attitude – The initial attitude of those involve is key to understand the tone of the
conflict. Anybody looking for a fight will get one and it is important to de-escalate that if that
attitude is perceived. Understanding the attitude of the parties involve is key to knowing how to
intervene.
Conflict Guidelines – It is important to have conflict guidance in place in order to have
everybody prepared for a conflict.
No “Blame Game” – Blame is not important, rather that pointing fingers at each other we need
to resolve the issue at hand.
No “More of the Same” – All conflicts are different, so there should not be a cookie cutter
solution for every conflict.
Maintain Trust – Its is important that leader maintain promises and build trust in order to
manage conflicts. If people don’t trust managers, then they won’t trust their solutions.

Understand Prior
Attitudes

Have Conflict
Guidelines

No “Blame Game”

No “cookie cutter”
solutions

Maintain Trust

Effective
Conflict
Resolution

Figure 4 – Communication Strategies for Conflicts / Figure created by Agustin Quintana

10. Why does quality suffer if there is a major conflict? How is your company doing this?
The total quality mission of QMS Corp. requires unity and people working together. This means
people need to collaborate, motivate each other, and at times disagree with each other. Conflict
can be a negative circumstance that results from to trying to achieve quality results. Yet, when
conflicts are not resolved quality suffers greatly. This due to decision not being made because
conflicts are not addressed. In addition, internal politics grow as conflicts linger and are not
resolved; this can create division between teams and employees. In addition, high achievers will
become frustrated with company politics and leave for other companies which would result in
losing our greatest asset, our talent. Finally, unresolved conflicts lead to lower morale and lower
productivity which will stop us from achieving quality results.
11. Please don't forget the social networking assignment!
• US Territories take another step toward offshore wind -
https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/ie-
673---total-quality-management23/ulVAmgEGAGo%5B1-25%5D
• Biofuel opportunities could abound with Maersk’s net zero CO2 target.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/ie-
673---total-quality-management23/ni5Y3K0oE4k%5B1-25%5D
• Beyond oil: Inside Dubai's Sustainable City.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/ie-
673---total-quality-management23/8ScMuSV73-U%5B1-25%5D