Total Quality: Teamsmanship over Leadership

Total quality management sharply modifies management itself. As teams and teamwork take root, leadership idolatry fades in importance. Teamsmanship requires breaking vertical and horizontal barriers that stand in the way of quick, high‐quality customer service. Management tools helpful in barrier‐busting include team‐building, cross‐training, job rotation, cross‐careering, project teams, and re‐engineering. While these tools are in wide use, companies often misapply or weakly apply them. Examples are given of how some companies use these tools in ways that effectively enhance teamsmanship. Teamsmanship also feeds on information, which must be widely shared. In most Western cultures, however, people tend jealously to guard their own knowledge and personally acquired information. Organizations must employ systematic devices that promote information sharing. Among the better known such devices are benchmarking and quality function deployment. Also useful, but less familiar, are common files and the “star system”. As applied by a small number of organizations, these techniques can become effective tools of teamsmanship.