Change and Top Management Committment

Top management commitment is essential to the change process. There are many avenues through which a company can begin to change its corporate culture. One company may choose to use TQC, another TPM or JIT. Regardless of the approach, one ingredient is essential to success: the commitment, involvement, and support of top management. Unfortunately, however, in case after case, companies have initiated their pursuit of change through middle management, which has limited resources, authority, and perspective. The question invariably is, "How can I influence my boss and persuade him that we need to change?"

Most of these major systemic changes involve the word "Total" - viz. Total Productive Maintenance, Total Quality Control, etc. The only way the company's 'total' resources can be mobilized is through the involvement of top management. Without that involvement, chances for success are minimal. The process will turn into a long and agonizing one, filled with pitfalls for those in the middle.

Top management should consider the changing business environment and opportunities, risks involved, financial planning, and problems that have been encountered in the past. These factors need to be understood, become part of the company's medium- and long-range planning, and then incorporated into the change process. All key managers need to have a common understanding. If top management believes that improvement in Quality, Cost, and Delivery are the superordinate goals of the company, then they should be involved in Kaizen. This ability to realize that improving Quality, Cost, and Delivery is the number one priority for top management is essential to the process that leads to customer satisfaction and, in turn, to an improved bottom line and the ability to support happy employees.

Ideally, the president should be in charge of the change process, but many times his/her busy agenda is a deterrent to the time this effort requires. In Japanese companies the president delegates direct management of the change process to his second in command. This person takes on leadership of Kaizen implementation as an additional responsibility. The director usually has full-time administrative people reporting to him and making sure that details are taken care of. Since the president still needs to be involved, the mechanism of presidential diagnosis and on-site visits has to be put into place. During these events the president can see if the planned changes are occurring and if the processes are working as intended. Another important aspect here is the visibility of the president's interest and support. With the proper level of involvement and support from the top, middle management's role becomes easier to play.