Role of the Quality Manager, Interview Example

Quality control had its roots in the business community. As early as the beginning 20^th century, Taylor (1915) created management roles. These roles were centered on a single leader who was overseer of the machine shop. The 21^st century has expanded the role first discussed by Taylor. Quality improvement has found its way into health care settings. Many large hospital and other kinds of health care facilities are currently providing individuals whose role it is to work with other team leaders to provide hand-on participation and leadership skills while providing for the development of human resources development. The latter, human resources development can be defined through education, training, and performance of the entire organization.

In a health care system, as in other organizations in the marketplace, the first role of the quality director is to connect employees to the real world. Employees at all hierarchal levels still need to know they are organizational stakeholders. Their improvement is noted throughout the organization. The level of their individual roles takes second place to their recognition they are part of a major corporation that serves a portion of the community in which they and others live and work.

The quality director usually is responsible for the patient care management plan. First, participants (stakeholders) in the plan work cohesively to identify, design, and implement processes and services to improve patient care. A single individual can’t know everything and certainly can’t be expected to singlehandedly get the job done. He or she must be able to direct and coordinate a team whose function it is to monitor separate departments. Collaborative relations must be built and maintained by quality directors.

Collaboration isn’t just something that a new leader can implement  in a few easy words. It isn’t something that can be added in words only, and the job gets surprisingly completed. It does require a manager who can determine how tasks were  completed before and how it can best be completed in a newer manner. Effective collaboration comes from the quality manager’s concept of how the market works, what customers need from the organization and what trends could potentially disrupt business.

Following the Second World War, an American engineer, W. Edward Demings, provided the Japanese with the four kaizen, four steps in which he elaborated collaboration as the key to building success. However, Japanese corporations are flat-line organizations; everybody must agree in order for a process to be started and completed. The American health care organization is different; this organization works with different teams where each team is independent from other teams. Altogether, these teams must work in harmony for the good of the organization, but likewise, they work in solitude for the good of the populace which depends upon them for help.

A good health care leader must be able to bring collaboration to all kinds of people in the organization. Often, doctors and nurses see themselves as teams upon which the organization is built. They tend to flatten the organizational goals to include themselves but to remove various support services so necessary for the health care setting to exist. Quality leaders have overcome this deficiency by appointing teams which, in turn, appoint leaders: one doctor, one nurse, one of each hospital department. While one of the tasks of each of these professions is to bring similar pursuits to his or her team, when getting together with the quality manager is required, the number of these employees is greatly reduced.

Demings’ (1960) is gone from American enterprise. Replacing Demings is collaboration circles. Quality managers work with different people, work groups, and different departments. The role of the quality manager is to work with front-line staff, helping them rethink their role, which in-turn supports, mentors, and effectively drives organizational collaboration.

The quality manager has a tough job. First he or she needs to build their organization from the ground-up. They need to improve their environment so that they best serve the community they provide services to. Work toward intended outcomes and critical goals. Within these outcomes and goals the quality manager needs to convey to his or her staff the financial obligations of the organization, striving to work together toward achieving those finances. Too, the quality manager needs to identify the senior management team, helping them toward full achievement of personal and corporate goals. Finally, the quality director needs to promote training goals for middle manager and for lower support staff interested in management participation.

In summary, the beginning of the 20^th century brought men like Taylor was interested in corporate goals for the sake of the company. In effect, he believed what was good for the company was good for all of the employees—but the company was always first. Sixty years later following the close of the Second World War, Demings (1960) presented Japanese management with kaizen leadership. This management style required total agreement by all employees before the company embarked on any production activity. Industrial collaboration experts (names unknown) at MIT at the beginning of the 21^st century brought about the concept of quality control managers in health care and related industries. Collaboration is no longer flat-lined as it was with Demings (1960). Managers now collaborate with different leadership teams within single corporations. These leadership teams work in-tandem to provide quality medical services to individuals located in specific locales.

References

Demings, W. Edward. (1960). Japanese management styles using kaizen, agreeable leadership by all members of the organization. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

Taylor, F. (1915). The principles of scientific management. New York: Harper & Brothers.