The quality manager of the future
June 2001
By: John Peters

The profession of quality management is dividing, as did the profession of human resources manager, into the operational and the strategic. As in the human resource management field, both roles are necessary, albeit that one (the strategic) may be more "fashionable" than the other.

As a profession, we need to ensure, in our organizational development activities, professional associations and universities, that we are developing and where appropriate, certifying, both operational and strategic quality managers -- the managers of quality and the managers of the quality of management.

These roles are not one and the same. The traditional quality manager's lament, that "top management needs to take this stuff more seriously," will become redundant. Top management will indeed be taking the stuff seriously, because top management will increasingly be managers with a quality discipline.

Operational quality managers need to be experts of statistical control tools and techniques, and pass them on to others. The operational manager of quality -- the quality engineer -- will be both expert and coach. We must not forget the foundations that we have built upon to create reliable products and services and to prevent non-quality, by controlling processes.

Strategic "quality of management'' executives need to speak the full language of business: leadership, marketing, systems and results. The business excellence manager must develop measurement and audit tools in strategic areas, and prepare and manage improvement interventions to address them just as effectively as we have done in quality assurance operations.

These are our quality managers of the future. As a profession, the challenge is ours to make the change.

John Peters is editor of the TQM Magazine and advisor to publishers MCB University Press. He holds visiting posts with a number of university management schools. E-mail: jpeters@mcb.co.uk. C/o MCB University Press, 60/62 Toiler Lane, Bradford BD8 9BY, England.