Spotlight on Taina Savolainen

Citation

(2002), "Spotlight on Taina Savolainen", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2002.26706cab.001

Spotlight on Taina Savolainen

Spotlight

Spotlight on Taina Savolainen

Taina Savolainen is Professor of Organization and Management, School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Prior to taking up these academic appointments, Taina Savolainen worked as a corporate adviser and analyst in the regional business service office of the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry. She has been extensively involved in training for both the private and public sector organizations, is CEO of TQM Finland Ltd, which specializes in quality management training and consulting, and has spoken on quality issues at seminars and conferences in countries across the world.

In this issue of Spotlight Taina Savolainen talks to Sarah Powell about the importance of leadership in quality initiatives.

Spotlight

You have emphasized the essential interplay between commitment and learning as the prerequisites for the successful outcome of quality initiatives. What form of learning most successfully provides for the acquisition of essential new knowledge and skills, and how can companies nurture a learning culture?

Taina Savolainen

There are many forms of learning, for example, experiential learning and creative learning, both of which I believe are required, although creative learning is more usually talked about in this context. However, our need to draw on what we already know highlights the importance of experiential learning techniques and forms together with creative learning which encourages innovation, fostering the emergence of new knowledge, new ideas and new applications.

While there are numerous models of experiential learning, creative learning is by its nature informal. However, even in the latter case, i.e. creative learning, I do think that some kind of a learning structure or process is called for. While a particular corporate culture can encourage formulation of ideas, there needs to be a process that continuously encourages people to develop ideas and seek applications. In Finland suggestion boxes are widely used in this respect, a useful way of "harvesting" ideas from front line workers. But what is crucial is what happens next, i.e. how soon managers react to these ideas and what they do with them.

Spotlight

Organizational change can, in some cases, be both disturbing and demotivating. Yet change involves innovative behaviour which presupposes positive "feelings". How can negative impacts be minimized in such cases to enable positive progress towards corporate renewal?

Taina Savolainen

In response I would stress the importance of such things as openness, trust, encouragement to express feelings, including criticism. The culture of an organization needs to provide "space" for its people, enabling them to feel able to voice their feelings and to criticize the company if they feel the need to do so. In my view this freedom of feeling enhances creativity and engenders trust in the company, which in turn nurtures an openness fostering the creation of ideas; all of which may make organizational change more progressive. Encouraging people to express their feelings and indeed "using" these feelings, even those that are negative – and indeed negative feelings may be the most significant contributors because they so often remain unspoken – can promote more progressive organizational change. The key is to ensure that the overall process is constructive, not destructive.

Interestingly, there is very little knowledge of the role of feelings in organizational management. However, I see this as an area of increasing interest and research, its importance finally having been recognized. In my research into commitment to quality, for example, I have discussed issues of feelings, expression of emotions, and methods of expressing emotions. When training managers to promote quality ideas and concepts more effectively, I encourage them to discuss their own commitment, different types of commitment and the ways and means by which they might increase the level of their commitment. I do this by encouraging them to think about their feelings and emotions as part of the process of learning with a view to developing skills to enable them to express their emotions.

In my view, feelings and excitement, i.e. the dynamics of feelings, are very important, and are recognized as such today because it has become more acceptable to talk about feelings. I am convinced that the "burn-out" that many people feel in their work results at least in part from the dynamics of their emotions. Each individual has a private life and a working life – and these are interlinked; the individual cannot be "split" into a private person and a working person. But until now management and organizational theories have sought to do just this. People have been asked to leave their private lives at home, which of course they are simply unable to do when they have problems at home. While I accept that employers are not responsible for such circumstances, they should nevertheless proffer support. Such support is, I believe, available in some workplaces in the USA; but less usual in Europe.

Spotlight

Are there specific leadership strategies you would advocate in the promotion of quality initiatives and a quality culture? What do you see as the prerequisites of such a culture?

Taina Savolainen

I see the key to successful promotion of a quality culture as a coaching, visionary, co-operative leader who can be trusted and who builds trust through communication. I see his or her role as more supportive than proactive, and personal "visibility" is crucial, as is firm decision-making which reflects the importance of adherence to the goals that have been set or mutually agreed, the monitoring of achievements, and provision of continuous feedback. I consider that this sort of "non-material" support is more important than material support or incentives.

While the leader would not necessarily be involved in establishment of the framework of quality initiatives, he or she must be someone who repeatedly expresses the quality vision. The goal here is to strengthen it, establishing a clear and concise insight into the direction in which the company is headed, the goals targeted, the goals set and how these are achieved.

The leader's actual involvement in quality initiatives is also dependent on company size. There will clearly be far less "hands on" involvement in a large organization in which leaders will need to concentrate on the overall vision and broader management issues.

Spotlight

Communication is an essential part of promoting organizational change. How can leaders most effectively communicate and share their quality visions and how can managers ensure employees actively support quality initiatives?

Taina Savolainen

Communication is the key to leadership and I cannot stress how important it is in the leadership process. As previously mentioned, repetition is crucially important. Significant issues need to be stated repeatedly. When discussing issues of quality and quality management, the significance of quality and its strategic role as a competitive weapon must be highlighted, and this must be repeated over and over again by top management or managers. I believe managers frequently forget to do this. They state things once and assume that the message is received and understood – but often it is not. To my mind, a good yardstick is to assume only when you have stated something so often that you are fed up with saying it that your audience, or at least some of them, will have got the message and are thinking about it. That is how organizational communication works.

Personal, oral communication is the most effective and most influential in the sense of leadership impact. But obviously, method of communication depends on the size of the company. In a large organization this may not be possible; video and TV screens may provide a solution. The least preferred solution must be electronic communication – I really do not see this as ideal. Visibility is so important in leadership communication.

Spotlight

To what degree should quality initiatives be consumer-orientated?

Taina Savolainen

To a considerable degree, I believe. And here again I see the need to focus on internal, managerial leadership issues and human resources. Customer satisfaction is dependent on the people providing the products or services, i.e. the front line people and their managers. The two "cornerstones" of leadership and human resource management provide the supports for customer satisfaction.

Spotlight

Given more limited resources, is it more difficult for small and medium-sized companies to introduce quality initiatives?

Taina Savolainen

Yes it is. Limited resources are inevitably an obstacle in quality initiatives. Smaller companies need the help of a good external expert, a skilled consultant, and there needs to be good co-operation between the company leader and the outside consultant. The commitment of the former and expertise of the latter provide an excellent combination. However, companies are not always willing to use outside consultants, which is regrettable as they may then be unable to launch a successful quality plan. Such reticence is, however, understandable. When resources are limited, there can be considerable scepticism about potential return on investment.

Spotlight

What is the experience in Finland of corporate quality initiatives?

Taina Savolainen

In response, I would cite a survey recently conducted into the perceptions of quality in certain industries. Four industry sectors were included: textiles and furniture, hotels and restaurants, metallurgy, and electronics, and the survey focused on impressions at different organizational levels: top management, staff, and employees. The survey concluded that there were certain distinct problems in quality initiatives and continuous improvement processes.

What came as no surprise were the perceptions of a lack of information – a complaint that always emerges in organizational surveys. In this latest survey, respondents complained of lack of information, lack of time, lack of commitment, poor organization of work and poor supervision of the work team; these were considered the most important factors hindering success. However, the survey results were nevertheless seen as largely positive in that respondents usually recognized the significance of quality, i.e. understood its role as a competitive advantage for the company. As a result they expressed willingness to get involved in quality issues and initiatives.

Another very interesting result was the perception among managers that their own attitudes acted as a brake on quality improvement. This surprised us, particularly as their staff and employees did not make this point, i.e. staff and employees viewed progress more positively. At all events, because managers and top managers recognized the role of their own attitudes and the importance of commitment to quality, the overall survey response can be seen as positively biased towards quality initiatives.

Another point I would make is that the philosophy of continuous improvement seems to have been adopted in Finnish companies. They are clearly moving away from ISO 9000 or quality systems-based developments towards continuous improvement processes – which I see as a good sign. This requires education and training, the appropriate tools and the knowledge of how to use them. Implementation is the critical phase. Here too problems seem to arise mostly on the "soft" side, i.e. on issues of people and management, attitudes, commitment, thinking about quality, organizational behaviour and so on. Based on my experience of training and consulting work, I still see considerable room for improvement in Finnish companies. At Helsinki University of Technology, Lahti Center, I am a director of an innovative, national continuing education programme leading to a "Master of quality". The programme aims to improve the skills of quality professionals and general managers in managing and leading quality; both "soft" and "hard" aspects are covered in the programme.

This approach is in marked contrast to the past when the emphasis was more firmly on technical orientation. Until recently this soft side remained in the background. But now the significance of human resource and leadership issues is being recognized and discussed more openly in research and education.

Spotlight

You have written that "the increasing pace of change tends to invalidate known answers, demanding continuous learning". Does this pose a question mark over benchmarking, which inevitably relates to yesterday's practice?

Taina Savolainen

My answer would be both "yes" and "no". In business we can distinguish between leading or role model organizations that always forge ahead of others, and follower organizations that want to learn from or benchmark leading organizations. The latter will always want and need to benchmark. And both types of company will always exist in business life. So we really cannot pose a strict question mark over benchmarking, which is still valuable as a means of learning from practice.

Spotlight

Quality has been a "buzzword" now for some years. Do the results suggest predominantly measurable results or is quality seen mainly as a "feel-good" factor?

Taina Savolainen

I wrote an article entitled "Quality is a goal not a feeling", which, despite its title, concluded that it was both, i.e. the goal, which is a measurable entity, and a feeling. There has to be something in quality that has to do with feelings and emotions – it is part of the learning process – but of course there also has to be assessment, measurement and monitoring of precise targets to ensure continuous improvement. Both are necessary.