Andrew Ryan at Vc Brakes

...

In Ryan’s current situation, I think he should stay at VC Brakes a bit longer and focus on improving shared understanding of the value of the TQM program at the management level.

Since Baynard is in full charge of VC Brake and also its TQM program now, his support is essential to the success of the program. Ryan should first talk to Baynard to know his thoughts on the program such as what he wants to accomplish through the program. As Baynard still insists on implementing the TQM and shoulders more responsibility for it, it is likely that Baynard has positive expectation of the program. Also he can benefit from its good result. Thus their mutual understanding can be established on the basis of mutual interest. After they achieve an agreement on the company’s future vision, Ryan should ask for Baynard’s support in enforcing TQM Steering Committee members’ full commitment in providing “follow-up execution and support after the training session”(Cespedes and Yong 9). In Ryan’s successful experience of leading a turnaround in the engineering services team, there was a stubborn supervisor who was resistant to Ryan’s approach and Ryan had to send him away. Similarly, there can be people who can never agree to Ryan’s way of launching TQM and its value. To deal with those people, Ryan needs the power and authority to make them follow his instructions. Therefore, Ryan will not succeed without Baynard’s support.

After having Baynard’s support, a further step for Ryan to take is to build a system approach to management with the participation of other top managers. As I mentioned before, top managers need first identify the objectives of the program at VC Brakes and translate them to numerical goals. The objectives need to be tailored to meet the customers’ needs and expectations. Thus customers should be included in this process. Also experts from Crossroads and its other subsidiaries should be invited into the discussion as well as they can provide fresh opinions and expertise. The strategy and measure designed for the objectives and goals will then be further interpreted to become the lower manager’s objectives and goals to meet. In addition, Ryan may modify his training approach to encourage managers to take the lead in the TQM practices.

However, if Baynard perceives no value in the TQM program or is reluctant to provide necessary resources and support, I suggest Ryan to stop leading the TQM sessions. In this case, his efforts will never lead to substantial changes in the company and will only disappoint people who actually acknowledge the value of the program.

To summarize, the TQM approach taken at VC Brakes and Ryan’s way of leading the program are not effective and has few achievements so far. The cause is mainly the lack of shared understanding at the management level. Ryan could have done a better job at communicating with the managers and there is still chance that he can win their support in current situation. Ryan should talk to Baynard first to see if it is possible to gain the support from him. Only with Baynard’s positive response, the program may succeed and Ryan should keep leading it.

Works Cited

Cespedes, Frank V., and Sunru Yong. Andrew Ryan at VC Brakes. Case Study. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, 2013. PDF file.

...