"Cooperation  vs  Competition":
The  Challenge  for  Decision-Makers

The  idea  that  teamwork  is  essential  to  achieve  quality  products and services  goes  back  to the beginnings  of   Quality Control,  Quality Management and  Quality Sciences.  An observation we have all made is  that  it is very hard --  perhaps  impossible -- for one  person  to  create,  design and implement  a change  for  the better.  It takes people working  together  in cooperative  ways.

But  Dr. Deming,  Dr. Juran & Frank  Gyrna,  Philip Crosby,  Feigenbaum,  Taguchi, other quality pioneers and  almost  every  Quality Improvement  Tool – including the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria --  has the  goal  of  improvement  to  make your company,  agency,  organization, school, hospital excel.  In other words  we implement  quality  tools  to  improve  our  competitiveness  in  the market place  and in society.  Japan improved its automobile industry and successfully competed with the United States.

 Where  do  we find the answer  to the question:  “Where  should  cooperation  stop  if  competition is  required   to grow and survive?”  and the corollary question:  “If  cooperation  is  so  good,  why  not cooperate  with everyone everywhere?”   We don’t  have a formula  in the Quality Sciences  to help leadership answer those questions  for their responsibilities; but leadership faces those questions almost daily.

One  of  the  most  effective, and  humorous, quality  presentations  I  experienced  was by  Jim McIngvale, President Gallery Furniture, to the Eighth NASA Contractors  Conference and  1991 National Symposium on Quality and  Productivity  in  Houston.  His title  was: “Cooperation  Works -  Competition Doesn’t.”  His story told of  his sales strategy  of  merit pay, quotas and  commissions that had been used  for years and  the  wild  swings of  revenue and poor customer satisfaction that it had produced.  Then he attend a Dr. Deming seminar and took  the “risky leap” to eliminate quotas, commissions and merit pay and institute  teamwork and  cooperation within the sales department. Everyone shared in profits and everyone  worked together  to please customers.  There was dramatic  and permanent  increase in revenue, decrease in  employee  turn-over,  internal  fighting stopped,  and Gallery Furniture  successes  and growth went up exponentially.

America’s  aerospace  industry is an even larger  example.  The Aerospace  Technology  Working Group (ATWG)  was formed  in 1989.  NASA sponsored  it.  Representatives from  every NASA Center,  from the aerospace companies and  from universities with aerospace and space  programs  met every  six months.  The main reason  for starting ATWG and its primary  mission  was to  facilitate interaction  of  aerospace professionals.  Legislative  constraints existed  to prevent companies from cooperation that  would  produce price-fixing. Competition was  the  culture  for  aerospace in America.  But   America  was  beginning to  have competitive losses to the European and Asian  aerospace  programs.  That combined with an economic recession  reduced  the number  of aerospace companies  in America from 22 to 5 over a  ten year period.  Competition was  a major problem and ATWG  continues today  to facilitate  cooperation.  The  current,  September 2004,  focus  for ATWG  is  to answer  the question: “How to implement the   space  vision of President Bush in his January 2004  address -  to  create a  replacement system for the Shuttle and build a sustained presence on  the moon which  will facilitate Solar  space exploration?”   It  is  apparent  that  global  cooperation  will be needed  for  our next space exploration and habitation era.

Competition  is fundamental  to  a  free  economy.  But cooperation  is increasingly  needed  as  globalized  industry,    international  problems,  and  the  needs  of  earth’s  humanity  increase in ways  where sub-optimized  and competitive  solutions  do not produce quality  outcomes.  Both Cooperation and  Competition are quality classic  concepts. But,  the  Cooperation – Competition  challenge  exists everywhere  regardless  of   the  size and  scope  of  the  activity  from local  to  global,  from  public to private.  We are solving  the  challenge  incrementally, spasmodically,  temporarily  or not  at  all.  The challenge  calls  for  more  thinking,  discussion,  documentation,   research and  theory.
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"Morality"

SOCIETY’S LEGACY

Morality is the set of rules for right conduct. Ethical study investigates the nature and constituency of human character and formulation of rules of moral behavior. It is the science of right conduct and character. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which concentrates on morality, its benefits, and its problems. Ethical study through history has created differing doctrine as foundation for the duties of individuals regarding the rights of others.

Moral behavior recognizes the obligation in society to treat others as we would be treated; that there exists in people the desire for peace, security, and freedom in their lives. People want to avoid the fear that bad, or evil, things will happen to them or their families or friends. When people are not treated ethically and morally negative things happen. Sorrow comes into their lives. Virtue and vice are voluntary and people and organizations are responsible for which we choose. When vice or crime or unethical acts, which violate the lives of others, are chosen, stable and productive lives are damaged and environments become destructive rather than constructive.

Ethical goals and conduct reflect a commitment to a higher purpose than our own self-serving ends. Moral people believe that good should triumph over evil and want to promote the good to improve the human condition. They have a desire to be examples for the next generation and do not wish to be known as the ones who harmed others or sowed the seeds for future suffering. Needed is leadership with ethical and moral behavior ingrained in its values system.

Can quality be achieved or sustained in an immoral , corrupt or dishonest system?

I’m convinced that if that question were submitted to any population or group of quality professionals there would be a 99% “NO” response. So Moral Leadership is a quality classic meeting the definition used for this series of essays. The need for honesty, integrity, business ethics, fairness, dependability, transparency, trustfulness and character in leadership has had famous advocates throughout history:

 * 2,500 years ago Confucius taught it in his “Way of Life.” Buddha’s “Eight-Fold Path” included it. Moses received the Ten Commandments from Yahweh on Mt. Sinai during the Exodus. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle taught justice and “The Highest Good is in man’s most perfect likeness to God.” The Stoics (Epicurus and Zeno) taught that the highest good is to practice virtue for its own sake.

* 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ gave the world a moral compass.

* 1,400 year ago Mohammed began the Islam faith captured in the Koran which defined moral life for Muslims.

* 800 years ago St. Thomas of Aquinas taught that moral ethics and moral philosophy would be built on one another.

* 500 years ago John Calvin taught that God’s power through Jesus Christ is able to empower souls toward moral righteousness.

* 200 years ago John Stuart Mill taught that moral law, human rights, reason and theology must be evaluated by the principle of utility toward quality of life.

* The 20th Century experienced tragic examples of immoral national leadership. Adolph Hitler, Cambodia’s Khymer Rouge, and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein are just three of the killing fields examples.

* Within the last 50 years:

 - Dr. Albert Schweitzer gave us the definition:

“Ethics is the name we give to our concern for good behavior,  We feel an obligation to consider not only our own personal well-being, but also that of others and of human society as a whole.”

 - Peter Drucker gave us the most concise ethical principle for which leadership is responsible: “Above all, do no harm.”

* Over the last 10 years, high profile business leaders became convicted criminals and respected financial institutions have been found guilty of massive fraud. Religion saw moral failures among the clergy. Terrorism against innocent civilians is immoral.

* 5 years ago one of the worlds leading Policy Scientists, Professor Yehezkel Dror of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem wrote in his classic CAPACITY TO GOVERN book, that a critical variable for credibility in public organizations and even for humanity’s long-term survival is moral leadership:

 “The qualities demanded of senior politicians and governance elites should be radically revised, with emphasis on virtues and character. These requirements should become a basic canon of democratic theory and political culture.”

The list of Moral Leadership failures from Enron, to Sudan’s political leadership to the United Nations over the past decade provides repeated evidence of huge cost of quality (in the Taguchi sense of “Cost of Poor Quality”) happening throughout the world.

 THE QUALITY MOVEMENT AND MORALITY

 - Neither Dr. W. Edwards Deming nor Dr. Joseph Juran, who pioneered the quality movement, formally prioritized in their early teachings and writings the requirement for honesty, integrity ethics and morality in business leadership. Awareness for the need has increased steadily since the 1950s.

As we begin the 21st Century, the sad truth is that there are too few national or global quality standards concentrating on improving the Moral Leadership of those in either public offices or holding private corporate authority. The U.S. Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal of 1973-1974 that caused President Nixon to resign. On 30 July 2002, President George W. Bush signed a Business Reform Law with the most far-reaching business reforms since the 1930s Depression.

“Codes of Ethics” are becoming more common in public and private systems. And there are legal and cultural constraints that act to deter or punish dishonesty, greed, unethical or immoral conduct. But existing national quality award performance criteria do not place adequate rating on the formal analysis or evaluation of leadership’s moral and ethical behavior.

The United States 2005 Baldrige National Quality Program, “Criteria for Performance Excellence” has three words on the title page - Ethics, Leadership and Competitiveness (www.quality,nist.gov/pdf_files/2005_criteria.pdf). However the scoring system to calculate winners for 2005 gives a max of 50 points for Leadership Governance and Social Responsibilities (Criteria, p.9, 1.2) out of a total of 1,000 possible points. Business Results are rated nine times higher at 450 points. So the 2005 MBNQA Criteria for Performance Excellence rates Morality and Ethics at 5% of total performance.

Huge costs and damage to people continues to occur because leadership too frequently uses its power to exercise greed and dishonesty for self-serving purposes that disregard the harm created for others. The need for moral leadership continues to increase with the ever increasing human and material costs of its failure. It’s a United States and global necessity. ASQ should take the lead to raise formal performance standards for Morality.

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