Organizational Self‐Assessment

Citation

Edgeman, R.L. (1998), "Organizational Self‐Assessment", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 311-311. https://doi.org/10.1108/tqmm.1998.10.4.311.1

Organizations with their eyes firmly set on business and performance excellence should make mandatory reading of this text by Europe’s leading authority on self‐assessment. Tito Conti is the man who provided much of the knowledge, experience, and vision behind that which comprises the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model for Business Excellence on which the European Quality Award program bases its evaluations. In this text, Conti has gone one better than the EFQM Model. It should be noted straight‐away, however, that readers are not forced to choose among alternatives such as the EFQM Model, Baldrige Criteria, Canada Excellence Awards Criteria, enterprise‐specific, or other competitors; for while Conti’s model is naturally similar to the EFQM Model, his guidance is both specific and general, but always eminently practical and certainly flexible enough to inform such business excellence models.

If you acquire just one resource on self‐assessment, search no further for you are unlikely to find better. With a first‐things‐first approach, content truly focuses on organizational self‐assessment, and not on trying to win an international quality prize ‐ though the two are not mutually exclusive considerations. As such Conti deals effectively with the distinctions between the two approaches and provides clear guidance on how to derive maximum benefit from the use of self‐assessment. Conti’s model is clearly among the best available in terms of providing an integrated view of the company and its missions and he emphasizes that it is not a quality model or a TQM model, but a business model that he presents ‐ though of course quality serves as a key contributor to the model.

Content flow is logical and is divided into seven chapters and two appendices ‐ one appendix of which (Appendix A) justifies the purchase price on its own merit. Chapter and appendix titles are lengthy, but clearly detail text content. From beginning to end they are as follows: From quality audits to self‐assessment/self‐diagnosis in relation to the company’s missions; The model: an integrated view of the company and its missions; The self‐assessment/self‐diagnosis process; Assessment of results, processes and systemic factors; Cross‐diagnosis; Introducing self‐assessment into the company: preparing for and implementing the self‐assessment process; Integrating self‐assessment and improvement planning into the company planning cycle; Guide to the self‐assessment process; and Integrating TQM concepts into business management.

Conti’s model is highly integrative and he develops a balanced stakeholder approach. The advice from this corner is to become a “stakeholder” in Conti’s book ‐ you are unlikely to regret such action.