Organizational Development and Total Quality are two concepts currently widely used worldwide in academic and business settings. Both in the classrooms of the Higher Studies Centers, in the "best - sellers" of management issues, as well as in the daily language of consultants and managers.
According to the founder of Organizational Development, Dr. Richard Beckard "Organizational Development is a process planned and administered by Senior Management, aimed at producing a change in the culture of the organization that will lead to excellence"; As for the concept of Total Quality, it goes beyond the quality of products or services, it goes towards the quality of management, to do things well, always improving and well from the beginning.
As we can see, both concepts refer to a situation of change, of desire for innovation within organizations. When this change begins to take place, the effects are evident either in customer relationships, the market or in interpersonal relationships and the psycho-social climate that exists within these companies.
Both point to a planned and orderly change of the companies that guides them towards excellence. If organizations are capable of creating and developing, of reorienting their paths and adapting to new situations, it is because they must survive in the difficult and hostile environment of competition. The market and its demands influence management decisions in favor of change.
The change in the organizations, the search for Total Quality and the change towards excellence are tasks in the first place, of responsibility of the managers, but because they are delicate, they need the assistance and support of all the workers. Hence, there is a need for the capacity, skills, forces or energy that exist throughout the organization to be better and more used, which means breaking many traditional schemes, flattening pyramid structures, changing authoritarian styles, establishing mechanisms to through which the participation and commitment of staff can be channeled, as well as establishing schemes that encourage responsibility, performance and achievement.
