On Tuesday 18th September 1990, I watched on television the announcement that Atlanta, not Manchester, would host the 1996 Olympics. It was one of the lesser news items. What interested me, however, was the sort of questions put to interviewees by the newsreader.

Why, he asked, had Manchester failed? Had not the city put forward a first class presentation? Did not Manchester have the vote of no less than a British Royal, Princess Ann? Was there something wrong with Manchester?

And in his choice of questions I saw reflected the attitudes that pervade the British notions of quality and success in management. For they were the same questions we all hear every day from unsuccessful job applicants, frustrated salesmen, as well as from top executives failing to capture overseas contracts. There, if anywhere, I thought, lay the real problems facing British industry. And if anything was going to solve them, it would not be a change of tactics but a change in thinking.

So what attitudes did his questions betray as the root problem?

I think three:

A) That presentation is synonymous with substance. B) That social considerations are the major factor in people's choice, and C) that if there is 'nothing wrong' with a product, then it is 'good enough' and the customer should do his duty and buy it.

Quality Management, as I see it, must involve the breaking down of these three attitudes in every member of any British commercial organisation, and because management is the product of managers, first of all in managers themselves.

Now, supposing we were to look inside the heads of British managers, what would we find that could explain such attitudes?

There are good, bad and some excellent British managers but, if we can be excused some induction here for the purpose of this editorial, the underlying mindset in the general population, where all managers come from, is that one should not be unreasonable, which means demanding or pernickety but 'live and let live' because we all try to get along as best we can and should put up with less than perfect. This is expressed by the common workman as "I did my best; that's all right, innit? What's wrong with it? No, mate..." while a British judge in a court of law uses different language to echo the same attitude, with "The issue before me was whether the Claimant did a 'reasonable' job, and my finding is that he did." Reasonable, reasonable, reasonable... which has come to mean not entirely useless, even when there has been a clear breach of contract. Or, as others say, good value for money, another twisted phrase which has come to mean cheap and easily accessible, as opposed to worthwhile in the long term.

To the outsider, there will always be a set of characteristics which set the British apart, such as a highly developed sense of sociability and humour, and this insistence that one must not take life 'too seriously'.

More to the point, the weight Britons place on the social dimension is crucial here. The term 'social,' as in 'social life' or 'social rank,' and 'social justice' (in politics) is the most important word to the British. How does this affect our British managers' decisions? In that they are likely to overestimate the U-value of their service or product at the expense of other aspects, far more important in today's world, for example concept, design, functionality, durability, style, elegance, and quality of production.

So it could be said that the British manager has a fundamental difficulty in attaining a vision of his own product stripped naked, bereft of overtones, and see it as others might see it. He has been brought up all his life to see the social aspect as outweighing the aesthetic and functional.

To give a simple example, a British manager might regard ownership of a Rolls Royce as a symbol of success, a social consideration, and try to sell it as such. A German might see it first as an example of superb engineering, and this would be his primary reason for buying it. Therefore, for the German, and many others around the world, the product itself must be of top quality first, otherwise there is nothing to talk about and all your marketing strategies are irrelevant.

It is said that Quality Management is not a matter of technique, but of philosophy. The problem is that the British dislike philosophy - the rational, deductive way of thinking. Belief in common sense (what everyday, basic human experience teaches us) is valued much higher. Common sense is seen as a moderating force, and so it is.

However, in order to achieve excellence, one has to go beyond the realm of ordinary everyday experience and challenge what has always been accepted as standard. Also, moderation is directly opposed to a level of achievement that can be called excellent. Again, the British love of understatement has played a role in perpetuating common sense and moderation, rather than excellence and efficiency in management. A framework where everything must be toned down and averaged out, to be socially acceptable, makes for smooth social relations but produces a culture where everything, from sandwiches to cars, is average, or a good average. All of which might have suited a secluded Britain or a world of insular markets, but is fatal in our times of fast, free global trading where the customer is exposed to ideas from around the world and has infinite choice. Dare we say it, even the British Rolls Royce failed to excel as such, and had to be bailed out by German BMW. In today's Britain even the British customer will succumb to the more aesthetic, quality-concept option, the non-average from abroad.

But surely, to come back to our original question, you can sell a low cost product by the right presentation and marketing? Well, let's be clear about one thing: If by low cost we mean poor quality, the answer is no, you cannot, or not for long. Marketing and presentation are very, very important, otherwise nobody would buy anything. But poor quality will be found out and be rejected in the long term, because it is poor value. This preoccupation with presentation at the expense of substance has got to be rid of. Presentation is not synonymous with reality. It has more to do with theatre than real life. In real life, in today's world, customers rebel against fiction, and their freedom to choose is almost unbounded. It makes no difference how we package, present or dress up a poor product.

British management has made great strides since the Thatcher era, which allowed the ordinary man and woman in the High Street to decide which industries lived and which died. May that continue in a never-ending drive towards quality and excellence. Why settle for average when you can have the best?

© John K Smyrniotis
London 1990