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“Soft” aspects of quality management, an integral part of Business Psychology
Posted: 18/01/09“Soft” aspects of quality management, an integral part of Business Psychology
Adina Tarry, Business Psychologist and Accredited Coach
The presentation reflected the perspective of a business practitioner with extensive experience as a functional specialist across several business functions - quality management (CMM, ISO, Internal audit), supply chain, manufacturing, operations project and human resource management - combined with the subsequent experience as a coach, and business psychologist.
The presentation offered an integrative perspective, combining Quality, HRM and Business Psychology, and highlighting how these specialist areas focus in fact on the same aspects of both people and quality management, in the organisational context.
The overview touched upon several aspects - organisational intelligence, knowledge management, change and intercultural management and total quality management, with particular reference to policies and strategies for managing people, quality and organisational sustainability.
Advocating an increased focus on the “soft” aspects of quality, as a key to success in the 21st Century, the presentation explored how utilising business psychology services can be used as a way of harnessing “hearts and minds” to translate human potential into organisational success.
Starting with a brief history of the quality movement and how its roots began in statistics, sampling and control, she demonstrated how there developed a set of standards e.g CMM and ISO and eventually the award schemes such as the ‘kite mark’. However, this ‘hard’ quality control approach misses out an important aspect in the process, i.e. people. Adina showed how companies could save 70% of the wastage that erodes their ‘bottom-line’ calculations by adopting a ‘soft’ approach to quality control, led by the techniques and competences that a Business Psychologist could deliver.
Adina Tarry is a Business Psychologist and Accredited Coach. Since 2001, based in London and following an international career, she has delivered to ‘people in business’ Coaching, Psychometric Assessments, Talent and Change Management and Strategic HR, spanning IT, telecommunicatiosn, pharmaceutical and fashion industries. Her particular expertise is in delivering solutions in cross-cultural environments. Adina is also an Associate Lecturer in HR Management Strategy & Consulting, and Business Psychology subjects.