Firing on All Cylinders: The Service/Quality System for High-Powered Corporate Performance

Peter Strathy is Vice-President Planning, Doctors’ Hospital, Toronto.

Clemmer is a co-founder and operating executive of The Achieve Group, a
Canadian firm of management consultants offering training programs for
leadership skills-development and organization effectiveness. Their
services have been used by many corporations and government
organizations. Other successful publishing collaborations with the group
include The I of the Hurricane and The V.I.P. Strategy.

The focus of this book is service/quality improvement in organizations.
Pushed by Japanese and other Pacific rim competion, service/quality
improvement has become the strategic-management issue of the day. The
shift is major: from a previous narrow, manufacturing, product-driven,
quality-improvement view to a corporate culture emphasizing quality and
service as the primary values.

Following chapters defining the service/quality dynamic, the authors
outline a strategy for building a high service/quality corporate culture
using a “12 cylinder framework.” The cylinders isolate and define
the 12 areas in which long-term cultural change must be made before
service/quality levels can improve. The cylinders range from senior
management signalling commitment to the new ethic to the realignment of
rewards and recognition, to the application of coaching skills. Both
research findings and anecdotal evidence are used to reinforce
management practices recommendations.

The book’s only weakness is that it repeats many of the tenets of
management principles and practices introduced in In Search of
Excellence and repeated in countless books and articles during the
1980s.

This book will find a place in large public library collections, in
Canadian business schools, and in the management sections of corporate
and institutional libraries. However, with the book covering both
corporate and institutional service/quality performance, it may be of
particular interest to public-sector organizations. It will also be of
interest to managers seeking ways to respond to a more demanding and
challenging 1990s’ environment.