David Kearns and Total Quality

David Kearns and Total Quality Leadership at Xerox

David Kearns and Total Quality to Leadership at Xerox

David Kearns served as President of Xerox Corporation between the years 1977 to 1985 and CEO from 1982 to 1990. He is credited with beginning a quality and customer-centric revolution in the company that is considered the catalyst that kept it competitive globally, saving its market share domestically and in Japan (Dumaine, 1992). In analyzing the case of David Kearns and the Transformation of Xerox several key insights emerge with regard to his unique leadership style which was the impetus behind Xerox' resurgence in global markets. Each of the questions from the case study are briefly discussed below.

How did Kearns fulfill the roles of a quality leader at Xerox?

There were many aspects as to how David Kearns fulfilled his role of quality leader within Xerox. First and most significant was his role of transformational leader, leading the organization through a revolution to place quality into the core aspects of its culture (Deckert, 2011). An integral part of this area of his leadership was the continual focus on pushing Xerox to become more customer-centric, placing the customer's needs and perspectives of service -- their expectations -- to the forefront of all strategies and initiatives. This approach to managing a large, diverse global corporation to be accountable to quality and customers challenged the status quo, upset many of the old-line managers yet saved the company from going bankrupt (Kearns, 1992).

Why many CEOs say they want their organizations to be more customer-centric, David Kearns instituted a series of rigorous metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that held each manager, director and associate responsible for their contribution to quality and customer satisfaction (Dumaine, 1992). David Kearns also began to realize that the quality of Xerox products was drastically below market standard, and after analyzing this shortcoming of the company, found that a lack of training in quality management programs and initiatives was the culprit. He immediately instituted a broad training and development plan to ensure the key members of the Xerox staffs in charge of production and quality control could manage the core processes they needed to in order to assure higher-quality products (Tuttle, 1993). The net result of this strategy was higher customer satisfaction, fewer customer defections to competitors, and greater visibility into how training and continued focus on quality as part of the company culture was impacting sales and long-term customer value (Deckert, 2011).

David Kearns was courageous in that he willingly went after the most entrenched areas of the company and demanded change in the name of product quality and serving the customer. He instituted many programs to get executives out from behind their desks and into the field with customers and services organizations so they would understand the business better '(Kearns, 1992). He also defined success in manufacturing not from pure output but from an entirely new set of metrics entirely focused on product quality and fewer returns, resulting in customers paying their invoices more promptly as well (Kearns, 1992). As with any transformational leader, Kearns also set a visionary goal of the company willing a Malcolm Baldrige Award for quality when Xerox was struggling to products consistently. The vision Kearns defined of the award came true and the company won the award for the first time in 1988 (Kearns, 1992). Kearns was able to be extremely successful at change management because he was such a strong transformational leader (Huysse, 1997). Being able to portray a challenging goal as accomplishable if everyone contributes a strong effort is a common trait of transformational leader. David Kearns is often said to have been such a leader, capable of gaining trust and also making the company change on a global scale to focus first on quality and customers instead of its own, often inwards-centric agendas (Deckert, 2011).

Kearns began a practice of having senior managers personally take phone calls from customers with problems. Try calling the president of an organization with one of your concerns about a product or issue you have with the company. Report what happened on the phone call. (Good luck).

I recently tried to call the President and CEO of Delta Airlines and was routed first to their automated voice response customer service line. After about fifteen minutes on hold I was connected to an agent who said their CEO's office is confidential and cannot be reached from an outside line. He directed me to their Public Relations Department. I called their PR Department in Atlanta and was asked if I was a member of the media looking for an interview, blogger or a member of a television network. I said I was none of these, just a customer who would like to chat with the CEO. The PR person acted as if they were getting an e-mail address and "accidentally" hung up on me. I called her back and asked for the e-mail address again and was given a rather generic one of -- . Next I tried calling directly to the main switchboard again and did not press any buttons on my phone as I was thinking a person would answer if the automated voice response system did not think a touch tone phone was on the call. The system hung up the phone. Not getting anywhere with the company, I tried next going to their Investor Center in the hope his e-mail address would be there. I found that Delta using the first name, last -- definition for their e-mail address. Finally I had his e-mail address, which is Richard.anderson@delta, com. I e-mailed him and asked just for an interview and a chance to discuss Delta service. After a week I received a form e-mail back and a note saying he gets thousands of e-mails a day and regrets he does not have time to talk. This would have never happened in the days of Xerox under David Kearns.