Deming's Observation: Adverse Impacts of Merit System in Organizations

Running head: DEMING’S OBSERVATION
DEMING’S OBSERVATION
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Author Note

DEMING’S OBSERVATION1
Deming was called as the father of total quality management because of his contribution
to the Japanese manufacturing revolution in the year 1970 and 1980 when the economic miracle
occurred because of Deming’s principles. Total quality management refers to gaining long term
success through customer satisfaction and the employees of the organization aim at improving
the quality of the products, services, processes and other operations of the organizations.
Demimg developed the model of plan do check and act in order to assess the process and to
support improvement of processes and others of the organization (Petersen 1999). Deming’s
gave 14 principles of total quality management in order to improve the quality of operations in
the organization. Some of his principles are that of – removing barriers that take away the
workmanship’s pride and eliminating the merit system as a whole because it creates a sense of
inferiority complex among the people, breaking of the barriers in the areas of the staff, and other
principles (Li and Yee 2015). The main aim of the paper is to discuss about the observation of
Deming’s total quality management, and to analyse how far those principles are still applicable,
to show how the adverse outcomes of the performance management principle being addressed in
modern organisation and all those human resource management skills that can help in avoiding
the issues related to performance management of the organization.
According to DEMING’S OBSERVATION RELATED TO PERFORMANCE
MANGEMENT, the merit system in organizations may result in short term performance and
success in the organization, however it has a negative impact on the planning of long term for the
organization because it creates absence of fear in the people of the organization, demolishes team
work because people start working for themselves and therefore it supports rivalry and politics in
the organization. This system according to DEMING’S OBSERVATION has a negative impact
in the employees of the organization because it leads to people becoming bitter, bruised, crushed,

DEMING’S OBSERVATION2
battered, despondent, desolate, dejected, the feeling of inferiority complex, sometimes the
employees start feeling depressed because of the same. People feel demotivated and start feeling
that they are unfit or unsuitable for the job because their ratings as per the merit system is not so
good, and sometimes these people are unable to understand the reason for inferiority complex.
This system as per Deming’s is completely unfair because it leads to differences in the group that
may be a result of system that they are working in. The observation of Deming’s related to
performance management still holds true in the present business context because of various
reasons. In fact it has also been observed that the rewards to the employees as per the system of
merit for organizations cannot help in motivating people but rather lead to many issues within
the organization. There are various reasons for the same and some of the major concerns are that-
there can be issues related to people’s perception of favouritism, there can be communication
issues in the organization, rewards leads to destruction of relationship, rewards are further
leading to discouragement of risk-taking, and various other issues. In case of any merit system
being followed in the organizations, the performance is ultimately measured by the supervisors
and therefore without appropriate measurements in the organization, employees may ask the
criteria of deciding the merit pay of the employees and even in case of organizations where
measurement are there the outcomes can be challenged by the people, and there can be a
perception of favouritism among the employees of the organization. There can be issues related
to communication within the organization such as if the supervisor is unable to properly describe
the considerations for the basis of merit pay, due to the existence of metrics there can be various
issues related to the same. Moreover there are some supervisors who have better communication
skills and therefore cab communicate the criteria’s in a better way to the employees. Moreover
through in different businesses belonging to the modern contemporary world it has been seen