The Parable of the Green Lawn Case Study A new housing development has lots of p

Question

The Parable of the Green Lawn Case Study

A new housing development has lots of packed earth and weeds, but no grass. Two neighbors make a wager on who will be the first to have a lush lawn. Mr. Fast N. Furious knows that a lawn will not grow without grass seed, so he immediately buys the most expensive seed he can find because everyone knows that quality improve with price. Besides, he’ll recover the cost of the seed through his wager. Next, he stands knee-deep in his weeds and tosses the seed around his yard. Confident that he has a start on his neighbor, who is not making much visible progress, he begins his next project.

Ms. Slo N. Steady, having grown up in the country, proceeds to clear the lot, till the soil, and even alter the slope of the terrain to provide better drainage. She checks the soil’s pH, applies weed killer and fertilizer, and then distributes the grass seed evenly with the spreader. She applies a mulch cover and waters the lawn appropriately. She finishes several days after her neighbor, who asks if she would like to concede defeat. After all, he does have some blades of grass poking up already.

Mr. Furious is encouraged by the few clumps of grass that sprout. While these small, green islands are better developed than Ms. Steady’s fledging lawn, bare spots and weeds surround them. If he maintains these footholds, he reasons, they should spread to the rest of the yard. He notices that his neighbor’s lawn is more uniform and is really starting to grow. He attributes this progress to the Steady children, who water the lawn each evening. Not wanting to appear to be imitating his neighbor, Mr. Furious instructs his children to water his lawn at noon.

The noon watering proves to be detrimental, so he decides to fertilize the remaining patches of grass. Since he wants to make up for the losses the noon watering caused, he applies the fertilizer at twice the recommended application rate. Most of the patches of grass that escape being burned by the fertilizer, however, are eventually chocked out by the weeds.

After winning the wager with Mr. Furious, Ms. Steady lounges on the deck enjoying her new grill, which she paid for with the money from the wager. Her lawn requires minimal maintenance, so she is free to attend to the landscaping. The combination of the lawn and landscaping also results in an award from a neighborhood committee that determines that her lawn is a true showplace. Mr. Furious still labors on his lawn. He blames the poor performance on his children’s inability to properly water the lawn, nonconforming grass seed, insufficient sunlight, and poor soil. He claims that his neighbor has an unfair advantage and her success is based on conditions unique to her plot of land. He views the loss as grossly unfair, after all, he spends more time and money on his lawn than Ms. Steady does.

He continues to complain about how expensive the seed is and how much time he spends moving the sprinkler around to the few remaining clumps of grass that continue to grow. But Mr. Furious thinks that things will be better for him next year, because he plans to install an automatic sprinkler system and make a double-or-nothing wager with Ms. Steady.

Discussion Questions:

1.   Within the context of the continual struggles to create a “world-class” lawn and “world-class” business, draw analogies between the events when total quality is implemented.

2.   Specifically, translate the problems described here into business language. What are the implementation barriers to achieving total quality?

Explanation / Answer

1. The struggle by Mr. Furious is a perfect analogy to the struggle of building world class business.

While a business may have the wherewithal and other key resources to build a world class organization, it may not have the technical skills and proper problem solving technique. The road map has to be clear so as to define the process control. The process has to be clearly defined. In the above case, Mr. Furious had defined the desired metric to be achieved (i.e the end). His desired result was to get a lush lawn and that too quickly. He focused on the end, without giving too much attention on the processes and the means. Total Quality Management will help in the identification as well as measurement of the right things and processes. Instead of focusing on and measuring the output (as done by Mr. Furious), the businesses will have to measure the incoming components and implement process control. This focus will help in building and sustaining a high quality product or service eco system within an organization.

2. In this case, there was no understanding of what had to be measured. A business or a company, in order to implement total quality, will first have to clearly and properly understand, what is to be measured. It is only after this understanding is developed that the company will be able to improve it. Critical factors will have to be identified to achieve the goal of becoming a world class business. If critical factors are not identified, then the implementation of total quality becomes difficult.

Lack of focus, poor planning, and poor leadership quality were some of the implementation barriers to achieving total quality in this case. Beyond this case other barriers can be inadequate resources, poor leadership, resistance of the workforce etc.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.