Poise Organizations for Success
Quality is not something that managers assign others to achieve. It is a mindset that permeates organizations from top-down as well as bottom-up.
Rather than assume all is wrong or right with an organization and take a defensive posture, management must view quality as essential to their economic survival or growth. Quality entails four concepts:
Organizations measure quality by overall involvement. It is not enough for management to endorse quality programs; they must actively participate.
Quality should be viewed as a journey, rather than a destination. It applies to service industries and manufacturing operations. Even non-profit and public sector organizations must utilize quality approaches for staff and volunteer councils/boards.
Employees must buy into the process by offering constructive input. All ideas are worthy of consideration. Life-threatening experiences (loss of business or market share, economic recession) signal the urgency for the team to collaborate.
Empowerment of employees means they accept the challenges and consequences. They must view the company as a consumer would…being as discerning about buying their own services as they are about fine dining, premium clothing, gifts for friends, a car or a home.
What if we were all paid based upon customer perceptions of our service? That would make each of us more attentive to what we offer and whether our value is correctly perceived.
Each member of an organization must view himself/herself as having customers. Each must be seen as a profit center and as having something valuable to contribute to the overall group. Each is a link that lets down the whole chain by failing to uphold their part.
What is missing in most organizations is the willingness to move forward, not the availability of information or desire for improvement. Willingness requires complete and never-ending commitment by management. The first time the organization tolerates anything less than 100%, it is on the road back to mediocrity.
The most common pitfalls toward success include:
Quality improvement is the only action that can simultaneously win the support of customers, employees, investors, media and the public. Productivity translates to profitability in an advantageous climate in which to function.
Research shows the by-product costs of poor quality are high for any business, up to 40 percent. Lack of attentiveness to quality has cost the United States its global marketplace dominance. Other nations preceded the U.S. in adopting the quality process and overtook our nation in many areas.
In 1981, more than 70 percent of U.S. automobiles realized defects within six months of purchase. That figure has now dropped below 40%, compared with just under 30% in Japanese cars. Had quality been a focus in Detroit years earlier, then the obvious would not have transpired.
The Japanese have always viewed quality as a national issue…not just an individual company matter. The real victim of America’s late entry into the quality process was every employee whose livelihood was endangered. Consumers did not worry; they simply bought goods and services elsewhere.
Though quality is one element of competitiveness, it cannot cover defects in the other areas. The quality audit by objective outside communications counsel can also examine the production, marketing and strategic planning functions.
Companies must place demands upon their own organizations to embrace customer service tenets. Satisfied customers talk to others…encouraging them to buy based upon quality of the company. Dissatisfied customers will aggressively discourage higher numbers of prospects from buying.
The mark of any professional is the manner in which he/she corrects mistakes. Most often, this means correcting misperceptions about company attitude, rather than the condition of goods. The faster the correction, the better the level of satisfaction. Quality is the sum of impressions made on the customer.
Payroll is the biggest overhead item. Improvement can be quantified by increased productivity, reduced turnover and heightened employee morale.
The empowered team is trusted to seek quality on their own. Bad managers will fall by the wayside. Employees who do not pull their share will stick out like sore thumbs. The team will not be judged by the superstars but, instead, by the average. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
In order to complete the chain, organizations must insist that suppliers, professional services counselors and vendors show demonstrated quality programs, as well as ethics statements. Educational and incentive programs should be implemented.
During tough economic times, investment in a quality program is not costly. Anyone who is unwilling to spend for quality is hastening company decline.
Quality is one of the most vital ingredients of competitive success. Total Quality Management (TQM) is recognized as a prerequisite for survival. One fourth of all corporations now administer quality programs.
The focus on quality has gone beyond the finished product and addresses all processes throughout the organization. Evaluating quality is not just a question of meeting customers’ expectations…but rather exceeding them.
Paying attention to quality can realize:
Total Quality Management is customer-focused and strategy-directed. It is a top management activity, steered by public relations counselors. The human relations component is strong, but quality programs are substantially communications-driven.
Communications impacts value creation in every aspect of a business. PR counselors give feedback, data and project implementation to each department involved or impacted. Management and communicators must work and think as a team. The elements include employee relations (from suggestion boxes to volunteer activities), video training, management enrichment programs, newsletters, speeches, brochures and front-line participation by top management.
Communications is not just the passing of information. It is the catalyst that makes things happen. Talking and listening will enable the company to achieve more.
The successful quality program empowers employees, who will achieve quality on their own. The more positive results are shown, the more universal will be participation.
The quality process must have substance—not just rhetoric—in order to build momentum. There are no magic shortcuts. If the process is given proper attention and support by top management, it is a money-maker.
Change is painful for most people but is necessary. Conducting “business as usual” means standing still, which means losing ground while other companies move forward.
Quality does not mean that true perfection will exist. It is simply a commitment to keep the wheels of progress at top-of-mind motion.
To change and improve requires methodically and systematically undertaking actions that will make your company “world class.” These actions include:
Most companies implement quality programs as a reaction to a perceived negative image. Data is gathered in scattered areas, usually to produce flashy charts for customers. Because upper management does not know which programs to implement, the quality process stagnates.
Doing things for the wrong reasons or to temporarily pacify someone else spells failure. There are no quick fixes. Applying band aids will just reopen the wounds at a later date. Quality can never be identified too broadly enough.
In order to put a quality program into place, the following steps must be taken:
By successfully combining employee involvement, process improvement, customer focus and demonstrated management endorsement, any company can succeed at quality. Even on a limited investment, quality can be attained.
The challenge is to discover what mix of price and quality the customer wants and to deliver it. Slogans only create adversarial relationships. Once the system owns up to its shortcomings and responsibilities, then a true quality process will occur.
Failure to read the “handwriting on the wall” will thwart company growth and, thus, the overall economy.
“A great man is always willing to be little. To be great is to be misunderstood. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.”
“Some are born great. Some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. He is not great who is not greatly good.”
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
“A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.”
“To be alone is the fate of all great minds…a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.”
“Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary—they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.”
“All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.”
“The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.”
“The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.”
“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”