Face of Quality

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Quality giants like Joseph M. Juran, W. Edwards Deming and Armand V. Feigenbaum ushered in the era of total quality management (TQM) movement about seven decades ago.

Before I get into the focus of this column, I’d venture to guess that many quality professionals reading this column’s title did an about take thinking this guy has lost his mind. To discover the real intent, read on…

I felt it might be of interest to continue the discussion from my previous column on organizational culture. It is not easy for some organizations to convert to a culture that is truly focused on establishing a robust culture of quality.

What is culture? Culture is the shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and behavior patterns that characterize the members of a family, a community or an organization. 

While consulting with a hydraulic pump manufacturer, the executive officer related their company’s revolutionary journey. 

During a career in which I devoted a large portion to developing and implementing improvement programs, one thing became crystal clear. Improvement programs with a focus on sustained improvement were more valuable than speed of implementation.

During my management career at a Fortune 50 company, we were taught to treat quality and safety as top priority. They were considered essential and everything else was secondary. 

Continual improvement is a challenging journey, often hindered by a misunderstanding of processes. With decades of experience, I’ve seen how reframing questions can unlock meaningful change. Remember, improvement is a marathon, not a sprint.

Would you accept a project that paid very little for two years and required you to wait two years for the ultimate windfall? Since quality professionals serve at the behest of senior management, we must do what we can to help them succeed. Quality professionals need to shift to improvement methods that give short-term results.

In my previous column, we discussed timeliness and reliability. This column will continue by discussing three more customer service mainstays.