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Recent economic woes must teach us all that the quality of our management and in many cases the weak and unethical behavior of some of our renowned business leaders means we need to get back to some basic principles.

Some basics of business and some more ant antics…

OUTPUT QUALITY. Another ant variety, ‘Rattue’, can teach us about partnering with our suppliers and customers. They team up with a caterpillar that supplies them with food in return for their protection from predatory spiders. Dangerous intruders cause the caterpillar tap when they approach. The interesting thing is that the supplier (caterpillar) speaks the ants’ language. The most successful finance salesman I ever new was an ex-roadwork’s construction contractor. His customers dealt with him because he understood their industry, the machinery they needed and the financial aspects of their business. How much do we know about our customers and their problems and how well our solutions really fit or just flog product? As an ex financier I am still amazed by the antics of each new generation of bankers who at best are inept and at worst, incompetent or dishonest.

NO ANTS TO BE FOUND. A few years back in a past crisis the Internet business and the infamous problems it had including many failures is a prime example of how businesses lose track of what their customers need. As an example, I had great trouble trying to change my web host due to poor communication practices of my ‘supplier’. One of their staff even said, ‘for that price you don’t get any service or advice just a space on our server’. After 3 months, 20 or 30 emails and a couple of expensive phone calls to the US from Asia where I was stationed at the time, I was finally able to complete the change. Many Internet companies forget that people deal with people and that they need to personally communicate with individuals. Badly worded, jargon filled, technical, anonymous, do it yourself forms are not effective communication devices, particularly when problems arise. This of course is reinforced by much of the financial documentation we still suffer today with many customers not really understanding what they are signing up for. I once had a financial adviser even admit, when I was trying to write an investor information seminar for him, that he would rather not be too explicit as they still relied on “smoke and mirrors” in his industry. This guy at the time of writing with investments under stress still avoids his “customers”… an ant that would rather not be found. Good business is about listening to your customers, then saying what you will do and then doing what you say and being around when needed.

Are we listening for the tapping caterpillar, do our staff have the cutting attributes they need, has anyone listened to a dissatisfied customer lately to analyze our organization’s shortcomings… or…

IS THERE A SPIDER AT THE DOOR?

Part 3 Army Ants and Intelligence!

The plethora if in depth quality studies and methodologies are great for the quality specialists, however what does total quality management (TQM) mean for us regular line managers?

If you are to: satisfy the customer, ensure staff motivation is high, keep the bosses off your back, make cost effective decisions, take risks that pay off, lead the indolent, manage the misfits and all that other stuff, when do we get the time to do ‘the quality thing’? I’ll tell you… ALL THE TIME… no quality and the rest is a waste of effort.

Important point – TQM is an approach to improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the entire organization. It is a way of planning, organising and understanding each activity and depends on each individual at each level in an organization.  TQM when properly implemented must involve the TOTAL WORKFORCE, not just a quality department. So trying to implement quality improvements in your work area will require the involvement of all other areas of your organization that you interact with whether they are internal suppliers, customers or collaborators.

Today more than ever buyers don’t ask for quality… they demand it… and if they don’t get it they’re gone… and so are all those they can influence. I guess anyone watching what has happened to the Chinese manufacturers over the past few years can bear testimony to that. Dramatically increasing choice potential made available through ‘the communication revolution’, the net and the exponential growth of ‘the e-commerce reality’, make the issue of quality critical to continued existence. With price comparisons easier than ever, physical locality no longer a major limiting factor and worldwide delivery mechanisms now in place (and improving buy the hour), competitors are increasing at a rate never before experienced.

So what is quality? A few definitions may help to crystallize the real idea.

1. Quality is fitness for use, ‘Juran’
2. Quality is conformance to requirements, ‘Crosby’
3. Quality should be aimed at the customer needs, present and future, ‘Deming’
4. Quality is the loss (from function variation and harmful effects) a product causes to society after being shipped, other than any losses caused by its intrinsic functions, ‘Taguchi’
5. Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs, ‘International Standards Organization’.

WHAT EFFORT IS PUT INTO QUALITY AT YOUR PLACE?

By the way a useful guide to at least starting to think about quality improvement methodology is:

1. No processes should be undertaken without DATA COLLECTION, so we need to find effective ways to measure activity.

2. No data collection without ANALYSIS, essential to find out about underlying difficulties or ‘energy suckers’.

3. No analysis without DECISIONS, the scary stuff, we need plan ways to change the way things are done.

4. No decisions without ACTIONS, all the collecting, analysing and planning usually goes to waste because taking action requires REAL effort.

Before I go on if you would like to read other articles by Ric here is the link for direct page viewers return to main career success blog to check out other posts!

While you’re here take a look at the free blank resume form just in case you are stuck in an organization that has no real or measured approach to quality outputs!

To continue with an important and often (in my experience) overlooked fact… Quality is about improved performance not just about satisfying quality audits!

ISO certifications are now eagerly sought by many organizations around the world, however, if you do have a quality department, is it really improving the quality of the important areas of the business or is it just creating ‘quality documents and records’. I suggest that much of the quality effort expended today is geared more to quality audit success rather than creating improvement for the real reason… to better satisfy the customer. If managers want to improve quality they need to ask these questions… what is the satisfaction level of our customers… how is it measured… and when did we measured it last…

For the non-TQM specialists, Prof. W. Edwards Deming’s ‘quality points’ provide a succinct guide to what we all need to do. In summary the critical issues are; ensure a constant effort towards improvement; seek and adopt new work philosophies; be intolerant of the normal or accepted level of delays, mistakes and defects; build in quality rather than inspecting for faults; stop buying inputs based on price; work continually on the system to find problems; institute modern management methods; change primary responsibility from numbers to quality and eliminate numerical goals; institute a policy of education and training; drive out fear and break down barriers between departments; when asking for new levels of productivity provide methods; instil a need for pride in workmanship and of course create a structure in senior management that will constantly strive to achieve all of the above.

DOES THIS SOUND EVEN REMOTELY LIKE THE PLACE YOU WORK?