Saginaw Valley Quality Source

 What makes a Quality System work? What makes a Quality System fall short or even fail? Our speaker this month, Kirk Peterson will address some of these questions in his presentation on September 23rd.

I’d like to take the opportunity to share some perspectives I have regarding such questions.

As a quality professional, I have observed systems work, systems thrive, and systems fall flat on their systemic faces…In these observations, I have noted certain key elements that appear fairly consistent within the various responses.

In an effort to be brief, it appears to me, that the primary mode of success or failure is directly related to the mindset and attitudes of the folks expected to implement and work within the Quality System. For systems that have not done so well, how often have we heard the ‘change theme whine’ of: “…We’ve always done it that way”? When such a ‘change theme whine’ is pervasive throughout the organization, good quality, and good change emerging from good quality will be severely hindered.

Conversely, in those organizations where Quality Systems have engendered success, there is a broad sense of unity and purpose across the company. There additionally appears to be a cultural embrace for optimal improvements through change and continuous improvement.

Indeed, I have seen companies chase after Six Sigma or ISO 9001 for the sole purpose of being able to market the concept…yet missing the whole bottom line point of what the spirit of such practices are designed to create.

At the end of the day, isn’t any Quality System simply a tool to plan, measure, analyze, react and deploy change for the specific purpose of continuous improvement across all levels? Isn’t such a thing the final reason we might go through the trouble of implementing a Quality System of whatever the flavor of the month is…

My myth buster in this article is simply my personal observation that if any Quality System results in great success, or great failure, it is because it was designed in a way that engaged (or failed to engage) the practitioners to grasp the idea that change is good and continuous improvement is better.

Thus, for any Quality System to work, the first task is to get a buy-in from the folks expected to practice the “art”. Let them help design the system, let them define the needs, let them weigh in, and let them own the system. The more any Quality System is built on the ideas of the individuals of a culture, the more an over-all cultural buy-in will occur, and likely, the more profound and measurable the continuous improvement elements will become. If done correctly, the quality system will feed-back upon itself and amplify as one success begets another…and so on…so goes a simplistic observation of a successful quality system.

Obviously, at the other end is when there’s a quality system attempted where there’s a cultural resistance to change…the probability for failure is high unless the cultural element is considered and actively dealt with as part of the quality deployment process…Thus, in summary it would seem that it’s the attitudes of the folks, not the specific nature of the quality system that determines the relative success of a quality system.

Written by Cary Black

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