Independence and Unity – Balance as Quality

Today is our Independence Day holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to call to the attention of all people throughout the world that the concepts America holds most dear are often in contradiction with one another… intentionally. Take the name of this holiday and the name of this country, for instance. How can people be united and independent, simultaneously? The answer to that question is perhaps fundamental to the joy of life and pursuit of happiness… and therefore… an element of that ever elusive “quality” of life. The answer is… BALANCE.

As an amateur metaphysician, dabbler in the esoteric, ponderer of existentialism, as well as a systems thinker (as most quality leaders tend to be), I’m pleased to say that both chaos and order appear to have essential merit in the universe. As I consider the usual state of my office while I am engaged in the pursuit of any complex project, the observation that chaos has value is especially relevant. After the project is done, order will be restored (sort of) and with it will linger my personal satisfaction about having mastered the elements of chaos and prevailed with order, yet again.

Why would such opposite concepts have seemingly equal value, though? Why would independence and unity both have value, despite their contradictory implications? How could chaos and order be equally meritorious states of being? Well, discussions about this fill bookshelves in far greater libraries than mine shall ever be. For now, I’m just going to focus on the importance of balance as an essential element of quality.

When I was new to the quality profession, I thought that one of it’s most compelling attractions was the ease with which one could discern good from bad. It was black and white. The specification was literally written in black and white on some authoritative document and there were acceptance criteria and rejection criteria and if something was good it was clear. If something was bad it was also clear. How convenient. How honest. How straight forward. But ultimately…. how MISLEADING.

Goodness or badness are rarely immediately clear distinctions… as anybody with a mischievous child or pet learns pretty quickly. There is a bit of good and bad in each and every thing depending entirely, of course, upon beholders’ perspectives. This is a great rationale for providing your child with a pet early in life. Let them learn about this up close and personal!

At the beginning of my quality career, back when I was still young enough to mistakenly think that the more I learned the more I would know, I suddenly stumbled upon the concept that opposites might actually be part of the same continuum. I bit my lip and came to terms with the likelihood that learning something new meant understanding there were many more things I didn’t know.

You see, there are all kinds of shades of gray between black and white…. but the fact was that black and white were at opposite ends of a single linear scale of graduated darkness and lightness. Then, I realized that I could flip the scale around and have the darkness graduating to light or the lightness graduating to dark. Join opposing ends… and the linear scale had now become circular. But wait. There’s MORE.

With a bit more pondering, I realized that every point along the black/white continuum also had graduated levels of radiance associated with it. Now, I could envision this continuum as a fractal plane… or…. even as a holographic sphere…. and it started to look like…. <gasp>….. hadn’t I seen that symbol somewhere before? Good grief! It was a yin-yang symbol…. in 3-D! I had finally become one with the surfing community of Southern California. EGADS!

I promptly went out and bought “The Tao of Physics” (Fritjof Capra, 1975, Shambhala Publications, Berkley, California). Imagine my surprise upon learning that the renowned, Nobel prize-winning physicist, Niels Bohr, had also incorporated the yin-yang symbol into the Bohr family coat of arms when knighted in 1947 and adopted, as his motto: Contraria sunt complementa (opposites are complementary). Come to think of it, this wasn’t a new concept. Newton came up with something like it in 1687, namely, Newton’s Third Law: “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

I started to notice opposites everywhere… as pairs, not as distinctions. And there were gradients between the pairs. And there were orders of magnitude for the opposing features of each pair. Goodness and badness were no longer distinct. In fact, if one pursued goodness to an extreme, it could transition to badness… and visa versa (too much of anything is a bad thing). If love and passion are marked by the appearance of obsession, for instance, when somebody is obsessed enough with their hatred toward another… it can look an awful lot like… love. If one loves another to the point of obsession, however, especially if it is unreciprocated, the obsession can turn into all sorts of ugliness: stalking, abduction, murder… and closely resembles hatred. On the other hand, if hatred is pushed to it’s lowest extreme, malicious neglect, it can mimic the lowest boundary of love, bare tolerance, and perhaps the destructive power of indifference would be at the imaginary boundary between the two, if such a boundary existed. No wonder the phrase “love/hate relationship” has become so common.

When I began to understand the statistics behind quality control and the uncertainty associated with population distributions relative to sample distributions, confidence levels and operating characteristic curves, I could not help but realize that I was encountering still more application of balance as a quality factor. What had seemed like a firm scientific and mathematical basis for acceptability I now understood to be based upon assumptions about acceptable levels of risk. Wait a minute. Doesn’t a sine curve point of inflection look an awful lot like….. oh NO…. it DOES…. it’s a yin yang symbol!

Then I learned of the Taguchi loss function, which defines variation (or perhaps more appropriately: “deviation”) from a specific desired outcome as a “loss to society”… and shuns the notion of “goal-posting” (setting acceptability limits within which everything is either suddenly “good” and outside of which everything is suddenly “bad”, a.k.a. tolerance limits). This is when I realized that quality practitioners could no longer enjoy the comfort of a “black and white”, “good and bad”, world. Quality practitioners must strive for balance as much as for any other outcome.

How much loss is society willing or able to endure in order for anything to have less quality? How much is society willing to suffer or survive in order for our planet to have less ecological balance? Consider the factors important to consider when answering questions of this nature. The quality practitioner’s life had just shifted from the purely mathematical and scientific, to the sociological and philosophical with only a foundation in math and science. Chaos rules. Drat.

Well, if it’s any consolation, despite my tailspin off into quality engineer-ese, the founding fathers of the United States of America understood and communicated the need for balance in much more common terms. They diligently defined quality and balance for this country in our Declaration of Independence, our U.S. Constitution, and, lastly, in our Bill of Rights and Amendments. These governing documents consistently recognized and balanced the need to protect the rights and independence of the individual against the need for and strength of unity in every possible way. The fruit of their labors has endured for over 210 years and, in that time, has made the United States one of the most desirable places to live in the world. I see that as one of the loudest, clearest, most basic statements about the importance of quality, with balance as an element of quality, and the indisputable value of quality in the world today.

Happy 4th of July!

Retail Market Quality – Customer Service Wins, AGAIN

Since beginning to post on this blog, I’ve realized that I tend to do more complaining about lack of quality in my world than congratulating of those accountable for situations where I DO find great quality… and there is certainly lots of great quality around that people deserve congratulations for. Perhaps that is why quality practitioners get such a bad rap. We do tend to focus on what needs fixing as opposed to what ain’t broken. I think that wanting to fix things that are broken is human but, in this regard, perhaps quality practitioners skew the normal curve. Well, here’s another attempt by me to somewhat turn that tide.

The best way for me to let you know how much quality impacts each of our lives is to look for examples in my own. I’m talking about everyday examples, things that you might also encounter but take for granted. Because this tends to be in public places, and many people are in public places to attend to needed purchases, you are probably going to hear a lot about retail institutions and my experiences with them.

Today is not an exception to that, but what I’m going to describe to you is. I suppose that just about all of us need to shop for groceries pretty regularly. Last night, after the temperatures in Southern California cooled down a bit, I finally roused myself from the comfort of my home to make a milk and egg run. I headed for my favorite grocer, Trader Joe’s, at about 8:30 PM (TJ’s closes at 9:00 PM on Sundays). As I dashed into the store, one of the first things that always comes into view is the fresh produce section. One of the employees was busily re-stocking the tomatoes and some Romas caught my eye… but… when I looked for a price, the tag was missing. I pointed at the tomatoes I was interested in, because there were at least a half dozen varieties there, and asked the employee if he could tell me how much they were. With a lopsided smile he said “Sure!” and from his position straddled bow-legged over a crate of tomatoes, he swiveled around to read the price off of the…. missing…. shelf tag. He swiveled back around to meet my eyes and said…. “Well, I’m not going to get the price off of the tag, am I?” I smiled with amusement and waggled my eyebrows. He enthusiastically (despite it being the end of the work day) hopped off of the crate, snatched a carton of the Romas and said: “Be right back!”…. while he dashed to the nearest open register to scan the bar code and get my price for me. That was halfway across the rather large store. When he returned, still smiling (albeit a bit out of breath), the first words out of his mouth were the price. I thanked him, almost as enthusiastically (ah, the energy of youth). As I reached for one of the cartons on the shelf, the employee stopped me and said… “Here, take this, it’s fresher.” and handed me a carton from his flat.

Congratulations to Trader Joe’s for this superior customer service.

Now, I sometimes find it necessary to shop at another large supermarket, which is actually closer to my home, but I’ll tell you what… when the union employees start stocking the shelves THERE in the evening, you’d better stay out of their way… or you’ll get run over. I’ve had my ankle nipped by their flying pallet jacks more than once. They either glare at or ignore the patrons who their attitude conveys are “interfering” with their ability to do their jobs. Unlike the neatly groomed and cheerful TJ’s employee, the “other” grocer’s employees look and smell like they either just got out of their favorite bar or are headed there as soon as they can get their unpleasant job completed. I’ve actually had union shelf stockers pull pallets of product directly into my path and tell me: “You’ll have to go around.” If I were to ask one of them for a price on something that there was no tag for on the shelf, I’d fear for my subsequent safety and that of my family.

Fortunately, during a strike by these same filthy nasty union employees that lasted several months, and during which anybody crossing their picket line was, at least, verbally harrassed and, on occasion, physically assaulted, Trader Joe’s doors were open. The TJ’s employees (non-union) remained cheerful despite the sudden mass of unexpected patrons and stepped up to the formidable challenge of providing food for the community during the strike, including stocking items they would not normally want to carry (Trader Joes leans toward healthier foods). I know for a fact that the large supermarkets lost more than the revenue and union concessions they may have suffered during the strike. They lost a BUNCH of customers, permanently, to Trader Joe’s. I am one of them… and I know there are others, because I used to see them at the big supermarket before the strike… and now I see them at Trader Joe’s.

But the story doesn’t end there. While it is true that Trader Joe’s experienced a windfall of business due to the strike, many people DID return to the other supermarket. Trader Joe’s has never let it’s guard down in communicating value to those who visit. One of the things that has always impressed me is a wall display in which a typical grocery order is mounted from each of the two competing stores (milk, bread, butter, eggs, pasta, cereal, soup, etc.)… almost identical in content. The Trader Joe’s cost is magnificently lower than that of the competitor. And you can verify it by looking at the grocery receipts printed out and posted by the display… with recent dates…. or by simply visiting both stores and checking the prices of the items… if you don’t mind risking life and limb to interface with the possibly dangerous union shelf stockers at the supermarket. Personally, I’d rather let the TJ’s “mystery shoppers” do that for me. I trust the posted receipts.

Anyway, I’m sure you can see the difference in quality between the two stores. I’m going to have to apologize for letting a little bit of quality grousing slip in… and hope that you recognize my praise for where quality actually is (i.e. at Trader Joe’s), despite it.

Now, again, a summary for what to do versus what not to do regarding retail grocery customer service:

1. DO: Make sure you are open for business in every respect as long as your doors are posted to be open… and a little longer (if a customer needs you to be and is already in the store). Do NOT: Allow a store environment in which the customers are deterred from shopping in some parts of your establishment as much as two hours before the posted “close of business”.

2. DO: Provide a “safe” shopping environment. Do NOT: Allow behavior by your personnel that says they view customers as physically “expendable”. For goodness sake… do NOT cause injury to or allow harm to come to your customers. Some might eventually be inclined to sue you. If you think a union strike was expensive, wait until you get THAT bill.

3. DO: Make sure your employees present an image that people trust with regard to who is handling their food. Be clean, be neat, be organized, be respectful. Do NOT: Think that long dirty hair, dirt encrusted fingernails, three days worth of beard growth, a t-shirt that says something across the front you wouldn’t want your kids to read and a body odor that reminds people of what wafts out of corner bars conveys this message: “I really care about health.”

4. DO: Be courteous toward, respectful of and accommodate for customers. Smile, acknowledge, protect and even go a little out of your way for customers. Do NOT: neglect, demean or inconvenience customers. Glaring at a customer will alienate one. Make a customer feel like they are a problem and you’ll become theirs. You might also want to consider explaining to your employees that they get a paycheck because of your customers and that they should make some room for them, as opposed to telling them to get out of the way.

5. DO: Pay attention to what the competition is doing, both in practice and in price. If you are better than they are, make sure your customers know about it. Be obvious. Do NOT: ever assume that you can disregard your competition, no matter how bad you may think they are. If you cannot demonstrate why people should shop at your store over another, they may decide not to shop at your store anymore. Either address the issue of competitive advantage or plan your “exit strategy”…. because you’ll need one pretty soon.

Have you had good or bad experiences worthy of acknowledging from a quality perspective with regard to grocers? Share it here. Are you a grocer that would like to point out a few “inside” tidbits about quality management in your unique industry? Have a say. Let us know how you handle quality, from an insider’s perspective. Even if you aren’t a grocer or a grocery buyer… did this article relate to another retail experience for you? Do tell.

All the best,

Diane Kulisek

President, CAPAtrak LLC

The Great Stove Swap – Quality in Service

Some of you may take your utility services for granted. Others of you may even think utilities should be entitlements, especially when being warm in winter or cool in summer can mean the difference between life and death.

I am personally amazed at how unchanged utility programs are in Southern California. Maybe it’s just because I live in an “older” neighborhood (is 30 years “old”?). I don’t know…. but what I do know is that I appreciate the responsiveness of my Gas Company. That’s right. The good ol’ Southern California Gas Company. When it comes to stove swapping… they’ve got their act together. Customer service with high quality.

Let me explain.

Firstly, when I moved into my home about six years ago, I noticed that the space for the stove was unfinished on both sides. Obviously, there had once been a taller stove unit where the one I “inherited” was now located. You know… one of those things with the microwave on top. Everytime I winced at the scruffy exposed press board I longed for veneer… or a taller stove. It has not, however, ever been much of a priority.

Well, it took the universe just about six years to deal with my stove issue. There, sitting like a pearl in an oyster, glowing in the sunset, across the street…. sat the stove of my dreams! My neighbors had hauled one out to the curb for “bulk collection” by the waste management service in association with their in-progress kitchen remodel. Swallowing my pride (a BIG pill, by the way), I hopped across the street and knocked on their door. Pointing to the object of my desire, I asked if it was still working. Well… not ONLY was it still working… but my neighbor offered to help haul it over to my home with me. SUCH a deal! We parked it in the garage.

I knew that paying a handyman to swap the old stove out with the “new” stove was going to be pricey… and possibly unreliable. When dealing with a substance as explosive as gas, I didn’t feel confident in going that route. When you’re worried about gas, I say, call a gas expert. So when I got my monthly gas bill a few days later, the service number in big font at the top of the bill caught my attention. What harm could there be in calling, right? So I did. I called the Gas Company.

The operator was on the line in a flash. No long drill down menu in their digital phone system. I loved that. She didn’t ask me to hold. She didn’t ask who she could transfer me to. She was just THERE. She was humble (imagine that… a customer service representative that was not annoyed without even knowing what I was calling about). She asked how she could help me. OH MY GOD. I was experiencing a flashback to customer service I hadn’t experienced since the 70’s! Maybe not changing, in this respect, is a GOOD thing for a utility.

I explained my situation and asked if she could recommend somebody to come help me swap stoves and deal with the gas line disconnection/reconnection. “Well,” she said, “that could be expensive.” Having dealt with a $150. handyman charge (not including materials) to install a new garbage disposal recently (and not very effectively, by the way), I was prepared for the worst. “How much?” I said with trepidation. “Well,” she said, “it could run anywhere from about $32. to $56.” OH MY GOD. “Sold!” I said, “Where do I find this incredibly affordable service?” “When would you like us to come out?” Wait a minute… “Us”? I couldn’t believe it. The Gas Company helps people swap stoves?! You’ve GOT to be kidding… a big utility like that? Millions of people to support? They could send somebody out for about a third of what it would cost me to hire a handyman to do this incredibly difficult thing for little ol’ me? YES! The service representative went on to say… “Would you like us to come on a day of your choosing or would the next available day be okay?” Good grief. I was expecting a two week backlog when I said: “The next available day would be fine.” Imagine my shock when she said: “We could come out tomorrow. Would you prefer a morning, afternoon or … [GASP!] evening appointment?” I opted for evening and was given a convenient 3 hour window of service. Then, with further concern, I asked what hardware I should procure to support the procedure. “Our representative will have everything he needs with him.” “REALLY?! Everything?” “Yes, really. Please be sure to confine your dogs if you have any to assure the safety of our representative.” WOW. Not only were they a full-service, incredibly responsive and affordable solution… but they CARED about their employees. I was, to say the least, impressed.

Later that evening, I received an automated phone call from the Gas Company, confirming my appointment was scheduled for the next evening, reminding me to confine my pets if I had any to assure the safety of their personnel (that must be quite a problem for them), and [GASP!], thanking me for an opportunity to be of service. Amazing.

Sure enough, the next day, within 15 minutes of the scheduled start time for the 3-hour service window, the representative was on my doorstep, Gas Company issue truck just a few steps away, well-appointed, hefty tool bag in hand, in a neat clean uniform with the Gas Company logo and his name on the pocket, cheerful smile firmly on his face and a humble “can do” attitude VERY apparent. I was incredibly impressed. Wouldn’t you be? This was a NO FEAR approach to customer service that, again, I had not experienced since the ’70’s.

This hero strode in, complimented my well-behaved dogs on the other side of the patio door. Looked at the clunker of a stove that needed swapping out with the other (frankly) clunker of a stove and, with a puzzled look, asked what was wrong with the “in place” stove. I pointed out the unfinished side panels on the cupboards and explained that the “new” old stove is what the house was designed for. Understanding spread on his features. “They both work?” he said. “That’s what my neighbor told me.” says I. “They were just disposing of it (the “new” old stove) to remodel.” He looked around to be sure the grates and burner covers were available for the “new” stove before setting to work.

He commented (cheerfully) on the “oldness” of the fixtures and fittings, but quickly, safely and still cheerfully found solutions to every obstacle he encountered (which required a few quick hops out to his trusty truck). This was obviously a very competent stove swapper!

When he was done, per my request, he left the “new” stove just slightly askew to enable me to scrape up and clean the 20+ years of muck that had gathered under the old stove, showed me that every burner and the oven of the “new” stove were working just fine. Handed me a slip of paper to sign for the services rendered showing a total of only $49. and explained that the charge would be on my next bill from the Gas Company. No credit card or check required! How NEAT! And the slip was only about the size of a check. He had filled out everything, neatly, in his own handwriting… himself…. including my name, address and account number, the date, what hardware he used (a single connector), and his name. It was very personal. I really liked that. The entire process seemed to take only about 20 minutes. Either that, or time flew by because it was so fascinating to watch this master at work.

So…. the Great Stove Swap has been accomplished.

The things that I observed about quality in customer service from the amazing Southern California Gas Company were classic and well worth noting for ANY customer service endeavor:

1. Highly responsive and personable human being on call desk.

2. Humble, unassuming, confidence of all service personnel.

3. Service prices that exceeded customer expectations.

4. Service scheduling that exceeded customer expectations.

5. Concern for employee safety implies concern for customer safety, as well.

6. Proactive reminders and questions to avoid downstream problems by all service processes and personnel.

7. Cheerfulness. LOTS of cheerfulness. In fact, CONTAGIOUS cheerfulness.

8. Competence at the mastery level.

9. Personal touches.

10. Simplicity of required transactions (documentation, payment).

I don’t think I’ve even experienced service this startlingly wonderful in luxury hotels. If only more companies could learn from what the Gas Company does with regard to Customer Service! I am not just satisfied with the service I received from MY Gas Company. I am DELIGHTED. Thank you, Southern California Gas Company… and congratulations. I am a tough customer to please (as might be expected). You went way past pleasing me.

So, CAPAtrak community, what does YOUR company do with regard to Customer Service? Do you have another story about great customer service to share? How about one about Customer service gone wrong? Please post your responses to this story and share it with us.

The HIGH Cost of Lying to Customers – Are You Paying It?

As is often the case for many people who do a lot of public speaking for a cause such as quality assurance and regulatory affairs, I am the owner of many generous gift cards from the grateful recipients of my public presentations. Among them, were two for a well-known gourmet restaurant. Not one to waste such stipends, I invited a pal to join me for a high end lunch.

It is not that I really expected the experience to be worth the money the meal would otherwise have cost, but I do expect that it not be of lesser quality than the corner coffee shop or, at least, than a fast food drive through window. More specifically, I expect the people I am dealing with to be polite and honest.

The selection I coveted included a glopping side serving of mashed potatoes. Despite my robust figure, the thought of sucking down a half pound of mashed potatoes on the dining patio in 80+ degrees F weather did not sit well. What would have, was a garden salad… except I have a bit of a problem digesting certain common raw vegetables. Fruit goes down better. So… I asked if the gloppy side dish could be replaced with some seasonal fresh fruit. Mind you… this is not an uncommon request for Southern Californians and, in particular, I have met with great success in requesting this substitution at many other eateries, including all corner coffee shops. Despite this, the young waitress looked me straight in the eye and said: “Sorry, we don’t have fresh fruit.” I was aghast. I looked her straight back in the eye and said… “You’ve got to be kidding…. NO fresh fruit?!” “None.”, she declared, without a moment’s hesitation.

Imagine my irritation when the self same waitress appeared about 5 minutes later with a garnish of one huge plump ripe strawberry and one juicy slice of pineapple perched nicely on my peach smoothie. Before she zipped away…. I caused her to pause. I said: “Is this fruit safe to eat?” She gave me a puzzled look… to which I responded: “Well, you said you had no fresh fruit so, in that this is fruit, I am assuming it is not fresh…. “. She said… “Well, I meant that we do not serve fresh fruit as a side dish. THAT… is a garnish.” I said: “It looks a lot like fresh fruit to me. Why couldn’t you have thrown a few pieces on my plate? I don’t care whether you call it a side dish or a garnish.” With a piercing look of utter disdain, she spun around on her heels and left, tossing a phrase filled with finality: “Because we DON’T.” over her shoulder on the way out.

My lunch partner looked at me with mild disdain, as well. “A bit harsh, weren’t you?” Now my ire was UP. I had just been LIED to and unceremoniously DISSED by a person in the “hospitality” profession…. and I was the one at fault?! I was tempted to make the rest of her service to me as miserable an experience for both of us as possible, just out of principle…. but I decided to have mercy on my lunch partner… and (thus) on the misguided serving wench.

So…. what WAS the cost of that little fib? Well…. let me TELL you! Privately (or to anybody who emails me to ask), whenever the conversation turns to the service quality of restaurants, I WILL share the name of the restaurant chain that tolerates personnel who are dishonest and disrespectful to customers and, more specifically, who tolerated an employee who was dishonest and disrespectful to ME. I WILL go into details. I will state the specific location. I WILL NOT… patronize that establishment again, despite their arrogant claims of superiority.

Frankly, a so-called “high quality” restaurant that makes so little profit selling food that it has to sell advertising in it’s menu just to make up the difference probably isn’t long for this world, anyway. A few of the less tasteful advertisements in the menu had a negative impact on my appetite, anyway (pun intended). I wonder if the managers realize that the ads are at cross-purpose to selling food. Probably not. Come to think of it, they probably wouldn’t listen to their customers even if one tried to tell them.

Anyway, for those of you in the service and hospitality businesses, or even just serving customers from within another type of organization… if you don’t think honesty and respect for customers matters today…. it will… tomorrow. Think about this little story before you insincerely say: “Sorry, we don’t have fruit.” while looking at a truckload of it sitting just far enough behind the scenes to not be immediately apparent to the customer. Sure, it may not be on your menu… it may not be an authorized “option”…. you may not have been taught how to “deal with it”…. your decision makers may be too busy to offer guidance….. you might even have been given a procedure that clearly discourages the use of “fresh fruit” but…. if its there…. and you don’t at least acknowledge it when a customer asks about it… it could cost you and your company a lot more than a few moments of inconvenience or <gasp> the burden of having to figure out something new or different. Customers have a way of figuring things out. Especially when you slap them in the face with it.

My waitress probably didn’t think it mattered that she boldly declared there was no fresh fruit five minutes before she served me fresh fruit in a “slightly different context”. It did. It always does. Learn from her mistake… and that of the company that employs her. There is ALWAYS a high cost for lying to a customer. They’ll pay theirs. In fact, they’ve already started to pay, haven’t they? Send me an email for the name of this famous restaurant chain and the location of the restaurant where this happened.  I can be reached through the CAPAtrak “contact us” page.  Just be sure to put: “Tell me the name of the restaurant” in the subject line.

“Quality” – Is it a Four-Letter Word?

This past weekend I found myself in Palm Springs at the annual Regional Leadership Training for American Society for Quality (ASQ) volunteers (a.k.a. “member leaders”). One of the things that we did at this event was to brainstorm about what we, as member leaders, could do to bring more value to our fellow ASQ members and to our communities. Sitting at a round table with approximately a half dozen other seasoned professionals, I was immediately stricken by two things: 1.) the declaration by one participant that he did not consider himself to be a “quality” manager and that he did not like having the word “quality” associated with what he did for his company and 2.) the emphasis upon needing to do more to reach out to fellow employees outside of “our” profession with “lean six sigma” resources and to purposely avoid using the word “quality”, because it put people off. Good heavens! These were supposedly “quality” professionals… or at least “quality” practitioners! We were THERE because we were members of the American Society FOR “Quality“….. and these people had a problem with using the word “quality”?! Since when had “quality” become a four letter word?!

Some increasingly heated discussion took place about how “quality” was everybody’s job these days (to which I say, “If its everybody’s job, it is nobody’s job.”), how the best “quality” managers work themselves out of a job by making quality a way of doing business for everybody in the organization and eliminating the need for a “quality” manager (true, perhaps… with many qualifiers required), and how many organizations are, in fact, eliminating separate “quality” departments or personnel, transferring accountability for quality instead to operations, customer service, legal and/or information systems departments (again, this may be fine… but there should be many prerequisites).

I had actually written an article earlier this year about how one company’s top manager started a meeting with me by telling me how he had nothing nice to say about “quality”, how bad his experiences with “quality” had been and how “quality” always seemed to get in the way of other (apparently more worthwhile) business objectives. My point is that this was not my first exposure to this weird anti-”quality” mentality.

Anyway, back at the training meeting round table … we ended our discussion with my asking what the point was to being part of a society dedicated to “quality” if “quality” was no longer (as a minimum) our common interest. We did not have time to address that question, unfortunately.

From my perspective, it comes down to this. If we don’t use the word “quality” to describe what it is a customer requires or is willing to pay for…. what other word (or words) should we use? Without customers… why would it matter what a business does? If a customer requires “quality”, and organizations are no longer willing to provide it, how can those organizations expect to stay around? What would they be providing… and to whom? Perhaps more importantly…. why would anybody want it?

Earlier this year, there was an indication that the word “quality” might be dropped from the title of the “Baldrige National Quality Program”, replacing the word “quality” with “excellence”, instead (which, by the way, will require a congressional act). The rationale was that “quality” was no longer a popular term among top business executives and was diminishing participation in the award process. But … not all customers expect “excellence”… and, even if they did, “excellence” in relation to what? In order to “excel”, one must at least have a point of reference… a minimum level of requirement. You can have “excellent quality”, “excellent price”, “excellent responsiveness”… but.. “excellence” cannot stand alone. It has to be attached to something. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this nasty business, though.

Some might argue that the word “quality” cannot stand alone, as well. To an extent this is true because quality is always inherent to something else…. a thing or a service, a deliverable. Nonetheless, “quality”, in my humble opinion, has always been most simply defined as “that which makes something that which it is supposed to be… according to the customer”. I define customers here, loosely, as those willing to exchange something of value for something else of value. Customers therefore require, as a minimum, “quality”. Customers may prefer excellent quality, that is, customers may be willing to pay more for goods and services that exceed their minimum expectations… but still, as a minimum, quality is required.

So… how many other ways could one simply describe this fundamental requirement? How many other ways could one simply express the need for something to be what it is supposed to be? “Quality” is really the only word that sums it up nicely… for me.

There is no denying that the word “quality” has fallen from grace with some, even with many. Perhaps this is because of how the word “quality” has been abused by those who clumsily or in a self-serving manner hooked it up with abstractions and distractions and used it to sell all manner of unpleasantness.

Let me make this more clear. “Quality” is NOT the same thing as “Lean Six Sigma”. “Quality” is NOT the same thing as “a management system”. “Quality” is not the same thing as “regulatory compliance”. While it is true that the tools and methods of “Lean Six Sigma” can be used to enhance processes that may lead to a better quality deliverable, those tools and methods are a means to an end… not the end itself. While it is true that an effective “management system” can better assure the adequacy of processes that impact the quality of deliverables, the system is again, a means to an end, not the end itself. While it is true that a customer may expect compliance with applicable regulations as part of “what makes something that which it is supposed to be”, there are many other expectations that go beyond regulatory compliance in order for all of a customer’s minimum needs to be satisfied. This is also why “compliance with specifications” falls short of adequately defining “quality”.

So… again… I struggle with the question…. if not “quality”…. how else can we describe: “that which makes something that which it is supposed to be for the customer”? I need to know… because, while customers know VERY well what they mean when they say “I require a quality product (or service)” it appears that our business engineers, managers and executives do not, have become confused… or, at the very least, are irrationally and stubbornly, refusing to use “THAT WORD“.

Now that so many former “quality” professionals and practitioners are becoming unwilling to use “THAT WORD“, …. what should they call themselves? Is this truly an identity crisis… or have they just lost their way?

Well, I haven’t lost MY way. Until I hear of another word (or brief, simple, easy to remember and consistently repeat phrase) to describe what it is that I do…. that being: “assure things are what they are supposed to be for customers”…. I’m sticking with “quality”. I am a “quality” professional, “quality” practitioner, “quality” advocate and I am passionate about “quality”. I’m open, of course, to other suggestions…. from my customers.

Diane

Process Control for Sports Enthusiasts

Do your eyes glaze over when somebody starts talking about Standard Deviation, Control Limits, Frequency Distribution, Histograms or <gasp> Six Sigma? You’re not alone. Statistics are probably among the most despised business tools in the business bucket. Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) has been quoted as having said: “There are liars, DAMNED liars…. and…. Statisticians.” Has anybody ever really had anything nice to say about statistics… or those who use them?

Well, fear not. All one need do to relieve the pain of statistics is turn to the sports world. You may not be a baseball card enthusiast but player stats are prominent features on the back of each card. You might have been handling statistics with gleeful abandon since you were a kid. Team and player statistics are flashed at us from television screens during every sports event I’ve ever observed, as well. Sitting behind home base at a recent Dodger game (yes, I’m a Dodger fan), the scoreboard was one of my favorite diversions while waiting for things to sort themselves out otherwise on the playing field. What was there? Statistics!

There are some other great games that each of us may pursue on a sporting level that bring home the whole concept of process control and statistics for what may offer a much more personal understanding. Do you bowl? Play for the company soccer team or baseball league? How about golf? Play that? My personal favorite, lately, is archery. Because I know not too many people “do” archery, I’ll use that as my example (so as to avoid too much undue criticism from fellow enthusiasts).

I studied archery for about three years as an undergrad in college… which was too long ago for me to admit publicly. While recently chatting with a friend, another engineer, we agreed that he would exchange his fencing lessons for my archery lessons and we would both be able to enjoy these old and new diversions together. His enthusiasm for archery proved to outweigh mine for fencing, however, so archery is what we’ve done the most of (so far).

I’ve been enjoying the outdoor setting for target practice and the diverse group of intelligent people pursuing archery as their sport. An added plus is the fact that more national archery champions have come from our community than any other in the United States (you can check out my club at www.cvarchers.org). When I say that the instructors involved with this sport have turned it into a process with parameters as carefully defined and controlled as one might expect for manufacture of a precision aircraft or life-saving medical device, it might be an understatement.

While I have been participating in archery sport for a pleasantly healthful break from my mind-bending weekday work, my companion is there to WIN. I have been watching as he learns which eye is dominant for his best aim, how many inches between arrows constitute an effective grouping, how high to hold his elbow, how far back to move his scapula, where to put his feet relative to the firing line, how far apart and what angle the feet should be at relative to his shoulders, what angle to tilt his head at, and at what point on his face to anchor the bow string when he pulls it back with his arrow. And this was just the beginning. Then came which type of bow to buy (long bow, recurve, compound, take down recurve), a few progressive changes in what arrows to use (straight or helical fletchings, aluminum or carbon shaft, variations in length), what poundage pull to strive for (30 lbs, 35 lbs, 40 lbs), what attachments to consider for the bow (plunger, scope, stabilizer), how to hone the arrow rest most effectively to avoid deflection of the arrow as it passes through it, whether or not to use a bow sling, what type of arm guard, finger tab and quiver to use, how many inches should be between the bow riser and the string, how many twists to put into the string before attaching it to each end of the bow, the benefits of waxing the string…. you get the idea. This isn’t a hobby. This is science predicated upon process parametric trial and error that might most effectively be optimized by design of experiments and analysis of variance. In fact, that’s what I’ve been observing happen, although none of those doing it probably realizes that is what they’re doing. The reward is continually improving process control with reduced variation at performance levels that optimizes outcome. In other words, the target gets hit correctly more often. I’ve been tempted to whip out an X-bar and R chart a few times.

Some might think that the local archery club wins so many championships because it has more “natural talent” than other groups. Others might think that, by divine intervention, some of the local archers were just born to be champions. I would take another position and say… it helps that a bunch of the members are computer scientists and engineers with a pretty firm grasp of scientific method, if nothing else…. and that most are system-level thinkers.

Now…. how many of you have played with process control in relation to your sports? Golf game improving? Is it your skill that is improving or your understanding of the process? Did you identify and control a few new parameters for that great game… or was it just dumb luck? Does practice make perfect… or does it take a bit of thought to figure out what needs to change, as well? Are you focused on optimizing the long term inherent causes for process variation (like your height or vision, for instance) or mitigating the near term assignable causes for variation (where DID that wind come from, anyway)? Chances are, you are probably doing both.

SO… next time your eyes start to glaze over while considering what statistics to apply for optimization of a process within your organization…. think of golf, or archery, or any other sport…. go for the goal… aim for that mark….. and SCORE! May the force (of process control) be with you.

Fresh… or Stale? Does it really matter?

Have you ever munched into a slice of stale bread…. you know… the type that just doesn’t show the mold yet? How about fresh bread? Have you ever delighted in that melt-in-your-mouth softness of a slice of bread just moments after it emerged from the bakery oven? Do you notice the differences? Do they matter to you? Would you knowingly buy stale bread? Would you pay a bit more for fresh bread? If you are like me, at all…. you prefer your bread fresh. I think most people do. The importance of freshness is pretty obvious when bread is the topic of consideration… but what about freshness in business?

Last evening I attended a social event at my Alma Mater to honor newly-graduated engineers. It was sad to see so few graduating…. but there was something equally disturbing noticeable at the event. There we all were: a group of maybe 100 people composed of a few graduates, fewer professors, about as many alumni as there were professors, family members from as far away as South Africa, and catering attendants, standing in a patio area and appreciating the warmth of Southern California in late spring. On one side of the patio was a showcase that ran almost the length of the patio. The showcase belonged to the College of Engineering and was intended to display evidence of the academic prowess thereof. At the far right end of the showcase, the Civil Engineering Department showed off it’s stuff. The poster paper had faded. The duct tape that had been holding the poster to the back wall of the cabinet had given up the ghost and the document was draped diagonally away from the wall so that I had to turn my head sideways to read it… where I noticed the 2005 date. The display was certainly not a great tribute to “construction”. There were a few small trophies scattered about and some undecipherable photo images of various sorts… all dated prior to 2005. Moving down the line I found further images from 2005… a robot competition (replete with a dusty and obviously long-abandoned robot sporting a NASA label), photographs of a 2005 commencement speaker…. all in all… it was a 25 foot long, 8 foot high declaration of years of continued self-neglect. Granted, people usually have more important things to do than showcase their achievements, including college professors, administrators, department chairs and students. Considering how few alumni were at the event, apparently the alumni are pretty busy folks, too. But this very large, difficult to miss, display…. sent a message. For me, the message was that the college was stale and complacent. Those associated with it didn’t care enough about themselves to brush their teeth, comb their hair or shower (analogous for two years of neglect to a highly visible aspect of the college’s appearance). Enough about that. I’ll call the Dean in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, I considered a couple of other “stale” things that rubbed me wrong, recently. Standing in a small aerospace company’s lobby…. the “Employee Contributor of the Year” plaque had failed to be maintained for several years. Things that ran through my mind included: “Maybe this recognition program is no longer happening… but why didn’t they take the plaque down when it ended? Or…. perhaps, despite what looked to be about 10 consecutive years of names being added to the plaque, no employee had contributed anything “valuable” lately. Or… maybe the company has been running low on resources and couldn’t afford to post the last few years’ new names on the plaque. As a potential supplier to that company…. could I trust them to pay me? As a potential customer of that company…. could I trust them to pay attention to my details? As a potential employee of that company…. could I trust them to value my contributions?” All of this ran through my thoughts in an instant… when I noticed that the company had failed to maintain a single plaque on their lobby wall.

I also visited a website just yesterday, touting the skills of a web developer/maintainer I was considering hiring. As I went to check out various pages within his website, I found that many of the hyperlinks were broken. I run a free site analyzer on my own website’s links every week to be sure they are still working. I don’t understand why a professional web developer would not do the same on a site he uses to promote his expertise…. unless he doesn’t know how… which would say to me that he’s probably dumber than I am … or he doesn’t care enough to maintain it… in which case, why would he care about maintaining mine?

I think that spring is a time when freshness is in the air. The phrase “spring cleaning” is used all through the year (in California, anyway) , but…. spring is almost over. Have you done your cleaning? I’m looking around here and… I need to get busy! Staleness matters… and freshness matters. Which are you? Which is your organization?

The Quality of a Commitment

“Committed“. How often have you heard that word? “Our organization is committed to quality.” seems to be part of most quality policy statements. Does your organization’s leadership mean it? What does “commitment” mean to you? Are you, personally, committed to quality? What is the quality of your commitment? What is the quality of the commitments you count upon for your quality of life?

 

I was recently asked for my input on a personal matter that would require a great deal of trust for the situation to work. From my perspective, the prospect of trusting somebody who has never demonstrated any ability to uphold a commitment is not one I would want to risk my life on. Are the words: “I promise” good enough to demonstrate commitment and trustworthiness in the absence of any other action or a track record of success? Should commitments be in writing? Should a commitment be conditional? What might the consequences be for not upholding a commitment?

 

If I had just a dollar for every time that somebody promised me something and then let me down at the critical moment… I’d be living a much more comfortable life right now. Does that mean I shouldn’t bother trying to trust anybody, ever? I don’t think so. Yet, even for those I have come to trust, commitment is subject to their priorities. When I am out-prioritized, the commitment naturally takes a back seat as well.

 

So, what would be adequate evidence that a commitment has quality?

 

I took a few moments to search the web for definitions of “commitment” and thought I would share some of what I found with you here. I believe that commitment will always be less than perfect. Perhaps if enough of the following criteria can be fulfilled, the chance of a commitment having adequate quality to win our trust could be optimized.

 

Commitment Quality Criteria:

1. The person making the commitment is sincere.

2. There is an unwavering focus upon the purpose for the commitment.

3. The reason for taking action required by the commitment is clearly understood.

4. The desire to take action required by the commitment is emotionally powerful.

5. The person making the commitment has already invested time, money or other valuable resources.

6. The commitment was set forth as a pledge, promise or affirmation of agreement in front of impartial witnesses.

7. The commitment is clearly stated in writing and the document has been signed and dated by the person making the commitment.

8. The duration and scope of the commitment have been stated and agreed upon.

9. There are negative consequences for the person making the commitment if the commitment is not upheld.

10. The possible negative consequences of not upholding the commitment are more painful than upholding the commitment.

11. The possible favorable consequences of upholding the commitment outweigh the pain of upholding the commitment.

 

It is impossible to live one’s life, especially the most important relationships within it, by checklist. Still… next time you feel that queasy pit in your stomach about a commitment you are counting on somebody else to follow-through with… or about a commitment somebody else is counting on from YOU…. a checklist might be just the right tool to help you get it right… the first time.

Quality and Memories

Memorial Day, in the United States, has an interesting and controversial background. Fundamentally, it appears to have been founded to honor the memory of those who fell fighting in America’s Civil War. Subsequently, the holiday has expanded to honor the memory of all who have fought for and fallen to defend the American way of life. There are a number of references on the internet about the extent to which people have forgotten the purpose for this holiday and no longer observe it in the intended manner.

It also marks the calendar end of spring and the beginning of summer in the United States. For many families it is the first long weekend during which to entertain around a pool and enjoy a barbeque, take a picnic trip to the beach or embark upon the first weekend camping expedition of the season.

In reflecting upon memories as they relate to quality there are two perspectives that seem worthy of discussion. Firstly, there is the quality of what is actually being remembered. Secondly, there is the quality of the process by which something is being remembered.

The concept of ‘quality of what is being remembered’ struck me very hard while being present throughout the struggles of my beloved grandparents with senile dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease… a disease that negatively affects one’s ability to remember. I think we all tend to define much of who we are by our memories and when those memories are slipping away we lose bits and pieces of ourselves with them. I suppose it should have come as no surprise to me when, as my loved ones’ memories were disappearing, the memories that endured longest were those upon which all other memories were built… childhood memories…. and those which changed the way in which even childhood memories operated, those being incredibly significant (to them) events, experiences and relationships. My grandfather spoke tirelessly about his service as a U.S. Marine in WWII… and about his frustration with a single manager while he was a union employee working on the Apollo space program. My grandmother did two things that had brought her the most private comfort after my grandfather had passed away but just before her memory began to betray her: she watched television and read romance novels. I would walk into a room to find her hypnotized on the edge of her seat by the television screen, even though it was tuned to a Spanish-speaking broadcast and she had never learned to speak that language. Each day, she would sit, smiling, as she read twenty or so pages of a romance novel until she tired and needed a nap… not recalling that she had read the same twenty or so pages of the same novel every day for the past six months.

In reflecting upon this it occurred to me how many of the organizations I’ve worked with did not have a formal hierarchy of events or relationships in corporate memory. If you were to ask any employee which events were most important in the company’s history… or which relationships had mattered most… they wouldn’t know. How could they function? All memory is “tribal knowledge” in such organizations and, as each employee retired or otherwise left the organization, a bit of that organization’s memory left with them… as did classification criteria for what constituted “significance”. If one were to strive for emulation of natural systems, wouldn’t it make sense to better capture and maintain more of the significant organizational memory for effective retrieval? How can an organization learn from or even value current events in relation to past events if it has no “memory” of them?

With regard to the process by which memory was retained, it was obvious that reliance upon human physiology was not up to the long term task… at least not in the case of my grandparents. I longed to have a photo album or journal from each of them to consult after they had gone from this world, but neither of them were very diligent about writing things down. With the loss of my grandparents, I not only lost their warm hugs, great senses of humor, boundless optimism and encouragement… but I also lost the comfort of their wise, hard won, experience-based thoughts and guidance. How many organizations abandon the value of such wisdom by not documenting it, also?

If your company or organization does not yet have a historian and access to “lessons learned”, perhaps Memorial Day is a good reason to reconsider the potential value of creating such knowledge repositories.

Meanwhile, I wish all of you and your families a great holiday. I also give thanks for all of the fellow citizens who have put their lives on the line to protect the way of life enjoyed by me and the millions of other Americans over the decades. Blessings to you all.

Abundant Enough to Be Annoying

I received an email this morning from a recruiter looking for three clinical trial pros to fill positions with six-figure salaries. One of the positions was home-based. Although I have done validation work to support device manufacturers for clinical trial applications, I have not managed clinical trials, myself. Accordingly, I tapped into my network of fellow quality practitioners who might. The first response I got was that such opportunities were causing email clog and tended to be designated as “spam”. I’m not quite sure why people seem to be closed to learning about opportunities such as these, but I’m sure it must be complex. For my own purposes, I have tended to be open and forthcoming… but then, I’m sitting at home writing a blog post and the person who wrote me is probably in an airport on his way to some demanding audit. I can say that I have been turning away invitations from recruiters who want to join my LinkedIn(tm) network. Why? Because I received complaints from a few of my best contacts that they were being hounded by recruiters and wanted to end their alliance with me as a result. I’m not sure what all is going on because I’ve had a heck of a time finding that “ideal fit” to woo me from the world of self-employment and back into the workplace as a regular employee. Maybe we’re all being a bit too picky. The good news is, the jobs are out there. They seem to be abundant enough to be annoying. Who can’t get a smile or two out of that?