Reflections on VITALITY™: Yearning to Be the Best

QUALITY™: A Model for building and maintaining a quality culture

If the content of advertising copy and management training brochures is an index of major themes in the American consciousness, then a key issue for the current era is quality.  Yet the pursuit of quality in the workplace entails more than a snappy saying or a two-day seminar.  As the QUALITY acronym presented here details, quality improvement is a complex process requiring the commitment, competence and flexibility of a wide variety of participants.

Quest for excellence in all areas.  Excellence in performance – doing the best that can be done – is not a permanent trait of an organization.  Rather, it is a status which must be sought, achieved and sustained.  To be effective, the pursuit of quality must be embraced by all levels and functions of the organization.

Understanding of customer needs, expectations and tolerances.  The goal of productive work is customer satisfaction.  Manufacturing a product or delivering a service without knowing one’s customers, and what they need, expect and will tolerate is like shooting without aiming, and may be as dangerous.  The needs of three types of customers should be considered: final customers of the products/services; intermediate customers who may use the current products/services as components of other customer products/services; and future customers of both current and new products/services.

Adequate people, skills, equipment, supplies and capital.  Quality performance depends on skills employees working with high quality materials and equipment under appropriate working conditions.  Maintaining quality skills requires a commitment to ongoing training of managers and other employees in areas such as: company mission; customer requirements; quality improvement techniques; managing change; and others.  Maintaining adequate materials and equipment may require the active involvement of key suppliers in the organization’s quality improvement efforts.

Leadership commitment.  Quality improvement is the responsibility of leaders.  Only top leaders can provide the vision, remove the obstacles, authorize the changes in philosophy and approach, and assign the resources necessary to implement an effective quality improvement program.  The role of leadership is to help employees do their jobs.  For some this may mean identifying problem performers and assisting them.  For others it means getting them the tools to do their jobs.  In times of organizational or environmental change it means developing in employees the skills necessary to successfully navigate change.

Involvement of employees at all levels.  Quality performance is enhanced when employees feel that their contributions are challenging and important.  They are encouraged to suggest ways to improve their own performance, and the performance of the organization as a whole.  When paired with successful efforts to enhance employee participation, the high quality work and customer satisfaction that result from the organization’s continuous improvement efforts can be self-rewarding, and an important source of employee self-esteem and commitment.

Tools and techniques to manage quality improvements. The effective management of quality improvement requires more than leader commitment and employee involvement.  It also calls for the replacement of traditional quality control methods featuring rules, requirements and inspections with the application of specialized tools and techniques.  They include, for example, self-directed teams, customer surveys, change management, statistical process control, flow chart value analysis, and quality function deployment, among others.

Yardsticks to measure quality performance.  Quality improvement also depends on the ongoing comparison of actual performance to performance standards.  A critical component of such standards  is customer requirements.  Other standards derive from the statistical analysis of current performance practices.  In some industries, professional (or guild) standards or “best practices” define service quality.  Quality improvement efforts in these areas should intentionally incorporate bona fide customer or client expectations.

The Chinese proverb “If we don’t change our direction we’re likely to end up where we’re headed,” has important implications for organizational quality improvement efforts.  Those corporations and other organizations which have embarked on a pathway marked by these QUALITY characteristics are most likely to reach goals of continuous improvement. Those whose pursuit of quality is inconsistent incomplete, or inadequately managed wander in 

their efforts, to arrive no closer to quality products or services. 

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Bennis, W., and Nanus, B., Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: 1985.

Bridges, W., Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1980.

Collins, M.A., Dick Tracy. New York: Bantam, 1990.