Qualityworld
Soapbox: Jim Wade
Whatever the future holds for quality, I'm convinced of one thing: it'll be a better and brighter future if the B&Q issue is addressed.
No, this has nothing to do with the well-known European number one do-it-yourself retailer. In fact, the issue I'm referring to is the notorious business and quality gap between, on the one hand, the theories of the quality movement and, on the other, the business practices of industry and commerce.
We say 'quality is everyone's job', and we tell ourselves that no significant and lasting change can occur without the true commitment of senior management. To make that commitment meaningful, managers need first of all to understand and then to take action.
To take action to put quality theories effectively into practice is not easy, not least because it involves wholesale changes in behaviour and attitudes. But the principles of quality are pretty straightforward, so there should be no problem in senior managers (who are, on the whole, pretty smart men and women) understanding them.
Over the past few years I've asked hundreds of quality professionals for their considered estimate of the percentage of senior managers who understand the principles of quality. This means those who understand the principles to the degree that they can explain them to others in the organisation.
There is a tendancy to blame managers. However, if four out of five managers don't understand quality, maybe we need to look closer to home
The approximate average response puts the figure below 20 per cent. There is a tendency in our profession to blame managers ('they don't get it, they are only interested in profit, quality is a low priority' and so on).
However, it seems to me that if four out of five managers – smart people, remember – don't understand the principles of an approach which will reduce cost, increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction and so on, then maybe we need to look closer to home for a cause.
Perhaps the quality profession needs to revisit the way it communicates with the rest of the world, and particularly with managers.
By way of an example: back in August 2005, in this same Soapbox space, I argued that there is little practical use in attempting to define quality in terms such as 'fit for purpose', 'right first time, every time' and 'zero defects'. I offered 'the one and only true definition of quality'.
In case you didn't see it, or have forgotten it, I proposed that, at any one time, quality is precisely defined by an organisation's current measurable objectives. It follows that the measure of quality is the gap between the promise of those planned objectives and the actual performance achieved.
So, put as simply as possible, the level of quality at which you have chosen to aim is defined by your objectives, and is measured by the degree to which you miss those objectives. As far as its definition and measurement is concerned, then, quality is all about improving predictability.
If we can find ways of expressing quality principles, techniques and tools in similarly straightforward and simple business language, it will help to improve our ability to communicate effectively with people outside the profession – notably with senior management – and go a long way towards narrowing that pesky B&Q gap!
Jim Wade is a director of Advanced Training and the founder of the Business Improvement Network.Visit www.bin.co.uk for more information
