Moving Quality Beyond Product - Excellence in Everything

Quality is not about tools and techniques. A better approach for any organization is: Why Quality Matters, What Quality Means, and How to Achieve Quality (tools and techniques).

A holistic model of quality management should focus on Excellence in Everything that an organization undertakes.

• The journey of excellence starts with Leadership. Ethical, inspiring, and visionary leaders create unique culture that nourishes creativity and innovation in employees to serve and delight their customers. 
• Organization is committed to dynamic strategic planning by engaging employees and deploying key strategies by staffing with right talent and ongoing reviews. 
• Organization creates and executes customer-focused processes to understand and anticipate customer expectations,  needs, and wants. 
• Organization is truly committed to measuring and managing performance through critical metrics and effective knowledge management.
• Organization seeks out great talent with positive attitude, engage and retain the talent through involvement  (new employee orientation, mentoring, teamwork, and meeting management), motivation (recognition and employee suggestions), and development (education and training, performance feedback, coaching, and employee surveys with actions). 
• Organization is systems focused with employee mindset of continual improvement.
• Organization is committed to achieve business results to delight all stakeholders in a socially responsible ways. 

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Award Winners subscribe to Excellence in Everything they do. We can learn a great deal by examining best practices of these role model organizations in achieving performance excellence.

I encourage you to share your thoughts on moving quality beyond product.

Quality in Government: Issues and Opportunities

I would like to share my personal perspective about common issues arising from lack of quality in government, benefits of quality in government, and some successful role model examples of quality in government.

I. Common Issues arising from Lack of Quality in Government:
I have experienced some of the following issues when there was a lack of quality in government.

• Poor Leadership
• Sub-optimal Performance 
• Wasted Public Resources
• Lack of Social Responsibility
• Special Interest Groups Hijacking Public Agenda
• Lack of Transparency
• Corruption

II. Benefits of Quality in Government:
When quality is embraced by the government, we can see some of the benefits as follows:

• Effective Leadership
• Focused Strategic Planning and Strategy Deployment
• Citizenship Focus and Client Feedback
• Performance Measurement
• Employee Engagement and Participation
• Systems Thinking and Continuous Improvement
• Optimal Performance

III. Successful Role Model Examples of Quality in Government:
Here are some successful role model examples of quality and continuous improvement in government:

• City of Madison, Wisconsin, USA - March 1984,  Motor Equipment Division of the City's Department of Public Works embraced Dr. W. Edwards Deming's Philosophy.
• City of Coral Springs, Florida, USA - 2007 Baldrige Performance Excellence Awardee
• U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, USA - 2007 Baldrige Performance Excellence Awardee
• VA Cooperative Studies Program Clinical Research Pharmacy Coordinating Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA - 2009 Baldrige Performance Excellence Awardee
• State of Gujarat, India - 2006-2011, e-governance Leader in India. The State made e-governance functional in all its Municipalities and Municipal Corporations. The State provided citizen based services as per convenient locations, improved the reach, provided more transparent services, reduced response time, and reduced costs.

I would welcome your thoughts on quality in government.

Happiness in the Quality Field

I consider happiness as a state of mind. The mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work unless it's open. I want to share my personal observations about happiness experienced during my life's quality journey and the rationale behind my happiness.

1). In my school days, I was most happy when I was challenged by my teachers and professors to achieve greater heights through their high expectations.

2). At various workplaces I was happy because I had great fortune to work with wonderful mentors and coaches. They listened to my ideas, saw merit in them, and provided support in implementing them to achieve value to the organization.

3). In the 1990s, at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois, I was happy to coach engineers and managers to become ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE). My Director, John Delatore realized the value of new learnings to improve our effectiveness to serve the customers better. John provided great support to continue training our people. From 1990-1995, over 300 members attended refresher classes, 200 took the CQE exams, and 89 became certified.

4). In 1991-1992, I was leading a team to develop Employee Recognition process at the AT&T Bell Laboratories' Switching Systems Business Unit. I felt happiness when our team's diligent work and recommendations were accepted by the Senior Leadership Team to roll out Employee Recognition process for 6,000 people. 

5). In my quality management and business excellence teaching career since 1993, I felt most happy when my students and executives grasped new concepts, reflected on its use in their workplaces, and were eager to take the new learnings back to their organizations.

6). In my non-profit service since 1970, I felt most happy when we set worthy goals, engaged many like minded people, and accomplished our goals.

7). Since 1988, as a volunteer leader with the American Society for Quality (ASQ), I felt happiness when I worked with enlightened leaders with great vision to move ASQ forward through inclusion. 

In summary, as a quality professional I am happy when challenged with high expectations, work with mentors/ coaches who listen to my ideas and provide support, work with students/ executives who are receptive to apply new learning in their workplaces, when we set worthy goals and accomplish them in non-profits, and when I work with enlightened leaders who encourage inclusion at ASQ.

I welcome your thoughts on happiness in the quality field.

Selling Quality

In my opinion it is better to sell value than sell quality.

It reminds me of a Push-Pull process boundary in the context of supply chain management. The Push process creates products/ services driven by internal perspective which builds up inventory. Whereas the Pull process creates products/ services based on customer demand. One can create many internal quality programs, however, if they do not add value to the organization, they are ineffective. On the other hand, if there is a need for certain quality program as determined by survey data/analysis, then developing that program will add value to the organization.

Let me share a specific example in support of my opinion. In 1990, employee opinion survey for the AT&T Bell Laboratories Switching Systems Business Unit (SSBU) showed low satisfaction score for an 'Employee Recognition' item. The senior management was determined to improve the low score and asked for developing a systematic employee recognition process (Pull process from senior management as internal customer). With senior management blessing, commitment, and support, an Employee Recognition Process team was chartered. This team pulled together a SSBU-wide employee recognition Process. Within one year of implementing the new employee recognition process, the employee opinion survey results for SSBU showed significant improvement in 'Employee Recognition' item. This employee recognition process was sustained over a period of time since it was adding value to the SSBU.

We can all think of many such examples of selling value rather than selling quality. We need to focus on value through well executed processes. I welcome your thoughts on this topic.

Leadership Excellence

To achieve leadership excellence one needs to Listen, Learn, Lead, Influence, Ignite, and Inspire.

Listen - Great leaders listen to their people first. Robert Galvin, fromer CEO of Motorola listened to his key customers. Donald Leonard, former Vice President of AT&T Bell Laboratories Switching Systems Business Unit attended skip-level meetings with employees known as "Doughnuts with Don".

Learn - Robert Galvin through his meetings with key customers learned critical issues and steered Motorola in their quest for excellence journey. Donald Leonard learned important issues about work environment through his meetings with employees and required his direct reports to improve their respective work environment.

Lead - Abraham Lincoln was great at listening, learning, and leading. He steered the United States during the difficult years of Civil War.

Influence - John F. Kennedy with his grand vision of putting a man on the moon, greatly influenced NASA's  mission.

Ignite -  Swami Vivekananda from India, a Hindu monk who made great impression with his speeches at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 in Chicago, ignited the youths in India against the British Rule with his proclamation of "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached".

Inspire - Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation of India, inspired 33 million Indians to take up passive resistance movement to overthrow the British Rule in 1947.

Leadership Excellence is a journey which requires one to listen, learn, lead, influence, ignite, and inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

When I was growing up in India, I had the privilege of learning math, science, and chemical engineering from great teachers and professors. Through their insights, I was able to learn new concepts and connected the dots with real world situations. After arriving in the US for my graduate work, my journey in engineering continued. My foundations in math, science, and engineering have served me well throughout my adult life.

Both my wife and I have encouraged our two sons to focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). One decided to become a computer scientist and the other to be an economist. They studied hard and work for reputable companies. Both went to a private schools for K-12, where there was great emphasis on science and math. Based on their own experience, I believe they will pass the STEM baton to their offspring.

Our schools should recruit teachers who love math and science. These teachers will make math and science exciting and relevant for the students. Once an youngster is hooked on math and science, she/he will do well in their journey of life. In the global world only way to compete is to build strong foundations in STEM and use quality management principles and tools to add value to organizations, Society, and the world.

I welcome additional thoughts on STEM.

Global Quality Management without Boundaries

This is my Invited Guest Editorial from The TQM Magazine published in 2003. The title is "Global Quality Management without Boundaries". 


For the guest editorial, click here: TQM Magazine Guest Editorial