Quality Is Hard!
I spent the last two days attending examiner training for the Missouri Quality Award. It's an intense couple of days. Even though many of us had been through the process before, some many times, it only seems to get a little easier each time. Like quality itself, quantum leaps are few and far between.
It reminds me of a former boss of mine. When things got tough, as they often did back then, he would say, "If this was easy, anybody could do it." Today, we might say "That's why we get the big bucks." :-)
As we were getting ready to leave this afternoon, someone, not a new examiner, said, "You know, this is hard." Of course, he was right. Quality is hard. It's hard to do and it's hard to evaluate. As a business person, it's very difficult to make an unbiased evaluation of your own business. That's why the Baldrige criteria are such a valuable tool. They don't tell you how to run your business. They give you a framework within which to work.
They tell you what to look for; what questions to ask. You start by evaluating your business. Where are you now? What's important to you? Why do you get up in the morning and what keeps you awake at night?
Once you have an honest appraisal of where you are now, the criteria tell you what questions to ask relative to the things you've decided are important. The answers will tell you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Sometimes that's not easy to hear.
If it's any consolation, the examination is difficult too. Each examiner has his own education, his own experience, his own comfort zone. I do different things every day, but they're all within my so-called area of expertise. I know the products. I know the customers. I know the industry. Suddenly, I'm thrust into another business; another industry. I'm way outside my comfort zone. What is a Pugh Matrix, anyway?
OK, so it's hard. But, like my ex-boss said, "If it was easy, anybody could do it." Thank goodness there are things that we can do to be better than average; better than the rest. Who wants to be like everybody else? We want to be better. No, scratch that. We want to be the best. We want to be role models. We want to stand on top of the mountain. Guess what? That's hard.
It reminds me of a former boss of mine. When things got tough, as they often did back then, he would say, "If this was easy, anybody could do it." Today, we might say "That's why we get the big bucks." :-)
As we were getting ready to leave this afternoon, someone, not a new examiner, said, "You know, this is hard." Of course, he was right. Quality is hard. It's hard to do and it's hard to evaluate. As a business person, it's very difficult to make an unbiased evaluation of your own business. That's why the Baldrige criteria are such a valuable tool. They don't tell you how to run your business. They give you a framework within which to work.
They tell you what to look for; what questions to ask. You start by evaluating your business. Where are you now? What's important to you? Why do you get up in the morning and what keeps you awake at night?
Once you have an honest appraisal of where you are now, the criteria tell you what questions to ask relative to the things you've decided are important. The answers will tell you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Sometimes that's not easy to hear.
If it's any consolation, the examination is difficult too. Each examiner has his own education, his own experience, his own comfort zone. I do different things every day, but they're all within my so-called area of expertise. I know the products. I know the customers. I know the industry. Suddenly, I'm thrust into another business; another industry. I'm way outside my comfort zone. What is a Pugh Matrix, anyway?
OK, so it's hard. But, like my ex-boss said, "If it was easy, anybody could do it." Thank goodness there are things that we can do to be better than average; better than the rest. Who wants to be like everybody else? We want to be better. No, scratch that. We want to be the best. We want to be role models. We want to stand on top of the mountain. Guess what? That's hard.
posted by Mike at 8:36 PM
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