Most of us set new resolutions at the onset of every new year. Whether it is losing weight, exercising more (always the top resolutions!) or finishing a degree, we all recognize that a new year and the chance of a fresh start is a powerful combination to motivate us to achieve those goals. So why not apply the same factors to Top Management by setting new year resolutions that will drive fundamental and needed improvements in your organization? If you agree, then let’s look at five resolutions that should be at the top of the list for any manager who seeks to finally move their organization a little closer to world class quality.
The resolutions I propose in this article go a step further from the average “we all need to improve” type of goals. These resolutions seek a fundamental change in your behavior as part of the management team and leader of your organization, in order for deep seated improvement to actually happen. Just like a person who wants to lose weight needs to change their behavior towards food, top management needs to implement these resolutions in order for world class quality to be achieved. So let’s get started!
Start with the Basics: Metrics
Most organizations nowadays have some kind of objectives, metrics or KPIs that are used to measure a certain area they want to improve. Whether those metrics are related to sales only or have been established for several functions of the organization, having metrics is a fundamental and basic step to measure improvement. The old premise “if you don’t measure it, how do you know you are improving”, holds very true for any organization. So if your organization does not have any metrics to gauge improvement, then I suggest you start with this basic principle as your new year resolution. Since setting up metrics depend largely on your organization’s processes and what may be critical in your business, I will not propose any for now. Just keep in mind that you need those gauges or you won’t know if you are going in the right direction or have arrived there yet.
Involvement of People
It is time you bring relevant information and knowledge out from the groupies into the sea of knowledge-hungry employees in your organization. You must involve all the people in your continual improvement efforts, from shop floor employees, to Accounting, to Human Resources, if you want your organization to truly improve. Organizations where groupies control certain information cannot expect consistency in their improvement efforts.
Say for example during the internal audit, the employees audited are always the same, the managers involved are always the same, the departments visited are always the same, and the employees who “fix” the problems are always the same. If this is the case in your organizations, then you must make an effort to ensure that other departments, other people and other functions can participate and be put to the test. Don’t be shy to ask your Internal or External Auditor, to look at a different department, focus on a different process or pick a different person when conducting their audit. This is not just keeping people on their toes, is actually letting people know that their job functions are important and are part of the whole.
Likewise if your Management meetings or Management Reviews are always attended by the same people, make an effort to invite others, perhaps Engineers, Supervisors or others roles who can actually be put to the stand and be given a chance to explain their objectives, accomplishments, needs or challenges.
One final example. If nobody in your organization issues corrective actions, preventive actions or nonconformities, except your quality folks, then you truly need to make a conscious attempt to involve your entire staff and see how many opportunities for improvement are being missed because you are relying on the “experts” to come up with them. Through training, participation, “volunteering” and a little push, you may find employees waiting for their turn to make a difference.
Use Leading Indicators of Customer Satisfaction
If your number one way of seeking customer feedback is through customer complaints, quantity of products returned or the amount of money paid in credits, then you are strictly measuring customer satisfaction through lagging indicators. You need to shift your focus from being reactive to actually being proactive, by using leading indicators of customer satisfaction. And yes Customer Survey is a proactive and leading method to obtain customer feedback, but it is not the “only” way. So if your answer is “Yes I do send customer satisfaction surveys but I get less than 10% of them answered.” then you must not be complacent. Go back to the drawing board and think of other means of obtaining leading indicators of customer satisfaction .
There may be many ways to seek customer feedback ahead of a complaint, and those methods depend largely on your organization and processes. Only when you and your employees put all your heads together, then you will be able to think of these options. Remember, your goal is to keep those customer happy, anticipate their needs and requests. So your resolution should be seeking indicators that will tell you what to do to excel in your products and services. Once you do that, then you can finally say that you are living up to your Quality Policy sentence that probably reads “meet or exceed customer satisfaction”.
Promote the use of Root Cause Analysis tools
Imagine a customer returned one of your products because the cable was too short and all you say is “Let’s not waste our time in research, let’s just get the right size cable, fix it and send it back!. Or imagine an operator forgot to close a valve before a machine started and caused the machine to break after a few minutes. Will you just say “Talk to the person to see what happened, then fix it and make sure he is reprimanded”. If you identify with one of the these scenarios, then chances are you have recurrent problems in your organization. How do I know? Because when you don’t take the time to actually contain and investigate the true root causes of a problem, then problems are bound to resurface or happen again.
Yes, I know, as a manager you are probably thinking “too much talking but not enough doing”. But believe me, you need your employees to take the time to get together and find the underlying reasons why a problem happened. Employees need to put their minds together to figure out how to prevent the problem from reoccurring. Finally you need to them to work together to ensure the actions are implemented so that the system does not generate the same mistake. If you are serious about improvement and achieving world class quality, then you as the manager and leader must allow your employees to learn root cause analysis techniques. You must give them the time to solve the problems correctly and you must support their efforts. If you are not letting your employees do the proper investigation and all you are saying is, let’s do, regardless of what the real causes are, you are promoting fixing problems based on symptoms, not real causes. You are basically telling them that the iceberg tip is all that matters not what lies beneath.
So next time you see a problem, encourage your team to solve it the correct way! You will not only see a reduction in mistakes but you will also see a rise in teamwork and peer communication!.
Last but not Least: Management Commitment
“Leaders must demonstrate quality excellence by their own actions”. You as the Leader, have to show that you are 100% committed to your Quality Management System. Management Commitment goes beyond having the President’s signature on the Quality Policy, it goes beyond the President attending the management meetings and it goes beyond the President signing every procedure.
So what do I mean by commitment to the Quality Management System?
It means that you as top leader are actually talking the talk. It means you know of all the tools of your QMS. it means that if you are in a meeting and if John says “let’s research a new software tool for our sales”, then you will say “Ok, let’s record it as a Preventive Action, let’s use our preventive action system to make sure it gets accomplished.” Likewise if somebody finds an opportunity for improvement, top management should drive the use of the CIP (Web QMS) or your own corrective actions tools. Whether you are doing this during a discussion, a meeting, a conference call or just talking at the water cooler, you should always ask “are we going to open an NCR, a CIP, a CAR, etc., so that somebody takes charge of this”. Same way with objectives. You need to make sure what those are and hold your employees accountable to them. And obviously following procedures should be a must for top management to show true commitment to the system.
If you as the top management do not support, use and promote your system, then nobody will. This is a fact. So don’t rely only on the Quality Department as the sole driver. Get on the driver’s seat and show that you as part of Top Management are fully committed to the system in place.
So there you have it- 5 resolutions that can truly help top management bring their organizations closer to world class quality. If you think this is micromanaging, think again. This is simply making sure that the system that took so much effort to put together will truly become the foundation to achieving world class quality. All with the top management on the driver seat!
This article was published by Quality Digest on 02/24/2011.
