Raising Awareness that Quality Works

In Paul Borawski's recent posting in View from the Q, he discussed the merits of the Baldrige Program. Paul expressed unhappiness that many folks don't get it. Quality works. But why is it misunderstood and not used to its full potential? We have great tools, professionals, and networks. How can we raise the global awareness of the benefits of quality?

Being in the profession, I have thought about this issue of several years now. I have tried to examine it from societal, economic, and technology forces. My thoughts have not achieved the excellence of Alvin Toffler, when he published The Third Wave back in 1980. But they have settled on three perceptions:

• People equate quality with certification.
• People equate quality with inspection.
• Our profession believes quality is unique from environment, safety, and health.

If we want others to embrace quality, these three perceptions must be recognized, discussed, and modified.

Quality is certification. Ever since the mid-1990s, when quality management system registration was perceived as the road to riches, people have associated our profession with ISO certification. Much like quality circles in the 1980s and the current interest in lean six sigma. We know that these are all useful applications of the quality principles. But our messages say something different. Sales of ISO 9001 books, standards, courses, and conferences, made the ASQ quite a lot of money as we transitioned into and through the new millennium. Many of our member leaders are earning a living by providing registration information and services. This topic continues to sell even after the Great Recession. My own analysis tells me that most of the ASQ Global countries (China, India, etc.) are focused on certification of people and businesses. My experiences with the European Organization for Quality and the Asian Network for Quality lead me to believe that much of their focus is on management system certification. While certification of people and organizations is not bad, I believe we have given the false impression that it is somehow magical.

Quality is inspection. We all know that the quality profession began with the industrialization of America. We started to realize the power of standardization and inspection to those requirements. Eventually, this was captured in our basic PDCA beliefs. As I discussed earlier in this blog, we also learned that inspection alone would not meet the increasing complexity of society. We made the transition from QC to QA in the 1960s and 1970s. We moved from QA to QM in the 1990s and 2000s. We are currently undergoing another shift to integration. Unfortunately, many leaders have not caught up with this evolution. In response to society's problems, those leaders conclude that the answer is more inspection. More FDA inspections of food. More TSA inspections of travelers. Our profession is well aware of the deficiencies of reliance on inspection only. Others do not see this bigger picture.

Quality is special. For as long as I have been in the workforce, we have always had redundant quality, safety, environment, and occupational health departments. Oh sure, occasionally the last three are combined into ESH or SHE or some other combo. But always separate from quality. And the poor worker is "audited" almost weekly by one or the other of these groups. Often, being asked the same questions. And then we wonder why we do not have the attention of the senior executives. My studies and recent speeches lead me to believe that there is no fundamental difference between quality, environment, safety, and security management systems. Perhaps even financial management. They are all variations of the basic principle of PDCA. But that still won't get us the attention of the Board of Directors and Cabinet Ministers. I am beginning to realize that all of this is tied to Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). Quality, environment, safety, security, finance, continuity, etc. are all components of GRC. And that is what the people in power are monitoring! I think it is time to break bread with the boys and girls in the Institute of Internal Auditors, Government Accountability Office, and others.

I realize that working on just one of the above three topics would be a tremendous drain on resources. Is it worth it? Don't know. But I do appreciate Paul's question. It caused me to extract my thoughts and share them with you.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”