Raising the Voice of Quality - World Quality Month

In his November 2011 blog post, ASQ CEO Paul Borawski states, "The biggest barrier quality faces is making people understand that excellence doesn’t just happen. Excellence isn’t good intent. Through quality, excellence is available to everyone." Paul asks every Quality professional and evangelist to raise the voice of quality during World Quality Month.

I have the distinct pleasure of working for a company with a solid reputation for innovation, quality and social responsibility. 3M and many of its brands like Post-it®, Scotch™, etc., are recognized the world over for quality products that help our customers succeed. Our corporate Quality Policy is "Deliver the Promise". We are well aware that today's sophisticated, savvy customer expects and demands quality; that is, quality is a given. Customer loyalty today is earned through an engaged customer - a customer that advocates and recommends your products and service.


3M's quality culture has been nurtured for over 109 years, born out of William L. McKnight's principles. More recently, James McNerney became 3M's CEO in late 2000 - the first 3M CEO from outside the organization. Mr McNerney is credited with bringing Six Sigma to 3M based on his positive experiences in GE, to enhance our already strong quality improvement approach and as a methodology to develop our future leaders. After leading 3M for a short while, and having met with many of our biggest customers, McNerney revealed a key learning of his own... that our customers genuinely like us!  Jim reinforced to 3M employees just how precious and unusual this level of customer advocacy is... and that it must be preserved and continuously improved for competitive advantage and performance excellence. 3M's current CEO, George Buckley is leading the resurgence of customer-inspired innovation, and 3M growth through customer success.

In recognition of World Quality Month, let's re-dedicate our commitment to customer-focused quality  to deliver Total Customer Experience. Experience Quality is the new frontier of excellence. A frontier ripe for the new generations of quality leaders to exploit for the benefit of humanity.

Celebrating World Quality Month

In his October 2011 blog post ASQ CEO Paul Borawski asks, “How is it that you came to be passionate about quality?” and “How will you help in your country to observe and celebrate the importance of quality?”.

I thought I would share my story in a home video created on my Flip Video™ Camcorder and edited using Camtasia Studio software.

ASQ recently announced the new World Quality Month website:  http://asq.org/world-quality-month/index.html. November is designated as a worldwide celebration of quality – a time to showcase the advancements and valuable quality contributions in businesses, communities and institutions. Visit this site often to learn about quality tools and techniques, heroes and the stories of quality in practice everyday, and World Quality Month events.

Quality and Business Performance Achieved Through Constancy of Purpose

In the September 2011 posting to A View from the Q, ASQ's Managing Director Laurel Nelson-Rowe asks, "Do you think companies must sometimes (often? regularly?) undergo radical organizational change or substantial economic shifts to get back to the rigorous quality systems?"  I recently completed my annual Baldrige Evaluator refresher training for the MN State Quality Award. I believe that the Baldrige Criteria contain all the elements necessary and sufficient for sustainable organizational success. The Criteria are based on key learnings adopted and synthesized from role model organizations in the following 7 categories:

1. Leadership (120 pts)
2. Strategic Planning (85 pts)
3. Customer Focus (85 pts)
4. Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management (90 pts)
5. Workforce Focus (85 pts)
6. Operations Focus (85 pts)
7. Results (450 pts).

Rightfully, Results and Leadership are the two most important categories in the Baldrige Criteria. Results are the ultimate benchmark of organizational performance; Leadership is critical for sustained results.  Simply stated, leaders must lead.  The successful leader is able to create and communicate a compelling vision that unifies and aligns the organization to common goals. Authors Roger Conners and Tom Smith (Oz Principle and Journey to the Emerald City) state that leaders must create a culture and create the experiences (i.e. model the behaviors) that foster beliefs and drive actions to produce the desired results for competitive advantage.

During Laurel Nelson-Rowe's interview with Terry Woychowski, GM's VP of Global Quality & Launch, Terry shared the 3 P's of GM's emerging culture: Promise, Personal, and Performance. I agree that quality is personal. Personal accountability is enabled through an engaged workforce. Effective leaders understand the need to monitor and improve employee satisfaction and build employee engagement. Delivering the Promise is achieved through personal accountability, teamwork and aligned processes. One can often accurately assess process performance, product quality and organizational health by a site visit. For example, evidence of poor housekeeping or unsafe practices are often symptomatic of uncontrolled processes, lack of personal accountability and ineffective leadership. If an organization lacks respect for its employees, (or individuals for their peers and colleagues) then what am I to infer about its/their commitment to quality processes, products, or service?

Though I am an unabashed Ford man, I sincerely wish GM a successful comeback and sustained performance. The automotive industry is a bell-weather of the US economy.

Baldrige Blues

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science recently voted not to fund the Baldrige Program for fiscal year 2012. Everyone agrees that the U.S. Government must drastically cut its spending to reduce our national debt. However, not all spending is the same; not all dollar-for-dollar cuts are equal. The Baldrige Program costs just $10M per year; its return on investment is estimated at $25B in benefits to the U.S. economy. I agree with Paul Borawski that model programs such as Baldrige ought to be "showcased not eliminated."

The Baldrige Program is a proven systemic management framework helping organizations achieve performance excellence. Senior leaders use the Baldrige Criteria to build and sustain an organization focused on continual performance improvement, accomplishment of strategic objectives, innovation, and organizational agility. In today's world of a recessionary global economy, low growth and a highly erratic stock market many organizations lack the confidence to hire for growth. Spending is again significantly curtailed in order to preserve cash, similar to what we experienced in 2009 when Cash was King.

What is needed now is a roadmap to growth and profitability; a framework that is the Baldrige Program. Given today's economic environment, businesses need to remember the key teachings of the Deming Chain Cycle: do not pursue cost reduction for cost savings sake; rather, focus on delivering customer value through quality and productivity improvement. Institutionalize constancy of purpose and view quality as a competitive strategy. Customer-focused quality improvement will result in less waste and scrap, improved productivity, lower costs, increased customer satisfaction, more market share, more growth... and more jobs.

I encourage everyone to contact your elected government officials to save - and expand - the Baldrige Program.

Quality - Past and Present

In his latest blog post Paul Borawski asks two questions pertaining to the past and future of quality and ASQ.

Does the quality community bear some responsibility for making sure its philosophic foundations are not lost to history?
As a Certified Manager of Quality / Organizational Excellence (CQM/OE) and a Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), I always felt that ASQ over-emphasized the importance of being able to match the Quality guru with his contributions to quality philosophy in its certification exams. Quality philosophy, principles, tools and methods are bedrock. In this age of the internet, powerful search engines exist that provide almost instantaneous global access to man's acquired, accumulated knowledge. Social and professional networking tools such as wiki's, websites, webinars, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, microblogs, etc., offer unlimited access to case studies, best practices, benchmarking, discussion boards, tools, templates, and global collaboration with knowledge experts. In addition, there are numerous, prestigious awards that honor and perpetuate the memory and philosophy of the quality gurus. More important, I believe, is ASQ's role and value proposition to couple and disseminate quality theory, philosophy, and principles with continuous improvement methods and tools, organizational and project management skills, team dynamics and interpersonal communication skills, change management, leadership principles, and organizational design to empower individuals and organizations to achieve excellence. Knowledge of what to do, and how to do it are only part of any solution. A good plan poorly executed is no better than no plan at all. Flawless execution is what separates the winners from the losers; and, execution requires more than just an understanding of how to use a tool.

What do professionals under the age of 35 see as the future of quality?
I am not a member of this demographic, but my role in 3M has me teaching, coaching and consulting many younger professionals as well as seasoned experts. In more recent classroom discussions of "Quality" many of the younger professionals cite customer focus, defect-free features, entitlement thinking, reliability, speed, and end-to-end value stream performance. Definitions of Quality range from the traditional "Conformance to Requirements" (Crosby), "Fitness for Use" (Juran), "Delight the Customer", "Loss to Society"(Taguchi), etc. but on a more personal level I hear phrases like service, community, social responsibility and sustainability.

Creating a Culture of Accountability to Drive Statistical Thinking

Peter Drucker, famed management consultant, is credited to have been the first to say, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast". I frequently recommend the book Journey to Emerald City by Roger Conners in organizations I am involved with, to help the leadership team understand their role in driving change. This book was written in 1999 and is just as relevant today as it was 12 years ago. (http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Emerald-City-Roger-Connors/dp/073520358X)

Albert Einstein stated that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If we want to create a customer focused, statistical thinking, run-to-target culture, our leaders and key influencers ("key hubs" - the hidden organization - http://www.keyhubs.com/) must not just give casual lip service to run-to-target expectations in presentations and reviews, but must model the desired behaiors. They must create the experiences that will change beliefs and actions (accountability) to deliver the expected results. For example, managers and leaders must end the practice of reacting to two data points; instead, look for patterns, trends and shifts in the data, then investigate for deeper root causes. Management, leaders and key hubs must model this practice in their day to day activities.

Roger Conners writes, "Getting people to take the right action is not accomplished by command and control, rather by engaging their hearts and minds in fulfiling the purpose of the organization... Ernest Hemingway said never to mistake motion for action. Motion produces activity. Action produces results... The distinction between motion and action underscores the need to have people assume accountability for producing results." Roger Conners further explains the four steps to accountability as: See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It, and in his book Journey to the Emerald City, Roger Conners illustrates how the main characters in The Wizard of Oz apply the Steps to Accountability representing Above the Line actions and thinking versus Below the Line habits of thought and behavior.

Personal Accountability is the central message in John G. Miller's book QBQ! Question Behind the Question. (http://qbq.com/). Personal Accountability means avoiding the blame game and not playing the victim.

Miller offers three simple guidelines for asking better questions. He says that QBQ's:

1. begin with "What" or "How" (not "Why," "When," or "Who"); 
2. contain an "I" (not "they," "them," "we," or "you"); 
3. focus on action.

Where have you seen good examples of managers and leaders modeling the behavior of statstical thinking?

Do You Have "Good" Inventory, or "Bad" Inventory?

Imagine Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Wizard of Oz movie) observing your current value stream when she encounters piles of inventory. To each inventory bucket she would ask, "Are you good inventory or bad inventory?" Not all inventory is equally bad; some inventory is necessary given the current lack of flow and synchronization in your end-to-end value stream. Lean principles and industrial engineering tell us that inventory is an outcome of a lack of speed; and, eliminating inventory frees up cash that can otherwise be used more effectively elsewhere in your organization to generate growth. Unfortunately, many process improvement teams erroneously treat inventory as a critical 'x' in their Lean Six Sigma projects to improve value stream performance.  As a result many improvement teams focus on reducing the piles of incoming materials and/or finished goods inventory - by working with their supplier base to adopt vendor managed inventory, and/or working with their customers to try to improve forecast accuracy and/or extend the acceptable lead time. Unfortunately, the financial benefits are often short-lived because these improvements did not address the lack of stability and flow in the organization's value stream. Nor did the earlier changes address the culture of the organization that fundamentally accepts inventory as a necessary cost of business.

Instead, treat inventory is an outcome ('Y'). Speed - the lack of it - is a critical 'x'.  A focus on speed will transform the value stream. To become faster the value stream capability and stability must be improved. Flow cannot be sustained in an unstable, unpredictable environment. Increased speed results in increased productivity, yield, quality and reliability, improved product availability, predictable service levels, additional capacity for growth, and improved cash flow.

Speed can be improved through the removal of non-value-add work, fewer touches, elimination of waste, smaller batch sizes and shorter production run lengths, quicker changeovers. Inventory, when needed (e.g. due to lack of synchronization), now can be moved upstream where it is less expensive and more flexible.  So, if your value stream has excess inventory, Speed is the yellow brick road to your Emerald City.