Managing Quality by Jolito Ortizo Padilla

JOP with Philipp Kotler

The Book is now available in all Turkey and Cyprus Bookstores

The Quality can be a tender and fragile things. It relies on the commitment of people and people by nature are changeable and subject to cultural and economic influence. Quality is vulnerable when people are busy or are working in fear of redundancy. If morale or confidence goes down, so might quality. This vicious circle , if not broken , may cause irreparable damage as tainted corporate reputation spreads like virus.

But here's the thing: quality , although a serious business needs to have a playful element. Attempting to engage organizations with seriousness is not easy. Quality should be instinctive. some people have the mindset of " I don't like procedures: and yet each of us carries a set of internal procedures that ensures we lead a good quality of life. Whether its rinsing a plate before it goes in the dishwasher or checking the message in a birthday card before sealing the envelope.

In order to have a meaningful conversation about quality with staff, it can be helpful to hook attention with anecdotes and imagery as well as engaging the intellect with logic about the consequences of not  following procedure. No one wants a blocked dishwasher or an unhappy friend any more than they want a report littered with mistakes or an unhappy client. The type of organization makes no difference: retail outlets will think about customers, universities and colleges think about students, hospitals about patients.

So how do organization manage quality? Adhering to quality standard is certainly one way. Others use a traffic light system where red means non-compliant, immediate action required. Others take an improvement journey with training consultants or independent assessment bodies. For a skeptical staff not partial to audits, how can we get them on board? And what of those departments who will sacrifice quality rather than negotiate cost or timings?

Quality must be shrink-wrapped, laminated and on display every minute of every day not just as a certificate in reception but as identifiable and protected office behavior. When there is uncertainty there must be one constant quality. Here are 15 ways to raise the profile of quality:
  - Engagement: tell a story, paint a picture or invite staff to a workshop and share a box of Quality Street.
  - Inquiry : ask good questions-some standards such as, "When you are not in the office , how can your neighbor find your files?". and some more incisive, such as : "What is the one thing you can do tomorrow to improve quality in your department?"
 - Involve: don't just tell , really make people feel part of the quality system and reward sensible suggestions with changes.
 - Coach: empower quality representations to take on initiatives and coach them through the change process.
 - Re-lunch: imagine a quality standard is being established for the first time and sell its benefits, keep it fresh.
 - Link : link the quality system to other areas such as data protection or copyright laws.
 - Continual improvement create a culture of continual improvement through quality forums.
 - PR for examples, " we are talented organization so let's not dilute what we do by losing our quality disciplines". The quality department must of course be ambassadors of quality . Publicizing great initiatives is priceless.
 - Concepts: provide intellectually stimulating concepts of what quality means. show models or relate it to things that means something.
 - Advocates: ambassadors, champions, call them what you will but have them in each department.
 - Back to basic: keep everything simple
 - Measure, act, publish : ensure measurements are in place , produce action plans based on them, publish the data across the company.
 - All inclusive:  everything is quality: everyone is responsible
 - Marketing: get the  marketing team to support quality and market cleverly with campaign and adverts. Treat staff as if they were prospects  who needed attracting and convincing.