Five Mantras To Achieving Excellence

<div>During my career, I have seen many organisations and business leaders frustrated by a lack of real success and impact with their quality programs. Great enthusiasm surrounding initial implementations eventually turns to disappointment two or three years later, when leaders wonder what was the result of their investment.&nbsp; How has the business improved?&nbsp; Why haven't the big dials moved?<br /><br />All too often quality is viewed as Lean, Six Sigma, ISO or a myriad other concepts or programs that make their way into organisations with great splash and much fizzle.&nbsp; But these are primarily improvement methods, not a systemic approach to 'organisational excellence'. To start with the solution, without thoroughly understanding the broader needs of the organisation, is the tail wagging the dog.&nbsp; No quality method is a silver bullet.&nbsp; No quality method addresses the organisation as a system and the need to drive systemic quality and service excellence.<br /><br />So what should an organisation do, and where should it start?&nbsp; Leaders must first see the organisation, and the role of quality, as a systems approach. Quality isn't something you throw at a problem.&nbsp; It is a carefully executed plan that helps the entire organisation function successfully. <br /><br />In my view, there are five key elements to successfully implement quality and organisational excellence in a systemic way.<br /><br /><strong>1)</strong>There should be an overarching approach to quality, a plan.&nbsp; Where and how will the theory and tools of quality be applied?&nbsp; How will they be used to drive excellence?&nbsp; Every organisation should have a quality system that makes sense to them.&nbsp; At the cost of sounding cliché, one size does not fit all. The structure will be unique to each organization, but whatever they are, the elements of the quality system must be intentionally developed, implemented and measured.&nbsp; To look at a graphic of a quality system should tell us how quality is implemented in that business and how it drives excellence and customer service. This can be further complex if it's a conglomerate of companies with separate management teams, but there needs to be consistency across the Group. At the Max Group we call it the Max Quality System.&nbsp; <br /><br /><strong>2)</strong>The Chief Quality Officer (CQO) / Quality Leader (QL) should be at the planning table and should report to the CEO.&nbsp; This is a clear commitment to the importance of quality in the organisation and makes it possible for the quality team to understand business strategy and appropriately support it. In turn, to support strategy, quality must supply both strategic and tactical approaches.&nbsp; This may involve a strategic (top down) organisational excellence program like Baldrige (what we call Max Performance Excellence Framework, the Tatas call it Tata Business Excellence Model) or EFQM Frameworks, in conjunction with a tactical (bottom up) business improvement methodology like Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen etc.&nbsp; In a sense, force change down from a strategic perspective, but also push change up.&nbsp; This way, everyone has an opportunity to participate in organizational transformation.<br /><br /><strong>3)</strong>To be effective, quality leaders must understand and speak the 'language of businesses - finance, as well as the language of 'managing change'.&nbsp; Too many Quality leaders are practitioners - tactical thinkers who are more absorbed with method than business needs and organizational outcomes.&nbsp; The CQO must first be a business manager before he/she is a quality manager. In addition, successful implementation of Quality requires broad consensus.&nbsp; Quality must be required, but it cannot be dictated.&nbsp; So, the CQO must bring together divergent groups within the business (in a Quality Council) to discuss organizational pain points, explain strategic needs and reach agreement on what's important and how to address it.&nbsp; Quality leaders must be seen as relationship builders, whose focus in on helping, not hindering, the work of the business.<br /><br /><strong>4)</strong> Everyone in the organisation must have an unrelenting, passionate focus on customers and service (Sevabhav).&nbsp; All the quality drivers (the quality system, quality strategy, excellence model, Lean, Six Sigma, ISO, etc.) are all there for only one reason - to reach out to customers in the most economical way, to provide what they want when they want it. If this approach is not taken, the Business will lose credibility, customers and money.<br /><br /><strong>5)</strong> Finally, quality must prove its value.&nbsp; It is the responsibility of Quality to both measure itself and the impact of its strategy and tactics.&nbsp; There must be a balanced set of Measures of Success (MOS), a scorecard if you like, for the business that shows where improvement is or isn't being made. If Quality doesn't demonstrate impact on cost, revenue, customer satisfaction, turnaround times, capacity creation, employee engagement, and passion, then stop doing it till you seek the right quality leaders and redesign your quality system.<br /><br />In summary, what we call quality can only have a real impact if it is viewed as strategic as well as tactical business solution.&nbsp; If we only see Quality as a tool, we will miss the huge strategic impact quality can have in transforming all areas of a business.&nbsp; <br /><br /><em>The author is Senior Director - Quality and Performance Excellence at Max India </em></div>