Who is
Responsible for Quality?
Daniel Kwok, Managing Director Asia Pacific
Philip Crosby Associates II
How
do most companies answer the question: “Who is responsible for quality?”
They usually say “everyone” but really mean “the quality department”
or the “quality manager”. It is strange that once the word “quality”
is part of a title, “everyone” sees that department or manager as a
convenient pair of shoulders to hoist responsibility onto. It’s like giving
the goalkeeper the responsibility for winning or losing a soccer match.
When the question is rephrased as “Who is responsible for conformance
to requirements (Philip Crosby’s definition for quality)?” the
answer that emerges will still be “everyone.” This time, however, the
answer has a more pointed meaning, as everyone does ultimately get paid for
meeting a whole bunch of requirements. However, “everyone” may still turn
out to be “no-one”.
Hence, one of our clients goes one step further. They say that quality
comes from “proactive leadership at all levels”, not from some people at
certain levels in an organization.
Everyone contributes
to his or her personal work processes and those of the department or unit.
This is true at every level –whether you are the general manager or the
security guard. Everyone is responsible for conformance to requirements, using
prevention and keeping the standard which does not allow for any error, no
matter how small, to become acceptable. Certainly, everyone can help minimize,
eliminate or avoid the price of nonconformance.
To do so requires every individual to be a) proactive and 2) to take the
lead in achieving conformance to requirements or improvements within his/her
sphere of influence.
Being Proactive
Simply
put, proactive is the opposite of reactive. Being reactive means that we take
action after the event when the opportunity to gain an advantage or to avoid a
problem had already been lost. Being reactive is dealing with trouble and is
usually not pleasant. It is also costly.
It is not possible to predict fully what will happen. But we can use our
analytical skills and experience to work out likely scenarios and the actions
required to turn situations into advantage for us or to avoid problems.
For
instance, there could be:
·
An upward trend in interest rates
·
A new competitor in our market place
·
Changes in government policies in a neighboring nation
·
A customer developing a new product
·
Misunderstanding of a memo we write
·
Poor turnout at a meeting if there was insufficient lead time
·
A customer getting upset because we have not confirm our understanding of
the requirements
We could ask ourselves what would the best case and worst case scenarios
be. We may also cast our minds further and work out the ripple effects outside
our organization .
“Anticipation”
gives us an idea of what may follow current events. This will help protect us
from being caught unawares and at the same time give us the framework to
profit from what comes or to avoid pain.
Some
people would not do anything unless prompted or instructed. Such people may be
using their lack of power as an excuse for inaction.. While authority is
sometimes needed for change to be made, we can still initiate action with one
of the actions being to secure permission.
Leading
Philip
Crosby in “The Absolutes of Leadership”, defines leadership as “deliberately
causing people-driven actions in a planned fashion for the purpose of
accomplishing the leader’s agenda”.
It
is no use being proactive if we do not see ourselves as leaders. There are
appointed leaders in organizations. But you do not need a title to have an
agenda that can be accomplished through the actions of other people.
Looking at the need for quality and productivity improvement in your
area of responsibility, you can easily decide on an agenda for improvement .
This decision has to do with recognizing and accepting responsibility for conformance to requirements in your job.
An example of an
improvement agenda may be: “We will reduce the Price of Nonconformance in
warehouse processes by $100,000 in the next six months”. This is measurable
and has a time-frame.
With
an agenda set and people in place to accomplish it, the mechanism to do so is
a plan. A plan is basically made up of “who, what, when”.
To lead, we must stay close to all three – the who, the what and the
when. We need to know what progress has been made and what barriers there are
as we go along. We must be prepared to change tactics. But the agenda should
remain firm.
While
we may have commitment to conformance to requirements may be a personal
policy, a worthwhile agenda and the right people involved in accomplishing it;
we would be doomed to failure if we do not conduct our relationships
successfully. There are many relationships in a workplace. They are primarily
with the people who receive our outputs, those whose outputs we need to do our
job, our managers, peers and those who report to us.
Respect is the foundation of successful relationships. Respect takes
many forms. They include being polite and considerate and being attentive
listeners.
Very importantly, we need to avoid blaming others when things do not go
well. Blaming results from the need to vent our frustration outwardly. Many
organizations suffer from a “blame culture”. In such a culture, there is
high level of fear and people shy away from telling the truth or offering to
help in case things go wrong.
Building successful relationships also depends on us keeping promises.
Doing so creates trust. Sometimes there is pressure for us to say yes to
things that we know we cannot deliver. While it is important to think
positively and demonstrate a “can-do” attitude, we also need to be
realistic.
It is important that individuals at all levels exercise responsibility
for conformance to requirements and for better ways of conforming to
requirements. It is no longer acceptable to push this responsibility to those
in the quality department. We must take a personal stand.
Conformance to requirements on a routine basis will happen only when
there is proactive leadership at all levels.
© 2000, Philip Crosby Associates II, Inc.