The Main Elements of Quality Development

This is the third blog post about the quality concepts and programmes that I have developed over the last 3 decades. Over the years I have helped a wide range of service organisations (including British Airways, SAS, Hilton Hotels); governments in Russia, India, the EU and Mexico; and manufacturing companies all over the world improve their quality. In this series I'm giving a brief insight into some of the concepts that have been implemented in these companies and organisations to give you a better understanding of the concepts as well as the process you have to go through in order to improve your quality at all levels.

Please read the previous posts The Human Side of Quality and Quality Standards for the introduction to the topic of quality management and for definitions of the IP and AP levels, which I will describe in more detail in this post on quality development.

There may be a great difference between the IP level (Ideal Performance level) and the AP level (Actual Performance level), whether at individual, team or organisational level. The goal of the quality development process is to eliminiate this difference between the IP and the AP levels.

There are three main elements in the quality development process:

1. Definition of the IP level
2. Measuring the AP level
3. Quality development

1. Definition of the IP level
Determining the ideal/desired level of performance, i.e. the quality objective

2. Measuring the AP level
Clarifying the actual level of performance - the present standard

3. Quality development
Assessing the difference that has been ascertained between the IP level and the AP level and, if necessary, to establish and implement a plan for quality development in order to achieve the desired level.

I know that this all sounds straight forward, but in practice it isn't necessarily so. There might be many reasons why it is impossible to measure the AP level accurately (employees fearing for the loss of their jobs, area managers wanting to report higher numbers to the head office etc.).

In the next instalment of the series (available on Wednesday), I will give an insight into Quality Areas and Quality Factors, which are the basis for identifying and communicating the overall objectives, i.e. the IP level you want to achieve. Understanding these topics will allow you to work more specifically with your quality development and foster a quality culture in your company.

If you would like to find out more about how I can help your organisation measure its AP level, identify its IP level and develop a quality development programme, please contact Lis Touborg on +45 4822 5100 or by email: lt@clausmoller.com.

Inbox Zero - An Update

Further to the previous post on managing information overload with Janelle Barlow's article and Merlin Mann's presentation at Google Tech, I thought I would share Merlin's slideshow with you. If you watch the video and then download the presentation below to keep as a reminder, you've got no excuses for not doing anything about your information meltdown.

| View | Upload your own

Quality Standards

This is the second of my short articles on quality, giving you an insight into the basics of the quality concepts and programmes that I have developed. In this post I will focus on quality standards and their importance in implementing a quality culture in an organisation.

Quality Standards
In order to develop quality effectively it is necessary to be able to describe quality unambiguously. This means, quite simply, to determine levels, norms or standards for quality which are conceived in the same way by everybody who is involved in the quality process. The work on "quality standards" makes it possible to:

• Define what is understood by good, mediocre or inferior quality
• Goal-focus the quality performance
• Measure quality performance
• Compare an individual or team's quality with the quality performance of other individuals or teams
• Improve quality performance
• Communicate quality deficiencies to individuals/groups of people who are supposed to check, ensure and develop quality
• Inform customers and other external stakeholders (e.g. business press) of quality improvements
• Obtain a quality certification

IP and AP levels
For any kind of quality development, two kinds of quality standards need to be defined:

• The IP level (Ideal Performance level)
• The AP level (Actual Performance level)

The IP level
This is the quality development goal. That is to say the level to be achieved or the situation desired at a certain time.

The AP level
The AP level is the quality level at any given measuring time. The norms determining what is good, mediocre or inferior quality change all the time. In order to ensure that demands and expectations are met, it is necessary to keep working on quality development, i.e.:

• to evaluate and adjust the IP level at regular intervals
• measure the AP level regularly
• assess the difference between the AP level and IP level and make quality improvement a natural part of day-to-day life in your company

In the next post in this series about quality, I'll give more insight into the main areas of quality development.

Excerpts from the first edition of "A Complaint is a Gift"

While doing a Google search for the new edition of "A Complaint Is a Gift", I stumbled across a list of quotes compiled by Andrew Gibbons from the first edition of the book.

You can download the excerpts and quotes here. I would also recommend visiting Andrew's site as there are many other free book excerpts available.

Soon you will also be able to read excerpts from the new book here on the blog, so sign-up to receive the RSS feed or sign up for email news in the right-hand navigation.

5 Myths of Complaint Handling

I thought I'd just share this little teaser excerpt from the forthcoming second edition of "A Complaint is a Gift" with you. These are 5 myths about complaint handling, which you might find useful to keep in mind when dealing with annoyed customers.

Myth # 1: People naturally know how to handle complaints. After all, they've been receiving them their entire lives.
Reality: Most people have to check their natural reactions when they receive complaints. At some level, a complaint is perceived as an attack, and when confronted most of us are inclined to attack back, especially if the complaint is delivered in a blaming manner. Effective complaint handling requires that we counter our instinctive tendencies. When staff who work call-center phones hear themselves on tape with a customer, they are frequently surprised that they sound so hostile and arrogant with customers.

Myth # 2: It's a good idea to set targets to reduce the number of complaints you receive.
Reality: Bad idea! If you set targets to reduce complaints, your staff will help you by not reporting the bad news they hear. To some degree this normally happens.
Setting targets to reduce complaints will only encourage staff to make sure your organization receives even less customer feedback. Your staff will do this by making it more difficult for customers to complain or by discarding complaint evidence.

Myth # 3: If you give customers what they want, you have satisfied them.
Reality: No way! Giving customers what they want when they complain does not guarantee satisfaction. There is a huge emotional component to complaints. If this emotionality is not addressed, you can give customers whatever they want, and they will still walk away upset. Good responders understand the psychological dimensions of complaint handling.

Myth # 4: Complaint handling and sales are unrelated.
Reality: Complaint handling is as demanding a task as is sales. Actually, a good complaint handler is, in effect, a sales person for your organization because they keep your customers coming back.

Myth # 5: Complaints are a sign that your company is not doing a quality job.
Reality: Companies will always create some dissatisfaction for their customers. Zero defects is a target, often not a possibility. Your quality suffers when you fail to hear this dissatisfaction. Complaints represent an open dialogue with your customers who are giving you a chance to keep their business. They are giving you information you might otherwise not hear that you can use to improve your quality. At a minimum, complaining customers are talking with you, rather than the rest of the world. And that is a gift!

"A Complaint is a Gift" hits the shelves in bookstores across the US on August 1st. You can also pre-order a copy from Amazon.com or read more about the book in previous posts.

How to Dig Out From the Information Avalanche

Further to my previous post about managing information overload in order to achieve focus, I thought I would just share a quick link with you about how bad the problem has gotten.

It is an article from MSNBC, based on a survey commissioned by LexisNexis entitled the "Workplace Productivity Survey". According to the survey, released in March 2008, seven out of ten US office workers feel overwhelmed by the amount of information in the workplace and 40%(!) feel that they are heading for a "data breaking point".

Some of the key rules for how to manage your information and your time are explained as a real life example as well so I would definitely recommend that you read the article.

The Human Side of Quality

Following on from my first couple of posts about quality, this is the first in a series of small introductions to the various quality management concepts I have developed.

It gives a short introduction to the "Human Side of Quality", which was the basis for the quality concepts and programmes I developed over several years at each level in the organisation: personal, team and organisational.

Most quality programmes and concepts are based on concrete and rational elements: systems, methods, physical products, etc. These elements are both valuable and relevant. It has, however, been emphasised that an important shortcoming in many quality concepts and programmes is the fact that the importance of the human factor, the emotional aspects of quality, is underestimated. Even though most quality experts today recognise the importance of the human factor in the quality process, very few of them offer concrete methods for quality development within the human side of quality. When I developed my quality concept it was unique in that it takes people as its starting point. The quality concept and the quality training programmes I developed:

• Focus precisely on the human factor in connection with the overall quality of work


• Offer concrete methods to develop the human side of quality, i.e. your personal quality and those parts of team quality; product quality; service quality; and organisational quality, where the quality level is determined by the attitude, commitment and behaviour of the employees in a specific situation.


• Make the quality concept acceptable and easy to understand for everybody in the organisation.


• Point out the individual employee's advantages in performing at a high quality level.


• Involve all employees in the quality process.


• Make quality development a natural and integral part of the day-to-day life and future of the organisation

The underlying principles and concepts address one of the key failures of e.g. the ISO certification process in that they can help you to measure your current levels of quality as well as develop ways of improving quality at all levels of the organisation. ISO only helps an organisation certify whether the quality that is delivered is standardised - not whether the quality being delivered is actually good or bad!

Read an interview from Gestion about "The Human Side of Quality" (hosted on Mediafire as a PDF file), which explains a lot more about my thoughts on this topic. Later on this week I will release the next instalment in the series, where I will be looking at quality standards.

Congratulations to Fatih Terim and Turkey

I've spent the evening watching Turkey beat the Czech Republic at UEFA Euro 2008 and just wanted to congratulate the Turkish coach Fatih Terim, whom I had the pleasure of speaking with when we were the two keynote speakers at a conference in Istanbul some years ago. Both of us were talking about winning teams and how it requires everybody in an organisation to pull in the same direction and achieve results. He spoke about it from a sports point of view and I presented my Employeeship concept, which has many football references.

It was an enthralling match and even 3 minutes from the end it seemed like the Turks were out of it until they somehow managed to score two late goals (although one was more than a little fortuitous). I guess that it's true that the game isn't over until the whistle has been blown - and in the same way you have to perform at your best at all times if your company is going to succeed.

Congratulations! I'm sure Istanbul will be a fun place to be tonight when the Turks will be celebrating as only they can.

Start Fighting Back Against Emails!

I just wanted to share an another excellent article from 43folders with you. Merlin quotes a new article from the New York Times about how organisations are finally starting to realise how big a drag on productivity emails and instant messaging have become.

Merlin asks the most pertinent question possible: “What does a company get out of its employees spending half their day using an email program?"

In many ways the most shocking stat is this:

"A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times…"

However, you also need to think about the overall productivity as this infographic shows. In total we spend 48% of our working hours either in meetings or being interrupted by things that are neither important nor urgent. If I spent 4 hours of my time everyday either checking my Blackberry or being in meetings I would never get anything done!

It just goes to show the importance of working in a structured way and perhaps taking some inspiration from the Importance/Urgency Quadrant proposed by Stephen Covey, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca Merill in First Things First.

This has been adapted into a version for how to handle emails over at The Productivity Blog, where you will also be able to find inspiration for other ways of increasing your personal productivity. The article is one that I wrote some time ago and is based on the principles of the Time Manager® productivity tool, just updated for the 21st century.

Head on over to 43folders for the full low-down and Merlin's very relevant thoughts in his excellent commentary that I completely agree with.

Simplify & Focus - How to Manage Information

I was just sent a link to a speech given by Merlin Mann (founder of 43folders) at GoogleTech last year. In it, he talks about how you can de-clutter your life and manage, rather than be managed by, emails. He calls this concept "Inbox Zero" and he has also created a series of articles about the concept.

This reminded me of an article that Janelle Barlow, the President of TMI US and my co-author on "A Complaint is a Gift", wrote several years ago about "Coping with Information Overload".

There is no doubt that if you want to be able to not just manage your time, but thrive in today's fast paced business environment - and still have a work/life balance - knowing how to deal with the deluge of information is paramount. You have to be able to simplify in order to keep your focus and perform at the highest level. Starting by clearing out your inbox is probably the one task that will give you the most mental space and energy to tackle the rest of the tasks at hand. It can seem a daunting task, but if you spend a little bit of your time reading the articles and/or watching the video you will be able to make progress right away.

Janelle's article looks at the very important distinction between knowledge and information and how we can deal with the ever increasing amount of information. The article has a wealth of useful tips and ideas for coping with information overload, asks pertinent questions and provides some practical self-evaluation tools.

You can see Merlin's speech below or read Janelle's article here.