Quality is everyone’s… as long as...

It is common to find businesses expending vast amounts of time and money on implementing a “quality system” on their organizations. The problem is executive management can’t “do” quality all of the sudden and expect people to stick to whatever plan, process or new pledge they have come up with.

As Dr. Deming stated in one of his publications “Quality is made in the board room” . That does not means quality is to be planned by executives in a four-wall room to later deploy latest tool in the trend. The solution is to ensure quality is the foundation of the management system; a system that respects people and one that is built over the capacity of the organization over time. Only after this basics are clearly defined, planed and followed it is reasonable to state Quality is everyone’s responsibility. That certainly is not an easy and short path to follow. Moreover, as Dr. Deming also stated “A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allows…” Take a look at your organization, whatever general perception management has over their people performance or engagement is without doubts a reflection of the system provided to them to “play” with.
Have you being involved in a quality cultural change in your organization? Was it a book plan or a people oriented plan? What worked? What didn’t?