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Ok, by now if you haven't previously studied in depth what Quality is, you're probably wondering what it is about the term that I'm getting so excited about, which is different from its commonly accepted definition?

The word quality is plastered on about every business sign there is.  We're a Quality Grocery Store! We Serve Quality Hamburgers! We're Quality Tax-Consultants! We do Quality car repair! So what's it really mean??

Yes, the common definition of quality suggests that the Grocery Store, the Hamburgers, the Tax-Advice, and the Car Repair are really good!

But what does that mean, really good??

Well, I guess it means...you might answer: It's what I want!

Fine.  Now were onto something.  It's what you want in a product or service!

Great!  Now we know what Quality is---or do we?  A "quality pencil" is one that meets your needs.  But what exactly are THOSE particular characteristics?  And does it matter than my needs as to a pencil (cheap for occasional note-taking on paper, with an eraser on top, dark lead) might be different from your needs as to a pencil (let's say having mechanical feed durable for delicate artistic work, with the finest purity and point of lead, and sporting internal alternating color slugs)?

And if you are selling or delivering Quality to "Customers"---how do you go about meeting all these different needs and demands???

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There is a logic to Quality.  Quality is a very reasonable, rational, realistic way to structure Management. 

Understanding the logic behind effective management (efficiently exercising responsibility and authority over a situation or individuals), allows one to understand why present things work or don't work, how best to meet new customer demands, and how best to motivate others to give their best to you and to the organization.

The opposite of Quality is Confusion!  

Success from Confusion is not by objective insight, but by lucky coincidence.  Rather than working from solid principles firmly rooted in reality---it's management by hunch. Yes, one's instincts may at times produce good results, but just as often---may not!  Its far better to know what you're doing, to really understand the situation, to consciously apply powerful principles---than just to roll the dice and hope you come up with a winning number.

I've puzzled over the topic of Quality Management and come up with what I think are the ten main Principles that underlie its success.  

You may agree or disagree with my list---change the words here or there, add other principles or take some of mine away---that's ok.  I'm not claiming to have the definitive, last word on Quality---just an interesting boiled-down perspective that hopefully is helpful to you. Your list may be different from mine, but I suspect well have a lot of overlap.  

In the aggregate, these principles---in my mind---are what together make Quality an excellent, effective framework from which to manage your personal-life struggles, your family relations (as a husband, wife, son, or daughter), your religious-congregations or volunteer groups interactions (as a lay member or leader), your school demands (as an instructor or student), and your job requirements (as a front-line worker, manager, or top executive).

These Quality Principles give us a crisp point of view, a purposeful way of acting, an insightful way of understanding where other people are coming from---that can make our life easier, more productive, and more enjoyable!

Note that these Quality Principles don't make up a religion.  Quality is not Faith.  Faith is a wonderful, powerful personal belief system that extends our thinking beyond the constraints of physical reality.  Quality is a logical, rational, framework for most-effectively dealing with other people when they give something to you, or you give something to them!  

In the same vein, Quality Principles are not destructive principles!  Sometimes the principled stand is an excuse to ignore practicality.  "Standing on one's principles!" can just as easily mean destruction of families, fragmentation of religious congregations, engendering bitter life-long resentment of learning in students, or getting fired from ones job---as mean having a firm foundation to work from to accomplish good things!  Quality by its definition is not an inflexible recipe for blind obedience---rather an organizing viewpoint to help us all get the best from any particular product/service interaction.

So please don't think that the ten principles I've come up with are inflexible rules! To the contrary, they are statements of not how things have to be, but rather how things that work well usually are.

And even though Quality does indeed share many of its underlying principles with various religions, it does so because those principles work.  Quality is not idealism---pie-in-the-sky Utopias or Ultimate Perfection.  Rather, Quality is a collection of hard-nosed, results-oriented, tested and tried ways for you to have the greatest chance for success (be it struggling with person-to-person interactions in everyday life, raising a family, exercising shared faith, teaching/learning in classrooms, or applying your talents on the job.)  

So let's take a quick walk through these ten principles.  I'll explain them as best as I can, give examples, and show how knowing the basis for Quality can give you a solid, realistic foundation from which to extrapolate prior success to many different, new, still-to-be encountered situations.

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The first, over-riding mechanismis to have a very clear awareness of the following:  Whether it is in your personal life, your family, your school, your religious group, or your job---Quality does not occur by accident.  

Quality results from deliberate, purposeful, knowledgeable actions.

To effectively implement Quality, you must have a working knowledge of how best to use and implement  twenty-two Quality Mechanisms.

Meeting and exceeding the needs of your Customer---in fact, delighting the Customer with your product or service---requires that you do the following: 

1) find out what your Customer needs, how he/she thinks of your product/service, and what specific improvements would he/she be further enthused in having from you;  

2) continually improving your processes using Plan/Do/Study/Act to provide better (superior customer-delighting) existing products/services;

3) going beyond process improvement to dreaming up totally new processes that provide new products/services (innovation/creativity);  

4) when complex products/services are needed, wherever useful, putting together True Teams that cross-cut in regards to boundaries or expertise to apply processes, improve them, or replace them with new processes;  

5) mastering the Art of Facilitation;  

6) using basic and advanced facilitation skills to insure that your True Teams are indeed well facilitated to work together easily and effectively, and do not crash and burn;  

7) understand the value of and how to reach consensus;  

8) be able to set aside judgement to grasp the entire range of options, brainstorming;  

9) establish clear criteria for making value judgments;  

10) know how to arrive at the top priorities in a group setting;  

11) understand how to acquire needed data;  

12) understand how to properly analyze acquired data;  

13) understand how to most effectively present data and conclusions;  

14) understand how to obtain/give any needed management support;  

15) understand when and where you can give critical executive leadership;  

16) understand the value of and how to obtain/use outside consultation;  

17) know the importance of establishing a short, clear AIM that everyone knows and everyone buys-into;  

18) understand what a System is and how to optimize it around the AIM;  

19) make a space for examining quality, as with Quality Councils;  

20) implement a suggestion program that works; and easy feedback mechanisms for Customers;  

21) know the importance and the procedure for piloting proposed changes; and  

22) understand how to learn as an individual and as an organization.

If you know of, understand, and are able to use the twenty-two mechanisms where necessary---you will have a great deal of control over your own life, your family, your school, your volunteer group, and your job.  You will have an ability that most other people do not possess, to deliberately change things for the better---the option to make your own life easier and happier while simultaneously helping others to do the same!

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In the following sections we will go through each of the above mechanisms.  I will explain in a conversational style what each mechanism is, what it means, and how to do it.  I will include a number of different brief examples that I've directly experienced in my own life, and other vivid examples I know of from other peoples lives.  These examples---dealing with personal interactions, with families, with schools, with religious or other volunteer groups, with our work-a-day jobs---will hopefully be very helpful in relating these somewhat-abstract principles and specific mechanisms to your daily, rubber-meets-the-road problems and challenges.

Although I don't have the last word on any of these topics, I hope you will become aware of a some new things that you've never heard of before, each of which may end up having a big and positive impact on your life!

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Quality is... 

---in the eye of the recipient: a dynamic interplay between Customer/Creator/Supplier.  

Quality sees into the future---demanding Creativity and Innovation.  

Quality is a wonderful, continuing, happy, joyful relation between Customer, Creator, and Supplier.  

Quality is people helping people to help yet more people: Facilitation!  

Quality is people respecting and appreciating each other in True Teams.  

Quality is establishing a practical, clear, and compelling AIM that informs, aligns, and energizes the System.  

Quality is leaders that trust their people, enough to give them power!  

Quality is continually examining what we do---with the goal of becoming better and better; indeed the best we can possibly be: Continual Improvement!  

Quality is a positive, driving force to make things better for everybody!  

Quality is good mechanisms that bind people closer together rather than driving them apart: helpful Cooperation rather than cut-throat Competition.  

Quality is that which causes you to want to go to work, and feel unhappy when its time to leave!

Would you like to have that for your own personal life, for your own family, for your own religious congregation, for your own school, for your own volunteer group, and for your own job environment?

You have the power to implement Quality---in whatever places you control.  Jealousy and Fear are screaming at you to not implement Quality.  A strong sense of your own inherent worth, your pride in a job well-done, and a genuine love for other people---tells you to proceed.

Seeking Quality takes humility (I don't have all the answers: I need the input of others) and work (struggling to align my own personal preferences with that of others, by mutually-held AIMs)---but it promises great rewards: making my life easier, happier, and more productive.  Not only might my own personal life be enriched, but also that of others in my family, my school, my religious group, my volunteer group, and on my job.  Quality is worth the effort it takes to achieve.

Yes, your Quality efforts may not be appreciated by everyone, especially if others are comfortable with command and control environments.  But your patient, polite nagging and/or example will pay off in the long run.  Quality by definition must seek the good of others, and not only what you think is good for them---but what they will ultimately come to recognize and agree was indeed to their benefit.

Quality will take you to where you've never been before.  Integral to achieving Quality is to look into the future and find new ways of anticipating unrecognized needs!  Quality demands Creativity.  It's exciting, uplifting, fulfilling, and tremendously enjoyable.

In our personal life, our family, our school, our religion, our volunteer organization, our job---if now and then we can't have good, productive, creative, deeply-satisfying  fun...whats the point to the journey?  

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