People + Process = Performance

Culture: How To Form And Nurture A Culture Of “Holistic” Quality

 

Culture:  “the integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance”—E. Adamson Hoebel from his book Anthropology: The study of man.

 

Every organization has a culture.  And every organization has a different culture.  I think it would be safe to say that everyone reading this blog is or would like to be working in an organization that with a culture of (“holistic”) quality.  I specifically chose quality as that encompasses safety, continuous improvement and wellness.  An organization cannot have quality if their people are not healthy, safe and consistently focused on improving their jobs and their company.

 

However, there are many organizations that practice principles of quality.  They do a little 5S here, a smattering of ergonomics there, some continuous improvement projects along the way and maybe going through a checklist of wanted behaviors from time to time.  But doing principles and implementing continuous improvement methodologies doesn’t necessarily mean the culture has been transformed.

 

So what’s the big deal of having (or improving) a culture of quality?  In a nut shell:  because of the benefits and rewards.  We’ll get to that a bit later.  But first let’s discuss forming and sustaining a culture of quality.

 

I’ve read many articles and books about culture and various types of culture, i.e. quality, safety, innovation and continuous improvement.  One thing they basically all agree is the first step in establishing a culture is to have a clear definition of the desired culture.  This is one in which every employee sees, hears and feels the desired culture around them.  Besides those three elements (see, hear and feel), a fourth element is also necessary—the transfer element.  This can be seen when employees transfer their culture values to others.

 

It goes without saying that anything that matters within an organization has to begin at the top—the culture of quality must be embraced and lived by the organization’s leaders.  It is imperative that quality however your organization defines it is included and stated clearly in your mission statement and core values.  If your organization desires a culture of quality that encompasses safety, wellness and continuous improvement your core values should speak to them directly.  They shouldn’t be implied or taken for granted.  It’s not good enough to say we have a culture of quality, there must be actions behind the words.  You must walk the walk not just talk the talk. 

 

Employees need to know that they model the culture—their behaviors will demonstrate whether the culture of quality is a fraud or real.  So if they embrace quality, prioritize quality and practice quality that will rub off on their co-workers.  Research has shown the key to culture transformation is when employees take ownership of the culture.  This is what will drive and perpetuate the culture of quality.

If employees aren’t sure of what is expected of them, i.e. what behaviors and outcomes management wants them to follow, they should feel empowered to ask what the culture looks like.  Managers should be able to clearly answer questions as simple as: “What does the culture of quality mean to our organization?  Why is this important? What can I/we be doing to help us achieve our quality goals?”   

 

How does an organization know when they have achieved their culture of quality?  When the environment encourages and supports employees to take self-directed action about quality.  Let me give you a couple of examples:   The first example occurred when two co-workers workers were entering the building during the winter while snow was falling.  The side walk in front of the building was a bit icy.  Normally Facilities workers were responsible for putting down salt but 2 employees took it upon themselves to find some salt and spread it on the side walk.   These employees demonstrated concern for their peers’ safety as well as teamwork knowing that the Facilities workers were very busy trying to keep up with the snow for the entire premises.  The second example occurred for a machining/assembly company.  The assembly cell for a certain small precision part was very delicate and the cell workers were struggling to meet the specifications.  Instead of waiting for QC to come to help they automatically called in a project engineer and together they came up with solutions to make the assembly process easier, more efficient at the quality specifications.

 

The benefits of a strong culture of quality have been shown by research to be quite compelling—especially for the bottom line.  According to CEB (a member based advisory company), the return for a culture of quality was found to be the following:  for every 5,000 employees a company has, the recapture can be as much as $67 million of employee productivity—all of this by improving your culture of quality.  Even when dividing those numbers down to reflect the size of smaller organizations the payback is substantial.

 

In closing, an organization lives and dies by its culture.  Make sure your organization embraces the power of a culture of holistic quality.