Quality of Organization – The world is too small? or Is it?

Welcome to October, 2018 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

Let us recollect from our August, 2018 issue that two of the three key changes that characterize ISO 9004: 2018 are:

focus on the concept of “quality of an organization”;
focus of the concept of “identity of an organization”

In our present October, 2018 issue, we will expand the concept of Quality of an Organization.

ISO 9004: 2018 draws upon the definition of quality form ISO 9000:2015 and states that, ‘The quality of the organization is the degree to which the inherent characteristics of the organization fulfil the needs and expectations of its customers and other interested parties, in order to achieve sustained success’…In short, Quality of an Organization is equated with its ability to achieve sustained success.

Sustained success in a complex, demanding and ever-changing environment is not to be taken for granted. For example, the 2018 Corporate Longevity Forecast predicted that by 2027, organizations represented in the Standard & Poor’s 500 would be listed in this index for an average of 12 years. New technologies, economic shocks, disruptive competitors and eventually the inability to identify and address future challenges are the main reasons for conditional sustainability.

If we correlate this with the contents of ISO 9001: 2015, then this translates into the culture and organizational knowledge about how the organization approaches Understanding the Context of the Organization and the Needs and Expectations of the Interested Parties. Additionally, the quality of the organization can be judged from the maturity of its systemic performance w.r.t. its intended outcomes in so far as effectiveness of organization’s actions to address the risks and opportunities.

In his article, The Top 10 Characteristics of a Healthy Organization, Rose Johnson describes characteristics ingrained in company culture, recognizing and understanding which helps in identifying potential problems and taking appropriate corrective actions to help remain afloat.

The article also refers to a good amount of additional material on the subject:

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up Jim Champy’s article When a Company Goes Astray @ Essential Management for Doers, Doubters and Darers column of Management Matters Network….while narrating some recent case studies, the author re-emphasizes the fundamental need for asking a right question. More so when company has gone astray. He suggests four such questions:

Does the Company’s Management Team Have the Skills and Appetite for Change?
How Well do the Company’s Products or Services Respond to Market Needs?
Has the Company Gone Far Enough with Digital?
How Operationally Sound is the Company?

We now watch one of the latest ASQ TV episodes:

Why Continuous Improvement Teams Fail: In this episode, learn about continuous improvement teams: what they are, who should be on them, and what they should be doing.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems posting for September, 2018 is:

Soft Skills are Underrated – Quality professionals need strong interpersonal skills. – Proficiency with the various quality tools and techniques is paramount for the quality professional to lead their organization to performance excellence. In the current environment, that’s just not enough to be truly successful…Professionals with poor interpersonal skills are generally not considered team players…Within the workplace, quality professionals with good interpersonal skills are likely to be more productive because they typically project a positive “can do” attitude, creatively uncover solutions to problems and proactively help others succeed. .. There are a host of interpersonal skills. For the sake of brevity I’ll list the ones some experts believe are among the more important: collaborative, dependable, tactful, friendly, empathetic, sensitivity, respectful, honest, trustful, helpful, communicative (verbal, written, non-verbal, listening), open-minded, positive and considerate…Reinventing oneself is possible through an awareness of how one interacts with others, but it does take a high degree of commitment and a lot of practice.
Impulse Decisions – An impulse is nothing more than an urge to do something. It’s a suggestion from your subconscious that suddenly surfaces in your conscious mind, and as such, it deserves to be considered…Being impulsive is generally considered a negative trait. Impulsive people tend not to consider the consequences of their actions, think things through, or finish things they’ve started…However, it might sound strange but carrying impulses into action can be a good way to become goal-oriented…Don’t ignore all impulse decisions. Some will be game-changes, but pick and choose carefully.