Many organizations state quality goals. But true effectiveness requires an accompanying commitment to various cultural elements such as leadership, a compelling vision, companywide shared values, pervasive behaviors, and complementary performance metrics and incentives. It is only when an organization exhibits these and related components that it can be said to exhibit a true culture of quality.
Partnering with ASQ, Forbes Insights (publisher of Forbes Magazine) conducted a global survey of 2,291 executives and managers in 2014. Of particular note, the survey was executed across two major segments, one featuring Forbes Insights panelists and a second featuring ASQ members.
Industry demographics related to the study included:
26% Manufacturing
11% Financial services
11% Technology
10% Healthcare
7% Consumer goods
5% Industrial products
5% Transportation
Paulo Sampaio, a professor of quality engineering and management in Portugal involved in the study discusses what can happen absent a culture of quality
“We find cases where a company will be using the tools and the methodologies of quality, but there’s no true culture of quality.” Companies, will, for example, “say they have adopted ISO 9001 standard because someone above them in the supply chain demands it,” says Sampaio. “They’re using these tools because someone told them they have to.” So these companies “put some procedures in place and then, once a year, just before their audit, they clean up the factory.” And because there is no sustained commitment to quality, there is no culture of quality, so “they do not attain anything close to the full value of the standard,” says Sampaio.
What are the vital components of a true culture of quality?
Quality Values
An organization’s “values” can help individuals at all levels make better and more responsible decisions relating to issues of quality. The study results reflected only 61% describe their quality values as clearly stated, with again roughly equivalent findings for both senior executives and quality professionals. However, the figure rises to 76% among self-described world-class organizations and again falls for both Europe- and Asia/Pacific-based companies to 50%. Finally, only half, 50%, say such values are clearly understood throughout the organization.
Quality Vision
A quality “vision” is a clearly articulated business case-
a strategy-mandating how the pursuit of quality advances an organization’s objectives and elicits buy-in from senior executives. However, only 60% say their quality vision is clearly stated, with comparable findings for both quality professionals and senior executives. The figure, meanwhile, descends to 52% for European companies and to 51% for Asia/Pacific companies.
Leadership
Strong leadership, it has already been suggested, is essential to developing and sustaining a culture of quality. But here, only 60% say their management supports the quality vision and values unequivocally. Meanwhile, the gulf between senior executives and
quality professionals reappears here. Specifically, only 54% of quality professionals say their management is unequivocal in its support of quality vision and values compared with 67% of senior executives. The numbers increase to 81% among world-class
businesses but again fall to 52% among those based in
Europe.
Further Study Key Findings
Though 48% overall say that customer needs are the key driver of their quality programs, the figure rises to 71% for world-class companies. In addition, though only 24% overall say their organizations are highly effective in identifying customer needs and expectations for quality, the figure more than doubles to 52% for world-class companies, highlighting another area where attention may be needed.
Only 24% overall strongly agree that they actively involve customers in formal quality discussions, rising to 47% among world-class businesses.
Conclusion
A culture of quality features a handful of readily visible components:
- Clearly engaged and unwavering senior management support for quality initiatives.
- Clearly articulated company vision and values
- Active and ongoing engagement with customers to identify and address current and evolving needs.
- Performance expectations throughout the company that clearly link to quality goals.
To download a PDF of the study and learn what you can apply to your organization, visit the Forbes Insight Website.
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