John C. Maxwell, the noted author and lecturer, in his book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" asked, “Who is your legacy?” Essentially Maxwell was asking with whom are we working to prepare to take over when we are no longer leading?
The path to upward mobility has changed over the past few years. For decades, the way to ‘climb the ladder’ happened in a few ways. Obviously being born into a family-owned business established a surefire guarantee. Other paths were a college degree, marriage, or hard work and promotions.
As time progresses, we continue to learn a great deal about quality. We have embedded quality in our processes, our measurement systems, and even our relationships. Although we still have much to learn, one cannot help but marvel at the transforming impact of quality.
When researching material for my thesis many years ago, I discovered there was no “silver bullet” for the organizational model for a continuous improvement effort. There is no single model that works for everyone; it varies from organization to organization.
Quality 4.0 integrates the features from Industry 4.0 with traditional quality tools to achieve operational excellence, improved overall performance, and innovation. Quality 4.0 combines people, processes, and technologies to accomplish these goals, along with complete digitalization of quality management systems theory.
Continuous improvement activities might be more commonplace today, but how did it evolve? Though not prevalent in all industries, the concepts are widespread throughout many organizations.
In a recent quality management class, group discussion centered on frustration in the workplace resulting from lack of appropriate employee recognition. Several people recounted how disappointing it was to go “above and beyond” only to find there was little appreciation for what was accomplished.
Even in a normal year, achieving high levels of quality is no small feat; it's a daily challenge that requires buy-in from everyone. This year, as COVID-19 wreaked havoc on supply chains, worker safety and consumer demand, maintaining high levels of quality became a nearly superhuman feat.
Back in the day when attending live, face-to-face conferences was “a thing,” I always looked forward to the breaks when I could join my peers around that long, huge table put out by the hotel offering a variety of Danishes, fruit, and of course, coffee.
At first glance, you might think I’m losing it with the title of this month’s rant. After all, who would pay anything for ‘zero’ or nothing? It turns out a lot of people try to get ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’ and end up with more than they bargained for at a very high cost to get there.