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.

If anyone has been in quality for some time, they have probably encountered managers who have painful connections to quality. It is likely that some managers would describe their experience as overwhelmingly negative. Some of these people extend these feeling into anything having to do with quality.

In a recent gathering of quality professionals, the subject of unsuccessful change implementation surfaced. Most people understand change is necessary for survival, but in this era it is happening at an unprecedented, almost vertical rate. The bottom line though is that change is uncomfortable for most and it is common for people to resist change.

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About twenty years ago I was asked to make a presentation on calibration to a meeting of a local chapter of the National Conference of Standards Laboratories. 

A company with a highly developed culture of quality spends, on average, $350M less annually fixing mistakes than a company with a poorly developed one (Harvard Business Review, 2014). 

How much time do most people spend thinking about success and how it is achieved? Likely not as much as we should because the world really revolves around success or elements of success.