QUALITY IS AN ATTITUDE
During my interactions with the
Giants of Industry as a Trainer and Facilitator of Soft Skills, I have often
heard “how we wish we could produce zero defect products”. Some managed to
achieve just that and some fell by the wayside. What I learnt from the winners
was that it was a change of attitude about quality which finally won the game.
It was a change right across the board, from the man behind the machine to the
top bosses.
I often times remember one particular day in the Army, as a very young officer, a Second Lieutenant serving in my first Signal Regiment. During our Corps of Signals Reunion celebrations, I was made in charge of the Officers Mess Garden Dinner. I had to organize the drink stalls, various ethnic food stalls, the cooking of food, games and other revelry, arranging for the drivers food and a sundry of other items. Sending out invitation cards was also on my “cards”. The Divisional Commander was our Chief Guest.
A couple of days prior to the Party I was summoned to My Commanding Officers Office (affectionately called “Old Man”). I marched in with some trepidation thinking now where the hell have I fucked up! In those days it was rare to see your Old Man’s face as a young Officer, unless you had really created a Royal shemozzle somewhere.
I hesitatingly walked inside and saluted the “Old Man” and stood to a stiff attention. There were a number of invitation cards lying on his table. He just looked up and thundered, “You bloody bugger, and how do you spell “Rodriguez”? I had missed out the “u” in the name and address crafted upon the invitation cover meant for the General Officer Commanding! All hell broke loose, it was even worse than when we three youngsters had managed to screw up a Rupees ten million microwave mobile radio station, during a unit detachment training drill!
I was awarded 15 extra duty orderly officer “duties” for just a missing “u”. Plus a half hour dressing down, “Today’s young officers irresponsible”, “no sense of commitment”, “careless”, “no sense of quality of work”, “no integrity” and a host of abuses with the choicest of adjectives, some which I had never heard of before. Yet I realized that my old man had taken the trouble to personally check all the spellings on all invitation cards in spite of his other pressing commitments. He knew exactly where quality issues were going to come up so also how to use these as learning tools. He knew what the impact of his firing a Second Lieutenant, for such a small mistake of a missing “u”, was going to be.
I can tell you friends, I learnt a few lessons for life that day. “Pay attention even to the smallest details of what you do”, “If you have to do something do it well or not at all” and “Excellence is a habit”. After all a missing “u” was not going to do much damage, yet a bad connector of a microwave radio system left unchecked, was going to lead to a huge communications failure to a Brigade, may be a large loss of life of those brave men behind the guns facing the enemy.
With that thought I share.
From Here and There :Quality is an Attitude and Attitudes are learned
I often times remember one particular day in the Army, as a very young officer, a Second Lieutenant serving in my first Signal Regiment. During our Corps of Signals Reunion celebrations, I was made in charge of the Officers Mess Garden Dinner. I had to organize the drink stalls, various ethnic food stalls, the cooking of food, games and other revelry, arranging for the drivers food and a sundry of other items. Sending out invitation cards was also on my “cards”. The Divisional Commander was our Chief Guest.
A couple of days prior to the Party I was summoned to My Commanding Officers Office (affectionately called “Old Man”). I marched in with some trepidation thinking now where the hell have I fucked up! In those days it was rare to see your Old Man’s face as a young Officer, unless you had really created a Royal shemozzle somewhere.
I hesitatingly walked inside and saluted the “Old Man” and stood to a stiff attention. There were a number of invitation cards lying on his table. He just looked up and thundered, “You bloody bugger, and how do you spell “Rodriguez”? I had missed out the “u” in the name and address crafted upon the invitation cover meant for the General Officer Commanding! All hell broke loose, it was even worse than when we three youngsters had managed to screw up a Rupees ten million microwave mobile radio station, during a unit detachment training drill!
I was awarded 15 extra duty orderly officer “duties” for just a missing “u”. Plus a half hour dressing down, “Today’s young officers irresponsible”, “no sense of commitment”, “careless”, “no sense of quality of work”, “no integrity” and a host of abuses with the choicest of adjectives, some which I had never heard of before. Yet I realized that my old man had taken the trouble to personally check all the spellings on all invitation cards in spite of his other pressing commitments. He knew exactly where quality issues were going to come up so also how to use these as learning tools. He knew what the impact of his firing a Second Lieutenant, for such a small mistake of a missing “u”, was going to be.
I can tell you friends, I learnt a few lessons for life that day. “Pay attention even to the smallest details of what you do”, “If you have to do something do it well or not at all” and “Excellence is a habit”. After all a missing “u” was not going to do much damage, yet a bad connector of a microwave radio system left unchecked, was going to lead to a huge communications failure to a Brigade, may be a large loss of life of those brave men behind the guns facing the enemy.
With that thought I share.
From Here and There :Quality is an Attitude and Attitudes are learned
Let us assume, rightly or wrongly, that babies are not born with attitudes
(behavior patterns and nature), or if they are, not too many. Babies initially
mimic attitudes from their parents or from those who are ever present in their
little world. As they grow in life, they experiment with copying other
attitudes they see around them (helpful, demanding, loving, belligerent, angry
etc.), and adopt those that produce the results they want. In short, attitudes
are adopted/learnt, by choice. Be it a conscious or unconscious choice, but
definitely by choice.
Unfortunately, the attitude of quality is uncommon, so is seldom adopted. In fact, the opposite is more common, the attitude of anti-quality. Children who enjoy study and score well are eggheads. Those who excel at math are nerds. Neat and well-behaved kids are squares, or whatever the latest derogatory term is. Meticulous, detail-oriented people are nitpickers. Self-respecting teens are prudes.
By the time one reaches adulthood, with all its responsibilities, most people's attitudes are pretty well set like in stone. More often than not, these attitudes include a certain degree of resignation, as evidenced by some common expressions:
"You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
"Good enough for government work."
"You get what you pay for."
"No one expects it to be perfect."
The result is the world we live in happens to be: full of error, mediocrity, bad drivers, school drop-outs, unreliable technology, and daily unpleasant surprises. The idea of quality being a standard operating procedure is completely unthinkable by almost anyone anymore.
Why is it so? Attitudes are adopted or learnt, not innate. Anyone can adopt an attitude. Why not adopt the attitude of doing things as well as you can? Of looking for ways to make things better? Of helping others do things better? No one can make you adopt an attitude, but no one can stop you either. If adopting an attitude of quality means giving up the attitudes of defeat and just-try-to-get-by to make room for it, is it a bad thing?
Quality is created
Things are not the way they are because that's the way they are. Things are the way they are because people make them that way, not cats or dogs or trees or computers. People. If a person wants to do something right, he can. If a lot of people wanted to do things right, then things wouldn't be so wrong.
That's all, a Quality Attitude is: Wanting to do things right. Even if it isn't "necessary." Even if it takes a little longer. Even if you're "not paid enough."
Why bother? Because doing things better gets better results. Neat stuff, like happiness and respect and pride, and who knows, maybe even a raise, or a happier family. You do it long enough, keep doing things better and better, and the sky's the limit. Not overnight, but sooner than you think, and as certainly as the sun will rise.
The first thing to recognize and acknowledge about quality is that “it is real”.
Quality is not some ideal that can only be talked about in the abstract. Nor is quality an imaginary concept. The proof of this is easy: if quality did not exist, its absence would not be noticeable. Yet you and I notice the lack of quality every day, in errors, and things that don’t work, and inappropriate actions, and bad drivers. When does one notice the absence of something? It is when one is expecting its presence. One does not expect the presence of things that are not real. You don’t expect a dinosaur, so you don’t notice its absence. You do expect a clean fork in a restaurant, so you notice a dirty one. This actually shows something else about quality: people expect it. At some gut level, people know that quality is real, and that is how things should be. They expect that, when they hit a nail with a hammer, the head of the hammer won’t fly off. They expect when they board an airplane that the airplane won’t crash. It’s just not something most people think about any more than they think about whether the sun will rise.
The second thing to know about Quality is that there is too little of it.
Since people generally don’t think about quality, they don’t have much attention on it. It is not a factor in their calculations in the day-to-day processes of living. Except when it is demanded of them, people do not take quality into account in their actions or decisions. Time, money, and entertainment value are all higher in people’s minds than quality. This is harsh, but it is true.
How hard is it to find an auto mechanic you can trust? How often do you wait in line longer than should be necessary? How many of your friends complain about their children, or spouse? How often is your name spelled wrong? The more you look for lack of quality, the more you can find. Why, just start counting unwashed basins in your toilets.
Why is this important, that there is too little quality? Because I want it to be fully understood about the potential you are playing with here. It doesn’t take a whole lot of improvement to reach higher levels in anything. Thus it doesn’t take a lot of effort to move up. You only have to build a mound of earth a few inches high to stand above the crowd. This analogy only goes so far, but I hope you get the point: there is plenty of room to advance into, and not much competition.
The third truth about quality is that it is under your control.
No one can make you do anything better than you are willing and able to do. Another person can order you, beg you, bribe you, threaten you, or otherwise try to make you do something better, but they cannot climb into your skin and run your mind and body. This is a good thing. What they think is better may or may not be the same thing that you think is better, it’s a question of perception. On the other hand, and more important, no one can stop you from doing something better. They can put obstacles in your way, insult you, delay you, or betray you, but they cannot stop you. They may even be able to prevent you from reaching your highest goals, but they can’t stop you from moving in that direction. Part of this truth about quality being under your control is deciding how important the quality of something is to you. You might care very much how your food tastes, while another will eat anything.
Mahato needs a new bike, while Mishra is happy with an old one. You might agree that Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer ever, but you think he is wasting his life on a silly game. That particular measure of quality is not important to you, and certainly not something you would put any energy into improving in yourself. You may decide that the quality of your marriage is very important to you, and worth some effort. So when I say quality is under your control, I mean you decide how good you want something to be and how much effort you are willing to put into making it that good. No one else can make those decisions for you, or stop you from making them for yourself.
The fourth truth about quality is that it measures workability.
“Superiority to others in its class” must contain the element of workability. One computer program may be more elegant and effective than another for a particular purpose, but be so difficult to operate that it is almost impossible to learn. It is not workable. It is not actually superior, at least not for most people.
The same would go for a machine or a cricket playbook. Great cricket plays are low quality if they can’t be run. I remember seeing a system for keeping track of the maintenance of a fleet of buses. The paperwork was so involved, down to keeping track of the location and use of every nut and bolt that I could tell it would never be fully used, would not produce the desired result, would waste huge numbers of man-hours on paperwork that could never be complete or accurate, and would lead to worse maintenance than already existed. It was a beautiful piece of work, and completely unworkable.
How do you measure quality in a husband? If your concept of the ideal husband is one who rules his family with an iron fist, considers his wife as a convenience and his kids as annoyances, but holds a job and pays the bills, you run into this truth about workability. That ideal does not prove to be workable. The wife and kids are not happy, maybe they even leave the husband, but they do not work together as a family. There are constant upsets and battles, and no cooperation. It is not a happy scene. Here is the bottom line: “if your scene is not a happy scene, a lack of quality exists”.
Something is not workable in the direction you have been going. Maybe you haven’t even been going in any particular direction. On the other hand, if your scene is getting better, maybe it’s not everything you want it to be but it is moving in that direction, then quality exists, and is increasing. What you are doing is working.
So keep a few things in mind. Things can be better. Your life can be better. Your job can be better. The world can be better. Quality is first and foremost an attitude. It's yours for the taking. Adopt it and win.
Unfortunately, the attitude of quality is uncommon, so is seldom adopted. In fact, the opposite is more common, the attitude of anti-quality. Children who enjoy study and score well are eggheads. Those who excel at math are nerds. Neat and well-behaved kids are squares, or whatever the latest derogatory term is. Meticulous, detail-oriented people are nitpickers. Self-respecting teens are prudes.
By the time one reaches adulthood, with all its responsibilities, most people's attitudes are pretty well set like in stone. More often than not, these attitudes include a certain degree of resignation, as evidenced by some common expressions:
"You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
"Good enough for government work."
"You get what you pay for."
"No one expects it to be perfect."
The result is the world we live in happens to be: full of error, mediocrity, bad drivers, school drop-outs, unreliable technology, and daily unpleasant surprises. The idea of quality being a standard operating procedure is completely unthinkable by almost anyone anymore.
Why is it so? Attitudes are adopted or learnt, not innate. Anyone can adopt an attitude. Why not adopt the attitude of doing things as well as you can? Of looking for ways to make things better? Of helping others do things better? No one can make you adopt an attitude, but no one can stop you either. If adopting an attitude of quality means giving up the attitudes of defeat and just-try-to-get-by to make room for it, is it a bad thing?
Quality is created
Things are not the way they are because that's the way they are. Things are the way they are because people make them that way, not cats or dogs or trees or computers. People. If a person wants to do something right, he can. If a lot of people wanted to do things right, then things wouldn't be so wrong.
That's all, a Quality Attitude is: Wanting to do things right. Even if it isn't "necessary." Even if it takes a little longer. Even if you're "not paid enough."
Why bother? Because doing things better gets better results. Neat stuff, like happiness and respect and pride, and who knows, maybe even a raise, or a happier family. You do it long enough, keep doing things better and better, and the sky's the limit. Not overnight, but sooner than you think, and as certainly as the sun will rise.
The first thing to recognize and acknowledge about quality is that “it is real”.
Quality is not some ideal that can only be talked about in the abstract. Nor is quality an imaginary concept. The proof of this is easy: if quality did not exist, its absence would not be noticeable. Yet you and I notice the lack of quality every day, in errors, and things that don’t work, and inappropriate actions, and bad drivers. When does one notice the absence of something? It is when one is expecting its presence. One does not expect the presence of things that are not real. You don’t expect a dinosaur, so you don’t notice its absence. You do expect a clean fork in a restaurant, so you notice a dirty one. This actually shows something else about quality: people expect it. At some gut level, people know that quality is real, and that is how things should be. They expect that, when they hit a nail with a hammer, the head of the hammer won’t fly off. They expect when they board an airplane that the airplane won’t crash. It’s just not something most people think about any more than they think about whether the sun will rise.
The second thing to know about Quality is that there is too little of it.
Since people generally don’t think about quality, they don’t have much attention on it. It is not a factor in their calculations in the day-to-day processes of living. Except when it is demanded of them, people do not take quality into account in their actions or decisions. Time, money, and entertainment value are all higher in people’s minds than quality. This is harsh, but it is true.
How hard is it to find an auto mechanic you can trust? How often do you wait in line longer than should be necessary? How many of your friends complain about their children, or spouse? How often is your name spelled wrong? The more you look for lack of quality, the more you can find. Why, just start counting unwashed basins in your toilets.
Why is this important, that there is too little quality? Because I want it to be fully understood about the potential you are playing with here. It doesn’t take a whole lot of improvement to reach higher levels in anything. Thus it doesn’t take a lot of effort to move up. You only have to build a mound of earth a few inches high to stand above the crowd. This analogy only goes so far, but I hope you get the point: there is plenty of room to advance into, and not much competition.
The third truth about quality is that it is under your control.
No one can make you do anything better than you are willing and able to do. Another person can order you, beg you, bribe you, threaten you, or otherwise try to make you do something better, but they cannot climb into your skin and run your mind and body. This is a good thing. What they think is better may or may not be the same thing that you think is better, it’s a question of perception. On the other hand, and more important, no one can stop you from doing something better. They can put obstacles in your way, insult you, delay you, or betray you, but they cannot stop you. They may even be able to prevent you from reaching your highest goals, but they can’t stop you from moving in that direction. Part of this truth about quality being under your control is deciding how important the quality of something is to you. You might care very much how your food tastes, while another will eat anything.
Mahato needs a new bike, while Mishra is happy with an old one. You might agree that Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer ever, but you think he is wasting his life on a silly game. That particular measure of quality is not important to you, and certainly not something you would put any energy into improving in yourself. You may decide that the quality of your marriage is very important to you, and worth some effort. So when I say quality is under your control, I mean you decide how good you want something to be and how much effort you are willing to put into making it that good. No one else can make those decisions for you, or stop you from making them for yourself.
The fourth truth about quality is that it measures workability.
“Superiority to others in its class” must contain the element of workability. One computer program may be more elegant and effective than another for a particular purpose, but be so difficult to operate that it is almost impossible to learn. It is not workable. It is not actually superior, at least not for most people.
The same would go for a machine or a cricket playbook. Great cricket plays are low quality if they can’t be run. I remember seeing a system for keeping track of the maintenance of a fleet of buses. The paperwork was so involved, down to keeping track of the location and use of every nut and bolt that I could tell it would never be fully used, would not produce the desired result, would waste huge numbers of man-hours on paperwork that could never be complete or accurate, and would lead to worse maintenance than already existed. It was a beautiful piece of work, and completely unworkable.
How do you measure quality in a husband? If your concept of the ideal husband is one who rules his family with an iron fist, considers his wife as a convenience and his kids as annoyances, but holds a job and pays the bills, you run into this truth about workability. That ideal does not prove to be workable. The wife and kids are not happy, maybe they even leave the husband, but they do not work together as a family. There are constant upsets and battles, and no cooperation. It is not a happy scene. Here is the bottom line: “if your scene is not a happy scene, a lack of quality exists”.
Something is not workable in the direction you have been going. Maybe you haven’t even been going in any particular direction. On the other hand, if your scene is getting better, maybe it’s not everything you want it to be but it is moving in that direction, then quality exists, and is increasing. What you are doing is working.
So keep a few things in mind. Things can be better. Your life can be better. Your job can be better. The world can be better. Quality is first and foremost an attitude. It's yours for the taking. Adopt it and win.
Ajay
2 comments:
Very well said uncle. A lot to learn from your experience...I shall make my daughter read this too...never too late or early to start learning good values.
Thank you Aradhana ! Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious !!
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