QIEB FAQ

Why should everyone in my organization be so focused on quality?

Attaining Quality requires the dedication of the whole universe of stakeholders – people that you interact and communicate with… every supplier and distributor as well as every manager and frontline worker and, of course, your friends and family. The quality mission belongs to all the people, all the time, and cannot be fostered onto one department or a particular person.

What does it mean to “adopt a Quality Mindset”?

The pursuit of quality is a personal responsibility, reflected in every aspect of your work and your life. When you make a decision, do you ask yourself whether it will improve your customers’ experience with the company? Do you consider whether it will improve your motivation or the people you work with? People in a position of power, whether leading a team or heading up a family, have a special duty to constantly reinforce that message, delivering it in every meeting and encounter they have… and by walking the talk, demonstrating their own commitment to quality in their own lives. For example, at your meetings, do you make sure that everyone has a chance to speak his or her mind? In the end, the pursuit of quality applies to “all the people, all the time.”

What do you mean by quality?

We define Quality with a capital “Q” because this is where everything begins: the Quality of discussions you have with your peers, subordinates and leaders; the Quality of interactions you have with suppliers, vendors, and other service providers; the Quality of attitudes toward every detail that makes your business YOUR business. Quality means listening hard to others and to yourself, enriching the lives around you by giving a little more every day, and optimizing everything you do by setting your mind to excellence.

What value does this have on my organization?

A philosophy like this is a bold step. It can enhance what you perceive as a quality policy or mission statement and transform it into a shared vision with everyone in the organization. By making “Quality” your guiding principle, you create a culture where “everyone” in the organization is personally responsible for everything that happens. As a business management consultancy, we help support the MVVGP by enforcing what you currently have in place. We also help you take that extra step forward to really get your entire workforce, from the C-Suite, down to the production worker, to adapt to focus on what it means to uphold Honesty, Integrity, Ethical Behavior and the Resistance to Compromise to drive daily behaviors.

What do you mean “not to change, but enhance what you currently have in place”?

In addition, using aspects of the Quality Mindset should begin to foster behavior changes within your organization – hopefully truly enhancing the current MVVGP. Ideally, once people become familiar and comfortable with QIEB, we’ll see them change their attitudes and beliefs relative to Quality. In the past when a problem would have occurred, we would expect many people in the organization to say “the problem belongs to someone else” or “it’s not my job.” Once the Quality Mindset takes hold and compliment the current MVVGP, we now expect that when a problem occurs to have the majority of the people in your organization say “the problem belongs to me or I can help or do something to solve or fix that problem.” If each person starts with the mindset that the problem belongs to me, and each one truly has a Quality Mindset, then the problems will disappear. So, having a Quality Mindset is critical and ideally supports the overall MVVGP.

What’s the ideal implementation model for this program?

We believe that this program is best deployed from the Human Relations operations of your organization. HR operations typically reaches out to every employee at every level of any organization multiple times throughout the year. They’re perceived as non-threatening, but, by the same token, they are also perceived as powerful and influential. QIEB by its names, requires that everyone in the organization be exposed to its contents, who better to lead that effort than someone (some organization) that has the ability to touch everyone in the organization – HR. That’s why approaching HR with this product and its philosophy makes so much sense.

Why do I have to have everybody in my organization participate in QIEB?

The short answer is because Quality is not limited to one person. That’s why this program requires that everyone in the organization be exposed to its contents. Change based on Quality – if it is to have a lasting effect – requires full adoption and acculturation. That means everyone in the organization must be exposed to the concepts of this program. Everyone must start down the path of achieving a quality mindset. Having a quality mindset is a way of changing how you think and behave. It’s about observing and understanding, really listening to your family, your friends and your customers. It’s about exploring and discovering; doing everything you can to find the best solution – not necessarily the easiest solution, but the best solution possible. And it’s about improving and perfecting everything you do, every day. Having a quality mindset means that good isn’t good enough!

How do I know if this is really applicable to everyone in my organization?

Quality, as we have defined it here is absolutely applicable to everyone in your organization. We have benchmarked the leading programs in the world and designed the presentation of these concepts so that it appeals and has meaning to everyone, from the CEO down to the shop floor. We excel, and are extremely passionate, at taking complex topics on quality and process and making them easy to understand and utilize through a fictionalized “tale” or story approach, which is the basis for this QIEB program. It relies on enthusiasm of “people power” and “process power;” a system of involving people throughout an organization to aid in identifying errors and changing processes to prevent them, being open to creative ideas to produce mistake-free customer satisfaction leading to everyone being responsible for quality.

Does this work for organizations involved in products and services?

Our research shows that this approach is applicable for any type of business from the most complex aerospace satellite manufacturer to the organic food store down the street. Whether you’re in a service business or a manufacturing business the principles of Quality and QIEB still apply. You have customers who voice their needs, wants and desires, which your service-based organization must strive to meet and/or exceed using the most appropriate tools, processes and procedures.

Is this program based on any other research or work?

This program relies on the principles expressed in the book The Power of LEO: Listen, Enrich, and Optimize

Listen hard to your customers, suppliers, co-workers and your competition. See what works and what doesn’t. Listen some more and empathize with all your stakeholders until you “get” what they need, how they define Quality and what it takes to make them delighted and enthused with you, your employees and your company and ultimately the services you offer and provide.

Enrich means making your processes better by introducing greater Quality. Service companies, and for that matter any company that thinks of Enriching, needs to have a strong desire to change how they currently do things. They must also be willing to think creatively and finally they must have an urge to improve everything they do.

Optimize means that once you and your entire organization have gotten the processes and procedures honed down and working to meet and exceed the needs, wants and desires of your customers, both internal and external, then you must keep raising the bar by optimizing what you have learned.

What does the program cost?

Placing a hard cost to implement this program ensures that it has the attention and visibility of the senior leadership of the organization. It also places a value on ensuring that this will succeed and be successful. It gives some “teeth” to its implementation and continued use and when supported properly, will ultimately provide an ROI many times greater than the initial one-time cost of this program. But we are ‘workable’ – just give us a call.