Understanding Quality

Every week, I sit in meetings listening to people talk about the future of their company. And every week, someone will share with me that the key to success is that “we must improve quality.” Nine times out of ten, they are right on one level. The difficulty is that most of the people around the table hold a different definition and metric for defining what is quality.

Now for me, every time I hear the word “quality” I think of the following quote: “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This happens because what I may consider as the driver that results in quality is often seen as the problem by someone else.

Therefore, I always engage with those who are talking about improving quality by referencing the work of Margaret Wheatley. As she explains “When confronted with an unknown, we default to a known.” It is this default that is getting in the way when improving quality. In essence, what I have learned over the decades of doing this work and dealing with the subject of improving quality is that it begins in the eye of the beholder. My personal definition, experiences, and understanding of quality supersedes all other definitions of quality.

With this in mind, we as leaders must understand that organizational quality is a reflection of and the sum of personal choices. In short, it is individual clarity about quality that generates organizational outcomes related to quality.

This week, when you check in with your key people, begin an in-depth exploration into their personal definition of quality. It will be well worth the time and effort as you plan for the future.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Understanding Status Quo

Ron Heiftz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in their book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press, 2009) write that status quo is elegant and tenacious. As they explain, “Yesterday’s adaptive pressures, problems, and opportunities generated creative and successful responses in the organization that evolved through trial and error into new and refined structures, cultural norms and default processes and mind-sets…. Yesterday’s adaptive challenges are today’s technical problems.”

What we have to recognize as adaptive leaders is that “over time, the structures, culture, defaults that make up an organizational system become deeply ingrained, self-reinforcing, and very difficult to reshape.” Thus, many leaders and organizations “get trapped by their current ways of doing things, simply because these ways worked in the past.”

When taking the first step to solving adaptive problems, the authors recommend you “get on the balcony” so you can see how your organizational system is responding to adaptive challenges and problems. This popular metaphor of getting on the balcony is based on the understanding that there is a “dance floor” or “practice field,” where you work on a day to day basis, and then there is a “balcony”, where you can see the bigger picture. This concept is very familiar to this who have read the book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen where these two authors talk about how leaders zoom out before zooming in to deal with a problem. From the balcony, adaptive leaders are able to gain a better understanding of their company’s structures, culture and defaults, i.e. “its habitual ways of responding to problems.”

This week, give yourself permission to spend more time on the balcony than the dance floor. Then, spend more time understanding how status quo is working and what are the defaults within your organization. This depth of work will help when it comes to designing effective new solutions. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257