Five Moments in Quality That Changed My Life

They would have changed your life, too

Evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould is best known for his history of punctuated equilibrium, a revision to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium holds that new species evolve suddenly over brief periods of time, followed by longer periods during which there is no genetic change.

New ideas, like new species, also seem to adhere to Gould’s theory. Every now and then, we have these “moments” that profoundly change our accepted beliefs and open our minds to entirely new perspectives. These are five of mine.

1. Chicago, 1988

Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, now 70 years old, was giving a speech to a group of managers who thought Fedex’s whole quality movement was utterly ridiculous. “Our company is all about productivity! Why all this talk about quality?”

Up on the whiteboard Smith wrote the symbolic equation between quality and productivity:

Q = P

Then he explained that quality improvement leads to productivity improvement, when productivity is defined as:

…

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Comments

Great Article

I am impressed with the articles Quality Digest publishes each week. This one by Jeff Dewar is one of the best. Thanks for being a quality magazine on quality.

Thanks Bob. It was quite

Thanks Bob. It was quite enjoyable to think back over the years about which experiences truly made a difference. Jeff

Great article - one question

Great article, good experiences worth sharing. In it, you state that "employees actually want to produce perfect quality".

I have believed this for years but have been disappointed time after time. It seems that some employees just want to get through the day and go home. Correcting an obvious problem creates extra work for them and they prefer to avoid the hassle. So they ignore and hide the problem so the next guy can deal with it. In my experience, the majority of employees respond well to expectations, asking for help, and pointing out problems (andon-type approach). However, some of them seem to just want to get through the day with as little effort as possible.

Someone please convince me I'm wrong or help me reach those that don't "actually want to produce perfect quality".

Thank you.

Hi Bill, One of my mentors,

Hi Bill, One of my mentors, and a great guy to work for, once said, "I've never fired anyone. I simply free them up for future career opportunities." I think the hard reality is that some people aren't cut out for the team you're trying to build. Nevertheless, some "rehab" can be effective in producing behavioral change, particularly when those individuals are accountable to their peers (rather than just the boss), and giving the team the responsibility for achieving the results. Responsibility to the immediate team has countless benefits in creating a new perspective in how one works with others. Johnsonville Sausage did some amazing things in this regard starting back in the 1980s, as one example. Jeff

I used this article for one

I used this article for one my research assignments for a college course and it actually got me thinking. Your article definitely helped put my professor's teachings into perspective. Thanks!