Clearly define top management’s permanent commitment to ever improving quality and
productivity, and their obligation to implement all of these principles. Indeed, it is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to—that is, what they must do. Create a structure in top management that will push every day on the preceding 13 Points, and take action in order to accomplish the transformation. Support is not enough: action is required!

Dr. W. Edwards Deming

What is Management’s Job – Commitment to Action

One of my father’s favorite sayings was, “lead, follow or get out of the way”. Management’s job is to lead. There must be a commitment to constant and on-going improvement. Each and every morning, management must look at their operation and decide what needs improvement and make a commitment to take action.

The Price of Failed Commitment to Action

If management does not make a commitment to constant and on-going improvement, it
will not happen. Management does not have to implement  the change but they must lead the change or their employees will end up building internal empires or chasing projects with
a lower value to the company.

Part of creating this commitment is developing a structure that guides the employees to
an on-going commitment of improvements in quality and productivity. Management must establish a system, indicate its’ importance to the company and demonstrate their own commitment to constantly and forever improving. It does not have to be fancy, but management must believe and support it.

The Call for Commitment to Action

There is a childhood chant, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will
never hurt me.” I wish it were true. How many suicides were prompted by cruel words? Words have power, the power to build up or the power to tear down.When management stands up and says “this is who we are and this is what we stand for” it can change the world.

My first job was with an ethical pharmaceutical company. We had a simple rule,
“Would you want your child to take this medicine?” If the answer was no, we threw it away. Every person on the line had the ability to call the supervisor and point out a problem. Each and every person on that line knew the importance of what they did and that attitude came from the top down. The VP of manufacturing walked through the plant several times a day and any operator
could stop him with a question or a concern. We had power and pride.

So what are you going to do, lead, follow or get out of the way?

If you stop training with the basics you will get a bored and desctructive dog and employee

Encourage education

Institute a vigorous program of education, and encourage self improvement for everyone. What an organization needs is not just good people; it needs people that are improving with education. Advances in competitive position will have their roots in knowledge.

Dr.W. Edwards Deming

Education the antidote to boredom

One of the interesting things I love about training in German Shepherds is they love to learn. It takes about two years to get one to search ready status but that
is only the begin. If you try to stop there, you will get a bored and probably
destructive dog. Instead we train new skills; air scent, then tracking,
obstacles, human remains, evidence articles, the list is as long as your imagination. The dogs love it and the benefit to the search team is a strong and capable canine with the ability to always get the job done no matter what the job is.

People aren’t that much different. Someone who does the same tasks year after year without change can get bored and stale. Providing regular and varied education keeps a person’s mindsharp. When it comes time for someone to come up with a new idea the person who you trained will most likely be the one to come up with the answer.

Encourage Education in the Hourly Workforce

  My first job as a production supervisor was an education in itself. I had one employee that was intelligent and articulate but kept making serious mistakes. This was a person I wanted to promote and instead I was regularly writing up violations for the silliest of mistakes. It was coming to the point where I was going to have to terminate this individual. As I reviewed his personnel file, I found a note he had written giving a friend permission to pick up the employee’s paycheck. I started to see a glimmer of the problem. The next day I had the man read a procedure and sign off that he had read and understood it. He made a good show of taking time on each page and flipping pages. As he tried to make his exit from my office, I had him sit down and we discussed the procedure. It didn’t take long for us both to know he couldn’t read. I got him signed up with literacy volunteers and it wasn’t long before the problems we had been experiencing went away. Encouraging education made the difference for both the employee and the company.

Encourage Education in the Salaried Workforce

As a person gains experience, it can be difficult to find courses being offered in their field where they should be the student. In more than a few cases, I’ve taken courses where the professor posted their credentials and I realized my credentials were better. I could leave and demand my money back or I could sit there and listen. When I have chosen to sit and listen, I generally find a kernel of wisdom I hadn’t thought of. It generates a whole new train of thought that just may solve a problem I’ve been working on. I also started studying Spanish, I don’t think translators jobs are in jeopardy but thinking in a new language helps me come up with a new perspective. Encourage education for both your employees and yourselfto reap long term benefits.

Save penny, save a pound

This is going to be a running article to see how much we can save companies and
individuals, simply by changing habits. Technacon Company Inc. is looking for
your ideas to see what we can save the average person - and put more money
in the implementer’s pocket – Cha-ching. We want to help people go green and save green.

 Here are the rules for Go Green Save Green:

1. No investment – In today’s economy making payroll is a struggle so the savings has to come from changing habits
2. Calculate annual savings – To keep everything apples to
   apples, calculate the savings for a year. If the savings is for a single item,
   say a computer or a vehicle, note the savings for a single item and if you have
   a reliable source that gives the average number per company or household,
   reference the source and give the finally average savings.
3. And the Winner Receives - The person that offers the most
   savings ideas will have their choice of a free signed copy of “The Dog
   Next Door and Other Stories of the Dogs We Love” http://www.amazon.com/Dog-Next-Door-Other-Stories/
   or “Dangerous Turn Ahead”http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Turn-Ahead/,
   the opportunity to guest blog at Technacon.com and a link to their website.

The first suggestion for go green save green was tweeted on Friday, September 9th:

If you turn off your company’s computers when they aren’t in use it you will save about $20 a year.

Here is the go green save green calculation:

Assume the average person pays $.11/KW
https://www.comed.com/

A computer in sleep mode uses 18 KWa year for $1.98

The average number of employees per business in the USA is 16 (see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/279843.html),
assuming 2/3 of these employees have their own computer in their work area
(10.56) The total is $20.91.

An alternative view can be found at
http://www.brighthub.com/environment/green-computing/articles/9351.aspx or http://dssw.co.uk/research/computer_energy_consumption.html#_Toc29375315

Here is a reference website used in this go green to save green calculation  http://www.energysavers.gov/pdfs/energy_savers.pdf

Unfortunately, they couldn’t be more wrong.

The Start of the Green Revolution

In the early 1990′s, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the environmental standard ISO 14000 as a response to conservation initiatives from the 1970′s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14000.Unlike the more well known ISO 9000 Quality Standard, ISO 14000 was not required by most clients, for one simple reason, all cost benefits went to the implementer. ISO 9000 allowed clients to eliminate costly auditing staff, supplier audits and incoming inspection. There was a direct benefit to the
client to insist the supplier implement ISO 9000. The benefit for the implementation of ISO 14000 was indirect so many companies did not include it as a requirement to do business with them.

Why Aren’t Business Owners joining the Green Revolution

Suppliers had limited resources and meeting the customer requirements was the first priority. ISO 14000 got lost in the shuffle as few people had time to analyze the standard and realize the cost benefits.

How does ISO 14000 Relate to the Green Revolution?

The purpose of ISO 14000 standard is to create a continuous improvement process to reduce consumption and waste. If a company can make more product using less materials and energy, and has to pay less to process waste, the unit cost of producing their product is reduced. This gives the business owner the option of increasing profits or reducing price and increasing sales. Still business
owners did not see ISO 14000 as something they wanted to pursue. To make it more palatable to the average business owner, ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 have been gradually changing to make them so similar they can be implemented through thesame process and systems. Companies already meeting ISO 9000 will have little or no difficulty incorporating ISO 14000.

Frequently the barrier to implementing continuous improvement in reduced consumption and waste is a capital investment.http://technacon.com/… However, due to the Green Revolution significant grants are available to help
companies across this hurdle. Now is the time to embrace the Green Revolution, implement ISO 14000 and increase profitability. Joining the Green Revolution could make more business sense than it does today.

Permit pride of workmanship
Remove the barriers that rob hourly workers, and people in management, of their
right to pride of workmanship. This implies, among other things, abolition of
the annual merit rating (appraisal of performance) and of Management by
Objective. Again, the responsibility of managers, supervisors, foremen must be
changed from sheer numbers to quality.

Dr.W. Edwards Deming

The Never Ending Motivator – Pride of Workmanship

There was a Disney movie about the Jamaican bobsled team, titled “Cool
Runnings”. One of the characters, Junior, lacked self-confidence. He
lacked pride in workmanship. One of his teammates gave him guidance. He had
Junior look into the mirror and see “pride” and “power” and a “crazy [person] that
didn’t take nothing from nobody”. It was a turning point for both Junior and
ultimately the team. Creating that kind of pride in workmanship in employees is
the most effective thing a manager can do.

The manager doesn’t need to stand over the operator or pour through charts to see
if the employee did it right. The manager could go play golf because the person
with pride of workmanship is making the best part possible without supervision.

Instilling Pride of Workmanship

When I worked in pharmaceuticals, pride of workmanship was the first thing we
instilled. We simply asked each employee to ask themselves one question;
“Would you want your loved one to take this particular bottle of medicine?”. If the answer was “no”, we didn’t want to sell it
because someone’s loved one would be taking it.

I’ve had clients say to me, yes but something like medicine is easy to create pride in workmanship but our
product isn’t. Generally, I ask them where is the product used and if it fails
what is the worst that can happen. A plastic disposable cover can be sharp and
cut the user or provide a choking hazard. A component in a car or truck or
school bus can fail and the vehicle could crash.

If you can do a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis, you have a tool for instilling pride of workmanship. If
the IT system fails will a company shutdown and put people out of work? If a
report is sloppy and sends management down a wrong path will the company close?
If a customer service rep is surly and the client goes somewhere else, what is
the long run impact on the company? It is the manager’s job to teach the
employee why they are important to the company and should take pride in
workmanship.

Killing Pride of Workmanship

Unfortunately, killing pride of workmanship is all too easy. Ignore an employee when they warn
you of a problem. Ta-da, pride in workmanship just took a major blow and
“I just keep my head down and my mouth shut and collect my pay”
becomes the attitude of the day. Give the employee bad tools, either machines
needing maintenance or reports filled with bad or missing information and the
result is a loss of pride in workmanship. Set an arbitrary goal the employee
can not possible achieve and you rob them of pride of workmanship. Tell the
employee to do a task, reprimand them if they do it wrong but don’t give them
the tools to measure and know if they did it right or wrong and frustration
will kill pride of workmanship. Killing pride of workmanship is way too easy.

You Matter = Pride in Workmanship

To create and maintain pride in workmanship in your staff, make sure they know
they matter. Listen if they tell you “there is a problem” and don’t
shoot the messenger. If they are wrong take the time to make sure they know why
it isn’t a problem.

Each time a manager helps to grow the understanding of an
employee in job knowledge, the manager creates pride in workmanship. The cost
is small, no big raise, no creative title, just recognition that the employee
makes a difference in the overall performance of the company.

When a manager creates pride in workmanship their employees they create the best sales tool in
the world – consistent high quality product. When an employee knows they are
creating high quality product their pride in workmanship increases and the
company reaps the benefit.

Is your management review a continuous improvement tool or an arbitrary numerical target?

Doing it Wrong – Management by Arbitrary Numerical Targets

Doing it Right – Management by Continuous Improvement not Arbitrary Numerical Targets

Which Way Are You – Management Review to Eliminate Arbitrary Numerical Targets

Eliminate the use of slogans, posters and exhortations for the work force, demanding Zero Defects and new levels of productivity, without providing methods. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships; the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system, and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming

A Company that Should Eliminate Exhortations

“We have decided to move the factory to Mexico so we have a workforce motivated to produce the quality of product we want. We need people who care about their jobs instead of just collecting a paycheck,” My boss said. With that pronouncement my job and that of a couple of hundred other people’s disappeared.

                I don’t know what happened in Mexico. What I do know is if the tooling made the move, the quality didn’t improve. The real issue came from the design of the tooling. It was a design developed by the owner/president of the company and no amount of information facts, presentations of alternatives would get us approval to change the dies. It was the foundation we were built on, too bad it was shifting sand and not rock. Top management seemed to think slogans were all they needed to improve quality. They needed to eliminate exhortations and listen.

The attitude and efforts of the workforce had little to do with the defect level. The tooling issues and managements approach to problems had a lot to do with the opinion the workforce had of management and their frustrations. Middle managers understood the employees aggrevation, given a choice they would eliminate exhortations and nifty motivational posters and spent the money on things that would have made a difference.

A Company that Did Eliminate Exhortations

Another place I worked started a team campaign at problem solving. They set up a symbol of a triangle with “quality” at the top and “delivery” and “price” at the other corners. The idea if you have good quality, on-time delivery and fair price will follow. They took suggestions from the workforce as to quality issues and shared data analysis of customer complaints. The team members came from across all levels in the company and titles were checked at the door. The results was continuous improvement and increased sales. A side benefit was a motivated workforce. Actions spoke louder than words, they could eliminate the exhortations without a negative impact.

Summary: Eliminate Exhortations that Are Meaningless

The difference in these two companies was top management attitude. One wanted to blame the workforce and would not listen to potential solutions. Their efforts consisted of buying motivational posters when they needed to eliminate exhortations. The other listened and explained their actions. A slogan or nifty poster isn’t going to make an employee produce better work, listening and removing roadblocks communicating why something can’t be done even if it is a good idea will make a difference. Let’s follow Dr. Demings point and eliminate exhortations.

Mowing Less = Reducing Pollution

Control Landscaping Cost While Reducing Pollution

by Nancy Schumm, Schumm Consulting LLC

One way for business owners to reduce pollution adjacent to waterways like streams, rivers, detention basins and lakes, is to replace traditional landscaping with native landscaping buffers.  Similar to the USDA programs for reducing run-off from farms, businesses may qualify for federal or local grants for protecting and improving water quality by adding native landscaping features to their property.  

Native Plants Assist in Reducing Pollution

Native plants are identified by their heritage, as they were indigenous to the region prior to European settlement.  These plants require less maintenance than non-native plants because they have deep-roots adapted to our clay soils and our climate.  Native plants, once established, don’t require constant irrigation, pruning, or mowing.  They also naturally filter nutrients and act like sponges in our soils.  As a consequence they reduce pollution and in some cases flooding by absorbing more water at the site rather than allowing it to flow off-site.  Using native landscaping as a buffer to waterways can reduce pollution by as much as 95%. 

 Native landscaping, installed by competent companies who specialize in this work reduces traditional landscaping bills significantly.  Imagine not having weekly maintenance expenses or significant water bills for irrigation systems that will no longer be needed?  Other advantages to native landscaping are that they provide opportunities to form new community partnerships, gain good publicity in the green marketplace for the company, and improve community aesthetics. 

An excellent example of a recently completed project is the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center who recently received a Conservation Award for their corporate campus in Schaumburg from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and Chicago Wilderness.   

The bottom line is that native landscaping looks better, costs less over time, and improves the environment; a win-win for business and the planet. 

Nancy Schumm is the owner of Schumm Consulting LLC.  She specializes in managing water protection projects with over 20 years of experience in grant writing and project management for a wide variety of landowners both private and public helping by reducing pollution. www.schummconsulting.com

How do we maintain and communicate corporate culture using ISO 9001?

                I have a Saturday morning secret weapon, to improve my business. I attend the Levy Entrepreneurial Group meeting. Thank you Joe for creating it, Jack and Terry for leading it, and Don for introducing me to it. I love talking to the attendees, they have so much experience and they are happy to share.  Subjects range beyond my imagination, no small feat when you realize I write fiction as a hobby. On the drive home, this week’s meeting  on corporate culture, had my mind running like a squirrel that got into chocolate covered coffee beans. Good thing traffic was light, I was definitely a distracted driver.

                Let’s start by defining corporate culture. It is the psychology, attitudes and experiences of the society formed in a company. It is a blend of values, beliefs, rituals and myths, developed over time. To sum up, corporate culture is the perception of a company by its’ employees, vendors, and clients.

                So how do we create and keep a positive corporate culture? Implementing ISO 9001 correctly.

Communicating Corporate Culture using ISO 9001

It starts with the Quality Policy. It is a simple, straight forward statement of how we treat the customer, our employees and our suppliers. It must be something more than a framed plaque on the break room wall. Company leaders, and that is anyone who supervises, trains, or assists other employees, must live and refer to the values stated in the policy when it comes to decision-making. Thus a requirement of ISO 9001 is communicating the corporate culture.

                Job descriptions also communicate the corporate culture in more subtle ways and are required by ISO 9001. The job descriptions guide the employee to work within specific constraints and include a responsibility to evaluate and improve how the company does business. This should also be reflected in the employee review process and the development of objectives. All of these are requirements of ISO 9001. All of these communicate the corporate culture.

                Using the standard organizes communications to the employees. Clearly defining the corporate culture using ISO 9001 provides consistent values as different people generate job descriptions, reviews and other employee documents since everyone is guided by the quality policy.

                Small companies often do a good job of “presenting the vision” when they start. Growth can change all of that. Training is necessary. Not just job training but also training on the corporate culture. Much of Saturday’s meeting included examples of when this was done well and when this was done poorly. The standard requires the training on the quality policy which defines the corporate culture. Using ISO 9001 requires the communication of the corporate values.

Keeping the Corporate Culture Using ISO 9001

                Documentation  

                When developing your documentation systems it is critical to realize everything is linked and the quality policy it the keystone holding the over arching philosophy together. Using the standard as a guide helps control the dispersal through the documentation process, making it easier to communicate the corporate culture using ISO 9001.

Section 4.2 of the ISO 9001 standard lists the documents a company needs to use for training to keep the corporate culture in place:

• A quality policy and objectives
• A quality manual
• Procedures
• And documents for planning, operation and control of the processes

All of these must reflect the corporate culture, particularly when it comes to guidance on decision making.

                Management

                According to section 5.1 of the standard, management must accept the responsibility to keep the values important to the corporate culture in place. A key element to keeping corporate culture is stated in clause 5.5.1 of the ISO 9001 standard, “Top management shall ensure responsibilities and authorities are defined and communicated within the organization.” That isn’t just guidelines on who does what and with what and to whom, but also the values guiding each and every interaction, decision and activity in the workplace.

Viewing Employees as a Resource Stabilizes the Corporate Culture using ISO 9001

                ISO 9001  has a whole section on employees. How does management make sure they are competent, aware of the corporate culture, and trained? Does the corporation provide the infrastructure and work environment to make the employees successful at living the corporate culture? Most importantly, the standard recognizes employees are a valuable resource. Section 6 of the standard is a guide to empowering employees. It becomes a simple task to stabilize the corporate culture using ISO 9001.

Outside perceptions of the Corporate Culture using ISO 9001

                The Care and Feeding of Clients

                ISO 9001 requires interaction with the client and a development of a feedback mechanism, not only for errors but in ways to provide better service. The corporate culture has to be built around serving the customer or the company doesn’t stay in business. Thus the clients perception  is improved and the corporate culture using ISO 9001 is propagated.

                Controlling vendors

                Most companies focus on communicating and living their corporate culture  when it comes to their clients and their employees. A much smaller number take the same care to communicate the corporate culture to their suppliers. Implementing ISO 9001 addresses that shortfall. The supplier must have a good perception of how the company expects them to perform and clear communication as to whether these requirements have been met. This goes beyond, meeting performance requirements, on-time delivery, and reasonable price. Consistency is created through the entire process stream and clear perceptions created of the corporate culture using ISO 9001 to deal with suppliers.

                How the standard is viewed and implemented can take many forms. However, creating and maintaining the corporate culture using ISO 9001 is one of the strengths of doing the job right, staying in business and providing jobs.