Consultant Q&A
H. James Harrington Responds:
You make a good point; quality begins with a small
group. Certainly, the most important small group is the
family. The most important part of an individual’s
quality development occurs by age 8, not 18 or older when
they enter the workforce. You need to start reading books
designed to give a quality message to your children at
age 3. A typical example of this type of book is the one
I wrote entitled, “Harrington’s Mouse
Story,” published by the American Society for
Quality.
There have been a number of excellent
articles published by others and myself about applying
quality principles to the family. If we start using the
family team to make family decisions, have regular formal
meetings to discuss problems, develop action plans,
respect the thoughts of every family member, use control
charts to plot grades in school and develop buy-in to the
family vision and goals, your chances of having a happy
and successful family are much greater. I believe the
reason we have such a high divorce rate (I’ve seen
projections that 70 percent of the marriages that
occurred in 1999 will end in divorce) is that the quality
of family life is so low. Just think how good it would be
if we had job descriptions for each member of the
family.
Quality in clubs and societies presents
another challenge even if people are introduced to
quality in the family small group. The problems that
clubs and societies have are that most people join them
to be served, not to contribute. The nice thing about
clubs and societies is you can get as much out of them as
you are willing to put into them. For the last 40 years,
I have been in a leadership role in one or another
society. In each case, I got the most from a society when
I was actively involved. It doesn’t have to be at
the national level. It can be as conference chairperson,
secretary or treasurer of a local section. The quality
problem in societies is not poor society quality but poor
membership quality. No one should join a club or society
unless they want to be involved. They should be willing
to serve on committees, or even better, take an active
leadership role. Paying your dues indicates that you
agree with their mission. It is like giving to the Red
Cross or to The Organization to Feed Starving Children.
You may get a pamphlet or a magazine, but it
doesn’t mean that you’re going to directly
benefit from the organization’s activities unless
you take an active role.
You are right! Small groups, clubs and
societies need organizational structure, missions,
visions, goals and objectives. But it is not the words
that keep it from happening. Individuals that make up
these groups know what the words mean and most of them
apply quality techniques in their business. The problem
is they don’t apply them to their family, club and
society. When you get married, you form a union that has
a mission of “Providing a lifelong cooperation
between two individuals where they will work together to
grow the union to better the life of both parties.”
Most clubs and societies have a mission statement when
they are established. Your parent teacher
organization’s mission is to “Provide
assurance that the children get the very best education
possible.” But less than 40 percent of the parents
that are members go to meetings and less than 10 percent
do anything to improve their children’s education
at home or school. You see, it isn’t the words that
improve the quality of small groups, clubs or societies;
it is the deeds of its members. Should large clubs and
societies have a quality system? Sure, ISO 9000 was made
for that.
My challenge to all of you is to list the
small groups, clubs and societies you are members of and
then list what you did to further the mission for each of
these groups during the last six months. As one great man
once said, “Ask not what the club or society can do
for you, but what you can do for it.”
H. JAMES HARRINGTON
has written seven books including the best-selling
"The Improvement Process," "Business Process
Improvement," and "Total Improvement Management:
The Next Generation in Performance Management."
Harrington is the CEO of The Performance Improvement
Network in Los Gatos, Calif. He is considered a leading
authority in process management.
Vincent
Ventresca Responds
Question for
Consultants
February 2001
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