Critical Success Factors of Quality Culture Development

After globalization, quality surfaced as one of the major areas of concern along with productivity. With the reduction of geographical barriers and the pressure of competing in the global market, overall operational and service excellence have become necessities for the organizations to remain globally competitive. The foundation of any quality improvement is to develop quality culture among the organization and integrate it within the organization culture.

Organizational Culture is defined as the shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and behavior patterns that characterize the members of an organization. In a healthy business culture, what's good for the company and for customers comes together and becomes the driving force behind what everyone does.

Quality culture starts with leaderships who understand and believe the implications of the systems view and know the necessity of serving customers in order to succeed. The result of that understanding is a culture where a positive internal environment and the creation of delighted customers go together. It is a culture that naturally emphasizes continuous improvement of processes, one that results in a healthy workplace, satisfied customers, and a growing, profitable company.

One of the successful approaches to develop quality culture among the organization is focusing on the 5 main factors for quality culture:

First : We're all in this together: company, suppliers, and customers. The company not just as the buildings, assets, and employees, but also customers and suppliers. The goal is consistently win-win-win for all parties.

Second :  Open, honest communication is vital. An important way to encourage truth-telling is by creating a culture where people listen to one another. This is a culture where open, honest communication is understood as necessary for people to function best.

Third :  Information accessibility. Information accessibility is at the heart of the work we do. This information provides direction for what we will do next and, more importantly, direction for how to improve.

Fourth :  Focus on processes. Everyone should be moved away from a "blame the person" mentality to a "blame the process and let's fix it" approach to problems and improvement.

Fifth : There are no successes or failures, just learning experiences. An important insight is that failure and success are always value judgments we render after the fact. We can never predict with certainty whether what we do will end up as a success or a failure (or a mistake). We do the best we can based on our current experience, information, and understanding, and something happens.