In 1995, Qualityworld magazine published a case study that examined how the 1993 European Quality Award (EQA) was scored by 175 participants who had undertaken assessor training for it. Three findings stood out:
• Assessors who spoke English as their primary language gave lower scores in all nine EQA criteria.
• The assessors’ backgrounds (manufacturing or service) didn’t significantly influence scoring.
• Assessors who took EQA training more than once scored more stringently than those who were taking it for the first time.

I obviously want to draw your attention to the above three points, but let’s start with the last.

It has always been my impression that most companies fail to recognize training as a job in itself. Especially in large, multinational companies and public organizations, many white collars—and blue collars, too—are paid to attend training courses, not to work. Pity that in their organizational flowcharts, a box for “trainee forever” doesn’t appear.

 …