Our Customers Know Continuous Improvement, Too

We’re just fooling ourselves if we think we can fool them

Today’s true tale was told to me by a close friend, and it contains at least two very important messages from which we can learn if we choose. Let me retell my friend’s experience this week, and then we can dig into what we might learn.

My friend’s employer was recently acquired by a large, diversified global corporation. It is currently in the process of bidding for the privilege of continuing to produce solutions for an important client as that client’s business and demands grow. The bid for a continued contract is not uncontested.

Last week, representatives from the client paid the business a visit, in part to witness product testing, and in part to discuss matters for the bid process. One of the client representatives was the client’s expert and leader of continuous improvement (CI).

The client’s CI expert advised in advance that he would be part of the visiting group and asked for an opportunity to visit with the business’s CI expert. During the two-day visit, a meeting between CI experts never took place. This is the fact that has my friend most embarrassed about the business’s behavior.

…

Want to continue?

By logging in you agree to receive communication from Quality Digest. Privacy Policy.

Create a FREE account

Forgot My Password

Comments

Your article

Alan, I agree with most if not all of what you described as desirable scenarios. My objection is that you are describing the way we [CI/Quality types et al] wish things were rather than what we know them to be. Can you prove any of the assertions you make, particularly the ones where you say things would be better if ___?

I'm treading lightly here, because I'm setting the bar higher for you than I typically do for myself. I agree with all your points, not because I have evidence but because they are what I wish to be true. I've seen more organizational mediocrity than I care to think about and the media constantly remind us of institutional failures. Companies that are barely average can be profitable.

You say "We're just fooling ourselves if we think we can fool them." It's actually impossible to determine if the Supplier suffered for their treatment of the Client, but my gut tells me they probably didn't, although perhaps they should have.

Your article would be better framed as specific, defensible deltas between baseline and preferred approaches. I'm not targetting you; QD regularly publishes opinion pieces.

What we wish to be true...

Mr. Gentile,

Thank you for your comment. I too tread lightly when I pen my posts. My desire is to be helpful. Therefore, I try very hard not to be overly condescending, cynical, satyrical, opinionated, or "snarky." It is that very desire that drives me to speak in ideal consequences or outcomes, rather than what we sometimes come to expect. So, to the charge of describing outcomes or consequences that are more ideal than disappointing, I plead guilty. There is another reason I prefer to describe consequences as our common values desire them, rather than how imperfect humans execute them. If we don't at least keep what we wish to be true in our sights, well... the role of the continuous improvement guy loses it's vision and becomes a truly grim and tiresome chore.

That said, I will consider your suggestion of framing things clearly between what happens and what we would like to happen, "baseline and preferred approaches" as a way to be helpful and not opinionated.

As for the real consequences to the supplier of my tale... the decision over what supplier will have the contract for the future is not made at this time.

Thanks, Alan

Vision

Alan, thank you for your very insightful response. Sometimes I get tangled in the weeds and forget to look for the carrot (sorry for mixing metaphors). Jim Womack said companies should not benchmark but instead aim for perfection. I admire Toyota because they free themselves to do what they "know" is successful without the constraint of business cases, silos and SS projects. In the gemba, the experiment is the solution.