Who needs a screamer? I enjoyed Dirk Dusharme's June 2001 Last Word editorial on people's reactions to poor-quality
service. People in the quality management field recognize that, 85 times out of 100, poor service is due to the system in which the front-line workers operate, not due to the workers themselves.
This is something I always keep in mind when complaining about poor quality. Unfortunately, because it's the worst available "motivator," punishment--in the form, for example, of lost
business and bad publicity--seems to be about the only thing that certain businesses, particularly those in the airline industry, understand these days. Screaming at clerks and gate agents is
neither fair nor effective punishment; it is, to use a medieval analogy, the equivalent of trying to punish the master by beating his servant. I don't hesitate to tell front-line
employees exactly what I think of their organization's quality and service, but I always temper the remarks with the observation that I blame management. --Bill Levinson
Dusharme's column struck a chord with me, as I've been in that situation many times myself and have often come away the recipient of overwhelming pleasantness and favor due to just a small bit of
courtesy on my part. However, the part of the equation that Dusharme omitted is the requirement that we follow the Jerk. He alluded to it at the end of the article in his expeditiousness in
getting to the front counter, but the Jerk is actually the one who all but guarantees a satisfactory outcome. In other words, we need him. As with quality issues in general, the more we're
exposed to dissatisfaction, the more we perceive a competent and predictable outcome as remarkable. If 100-percent satisfaction were the norm, any experience below that would seem horrific; if
only 10-percent satisfaction were the norm, 15 percent would be perceived as remarkable. In short, the screamers actually help us get what we want by "setting up" the human component to
be more receptive and downright thankful for even average pleasantness. When humanity reaches Six Sigma levels of jerklessness, our opportunities to profit will become much more scarce--not that
that would be a bad thing. And not that it will happen any time soon. --Mark Pongracz Six Sigma slip My
curiosity was piqued by Tom Pyzdek's claim, in the June 2001 issue, to have effected a 1,000-percent reduction in defects. As an engineer of the old school, and the old math, I was unable to
understand how, after reducing defects by 100 percent and thus causing them to disappear entirely, he could achieve another 900-percent reduction. --David Fisher
President
Fisher Research Corp. Pyzdek responds: As many of my readers pointed out, I erred when I stated that a reduction in defects from 50,000 PPM to 5,000 PPM was a
1,000-percent improvement. I stand corrected. I should have stated that it was a reduction in defects of 90 percent. I promise to not do it again! |
