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Columnist: H. James Harrington

Photo: Scott Paton, publisher

  
   

The Secret Behind Quality Companies
Teams make an organization good, but individuals make it great.

H. James Harrington
jharrington@qualitydigest.com

 

An organization will excel only when it taps the full potential of all the individuals within it, sparking their creative abilities and providing them with a high degree of personal self-worth and pride. As psychologist Abraham Maslow pointed out so long ago, people's first instinct is to survive. Once that need is satisfied, the desire for camaraderie and friendship--which membership in a team provides--becomes their top priority. But it's by means of self-actualization that people perform best. This isn't because they're driven to perform by promises, threats or praise but because excelling in their chosen jobs provides personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

Don't fool yourself; the job you have today is your chosen job. Everyone has options. It's you who decide whether to continue doing what you're doing. It's your choice, and you must accept your responsibility to excel at the job you have.

As Martin Luther King Jr. put it: "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep the street even as Michelangelo painted, Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lives a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

For employees to perform effectively, management must provide them with the three T's: training, tools and time.

The three T's will get an employee to the starting gate. They're a requirement for good performance. To excel, an individual must build upon these basics, using individual creativity, pride and sacrifice as he or she reaches for self-fulfillment. The trick is to build into your present job personal challenges that will throw off the chains of boredom and mediocrity. What could be more boring than hitting a walnut with a stick and then running after it and hitting it again for eight hours a day? Put 18 holes in the ground and that boring task becomes golf, a sport that millions of people wait anxiously, and pay good money, to play.

I'm not suggesting that people invest their entire lives in their work. Everyone should spend time in each quadrant of life's arena: work, religion, family and self.

When it comes down to it, everyone spends time in the work quadrant in order to provide funding for the other three. The average hours per day devoted to work--from the time an individual leaves home until he or she returns--are 13 hours in Japan, 11.3 hours in the United States, 10.5 hours in Germany, 10.4 hours in France and 10.2 hours in Great Britain.

Selling half of your life to support your needs should be enough without working additional overtime. As individuals, we must use our time effectively and creatively while at work, excelling in everything we do so that we don't need to work overtime. I doubt that you've ever heard a person lying on his or her deathbed say, "I wish I had spent more time at work."

Paul M. Schyve, M.D., vice president of research and standards for the Joint Commission, stated: "While the standards clearly emphasize systems and processes rather than individuals in health care, you cannot ignore the role that an individual professional's knowledge and skills play in outcomes. In the interest of driving out fear from an organization, you can't choose to ignore issues of individual competence. The standards represent the need to balance those issues."

Yes, you must have good processes and teamwork to get into the race, but when it comes right down to it, an individual's personal excellence makes or breaks an organization.

Kaoru Ishikawa, the man who started the quality circle movement in Japan, openly recognized that individuals were more productive and effective at solving quality problems than teams. The need to excel is an idea to which everyone can relate on a very personal, fundamental level. Excellence applies to everyone's occupation. The need to excel, to be the very best we can be, can't be imposed upon us. It can only come from within.

We all need to improve the way we perform our jobs so they don't interfere with the activities that occur in life's other three quadrants. At the same time, we must increase our value to our organizations, excelling at everything we do, so we can accept more responsible assignments and improve our financial status. To accomplish this, individuals must:

Be educated to perform their assigned task(s)

Understand their organization's busi- ness plan and how it relates to their jobs

Understand how well they're performing

Not be afraid to take risks

Be willing to take on new assignments

Be uncomfortable with the status quo

Think creatively

Be willing to share credit

Indira Gandhi said: "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work, and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there's less competition there."

Make excellence your way of life.

About the author

H. James Harrington recently retired from his position as COO of Systemcorp, an Internet-software development company. He has more than 45 years of experience as a quality professional and is the author of 20 books. Visit his Web site at www.hjharrington.com. Letters to the editor regarding this column can be sent to letters@qualitydigest.com.