Pat Townsend & Joan Gebhardt
EXCLUSIVE ONLINE COLUMNISTS

It is almost foolish (and more than a little sad) that when folks working in the quality field talk about the "good old days," they only mean about 10 years ago. During the golden days of quality (the mid-to-late 1980s, the brief period between quality control and its born-again echo, ISO 9000), there was a wonderful community spirit that was evident in the field, a spirit that is no longer so readily apparent.

There is a simple way to get a quick reading on the true quality commitment of someone who has the word "quality" in his or her job title: Call and leave a message saying you'd appreciate a call back because you have some questions about "this quality stuff." Someone who actually believes in the concept of quality, someone who truly understands it, will return your call as quickly as possible. Or, if the person can't call, he or she will ensure that someone else calls you quickly. During the golden days, you could bet money on that return call. That is not the case now, nor was it always like that.

After lying dormant for years as a job that wasn't exactly a step up the corporate ladder, quality became a high-profile position in the wake of the 1980 NBC White Paper TV show, "If Japan Can . Why Can't We?" (which featured W. Edwards Deming), and Tom Peters' book, In Search of Excellence. As a result, many people whose careers were actually still seen as being on the rise moved (or were pushed) into the quality field. They brought new energy and many questions involving concepts like "customer," "employee involvement," "profit" and "new ways to do things." But, most of all, perhaps simply because they were new to the field, these quality rookies reduced quality to its basics and looked around for ideas.

One of the basic components of a quality effort was courtesy. (In fact, at its most basic, quality is little more than common sense and courtesy.) This dovetailed nicely with the other instinctual move, the urge to ask other people about the methods used to achieve quality. Essentially, if someone asked you a question about your company's quality efforts, you answered it as quickly and completely as you could. It was a fair exchange system at a macro level; you knew that answering a stranger's question was part of the quality movement's fabric--and you knew that you could ask someone else a question at some point in the future and get an answer.

The other benefit was that the questions frequently forced people to actually think through the reasons for the success of a decision that had been made in haste and had turned out well. A quality process director in a service company often was asked why he took so much time to answer questions from people all over the world, including potential rivals. He answered, "Because I invariably learn from their questions. It lets me know where we haven't been clear in explaining ourselves, where the quality movement is headed and what must be looked after to stay ahead of the competition." The demise of that company's quality effort began a few years later, when a new quality director stopped allowing visitors.

A lot of information was made available that was never taken full advantage of. When asked why he answered questions from potential rivals--and anybody else--the president of a company with a revolutionary quality process said, "First of all, you aren't going to use the information. You'll get back home and be overwhelmed by everyday stuff, and this will be put on the back burner. Second, we learn a great deal from your questions while looking like good guys. And, third, even if you do act on the information, we're three years ahead of you and have no intention of slowing down."

The willingness to share information was important. The community spirit, the feeling that "We're all in this together as we work to preserve American economic independence," and that, "If we do this well, the pie will only get bigger," was what made the Baldrige Award--the one major holdover from the good old days--possible.

But it was perhaps inevitable that the newcomers to the field would settle in and slowly become jealous of their knowledge and techniques. Executives who had been actively involved saw their chance to declare that "Quality is now an integral part of the way things are done at our company, so it doesn't need my frequent attention and involvement any more." And ISO 9000 restored things to a comforting order. The approach to quality that had been rollicking good fun as well as very productive seemed untidy.

Now, more quality people put increasing layers between themselves and the outside world--and between themselves and people within their own organizations. Senior managers for whom running the quality effort is only one responsibility hide behind their other jobs and let the "quality professionals" run things.

In 1970, in the book Up the Organization, Robert Townsend (no relation to this column's co-author) gave some advice to the business world regarding the nascent "cult" of computer professionals. He counseled business executives to remember that, basically, computers were little more than "big, dumb, fast adding machines" and to make sure that their computer specialists were kept in touch with the real world. His idea was that every person working in the computer room could spend three years working on computers and then be required to work somewhere else in the company for a year before being allowed to return to the computer room.

While his advice may have been overcome by events when computers began their proliferation throughout organizations, the basic idea remains valid. Companies would benefit greatly if they set up a similar rotation system for their quality professionals: three years in quality and then one year somewhere else in the company. They just might return with all sorts of questions and ideas, and spark another period of good old days.

About the authors

Pat Townsend and Joan Gebhardt have written more than 200 articles and five books, including Commit to Quality (John Wiley & Sons, 1986); Quality in Action: 93 Lessons in Leadership, Participation, and Measurement (John Wiley & Sons, 1992); Five-Star Leadership: The Art and Strategy of Creating Leaders at Every Level (John Wiley & Sons, 1997); Recognition, Gratitude & Celebration (Crisp Publications, 1997); and How Organizations Learn: Investigate, Identify, Institutionalize (Crisp Publications, 1999).