The Attitude of Quality
Tanmay Vora
A retail outlet of a leading shoe brand recently opened up in near vicinity. The design of the store is flashy with impressive interiors and product arrangement. The brand carries a lot of consumer trust since many years. Good store, great brand and competitive prices all at one stop. The only (and probably the biggest) irritant there was attitude of their staff. They seemed too busy and non-responsive leaving many customers (including myself) waiting for long. Frustration amongst customers was visible. The business owners invested a great deal in expensive interiors, they did not think enough about investing in getting the right people, training them and managing their attitudes.
From selling shoes to writing software, every product has to have a strong “service” layer. People enable this layer. At the local shoe store, things were not meant to be that way, but people made them so. In a knowledge/service oriented world, quality of product, environment and infrastructure is just the beginning. Quality of interaction, quality of care, quality of being human, quality of walking that extra mile to delight the customer matters more. They need to complement each other.
The “attitude of quality” is about wanting to do the right things. Even if they are not prescribed that way. When no one is watching. When it takes a bit of extra effort. When you are not paid ‘extra’ to do it. In the current scenario (and the time to come), a professional’s ‘attitude of quality’ will be a key differentiator for his/her success.
I remember a project manager who would test everything before sending it to customer, even after the inspection team had signed off the deliverable. He toiled at the last moment, late in the night to ensure things because he cared. Because he carried an ‘attitude of quality’. He wanted to delight the customer.
Bottom line:
Quality is an attitude. The work we deliver, the products we ship and experiences we extend to customers reveals this attitude. Invest in quality of your product/service, but do not forget to invest in people who carry the right attitude. Because only excited, engaged and enthusiastic people can excite the customers and pass on the enthusiasm. People (and their attitude) is at the core of excellence. We need more ‘attitude of quality’ in our businesses and service organizations.
I look at quality to satisfy customer in regard to every asbect, for service quality there is a need for focus on people skills.
It is more understandabile to look at quality
according to this article.
@Yazeed – Thanks for the affirmation.
I would see three dimensions to the ‘quality attitude’.
First is ‘What’. This also can be taken as the minimum required. This means that one should ‘what’ is being complied with as a result of my /our set of activities.This is equivalent to the specs or Requirements of “what’ of our activities /processes that we perform in the normal course of our day. Anything less than this attitude would mean that your activities are most likely to fall in the region of non-conformity zones at the drop of a hat.
The next is ‘How”, meaning thereby to how do are we meeting the acceptance criteria. This knowledge can help to know how can we meet these requirements more efficiently or more effectively or how can we raise our performance bar or how can we help to enter this how zone from the mere What zone.
The third one, is indeed a higher level pursuit – that of asking why. Why we do what we do is one question that has moved all ignorance or knowledge of the world. The person with this temper of quest is an eternal learner – an ideal foil for the best-in-class quality of not only output(s) and process(es) but an working ambiance which fosters the spirit and deeds of increasingly better quality.
@Ashok Vaishnav – Thanks for adding to the conversation and expanding on “quality attitude”. While I agree with all you wrote, I would only put “why” before “what” and “how” in order.
Best,
Tanmay