buddhaprettyThe Quality Management profession has always struggled for attention in the c-suite, a reality largely driven by the fact that in most industries, quality is not driven by law or regulation; it’s optional. In business, options are often sidelined for legal compliance, which is why companies spend more time on worrying about environmental regulations, labor law, and product safety than a holistic view of quality.

A few professionals were notable for breaking through this barrier: Deming, Crosby, Juran, etc. all attempted to carry the quality message into the c-suite, and because of their various measures of success — however limited — they were deemed “gurus” by the profession. While the title is offensive to me (we wouldn’t call them “quality rabbis” or “imams”, so why “gurus”?) it’s not meant in a racist manner, but granted with respect and admiration. And these gentlemen deserve that level of respect: they were first and foremost really smart. They were true professionals, true practitioners of the quality arts, and true believers in evidence-based science.

But they existed in a previous generation, and left a legacy largely comprised of books, and little else. Subsequent practitioners have turned their work into full-fledged publishing empires and pirate operations, writing uninspired articles, speeches and publications that poorly parrot the work of the gurus, all in an attempt to cash in on their names. The c-suite, meanwhile, has once again turned its head from quality, because today’s would-be gurus are first and foremost really dumb, and secondly, poor communicators. You can’t blame an executive for failing to take seriously the crop of self-promoting charlatans we find leading the ranks of the quality profession, any more than you can blame the average internet user from buying tin-foil hats to protect them from government mind-rays.

homerbuddhaFrom Gurus to Bozos

The true cancer of our profession, however, is that it no longer fosters evidence-based science, professionalism or highly intellectual thought. Now, the world of quality is driven by whomever can get the best book deal, typically by using some ISO credential to bolster their reputation. Had Deming been alive to see the rise of a resume-stretcher like Paul Palmes, now leading the group that represents the United States to the world on matters pertaining to quality, he’d would not have fled back to Japan, but gone to Mars and quit the human race entirely.

Meanwhile, today’s rank-and-file quality professionals continue to seek out the next guru, and go along willingly with any published name that claims the mantle. For years it was H. James Harrington, a dimwitted pitchman who — supported by Quality Magazine — was consistently heralded as the next big thing, until a few decades later, he proved to have done pretty much nothing. I remember recoiling at his articles, which would whine about the quality of the airplane he was on, revealing that his only practical experience in the field was flying around talking about his practical experience in the field.

Then it was Jack West, who for nine years held control over the US TAG to TC 176 and muscled his way into the pages of every quality publication on Earth as the go-to expert for ISO 9001 and all things quality, even though he had never worked under an ISO 9001 system in his life, and displayed no working knowledge of quality science.

Now, in the age of digital self-publishing, any idiot can have a published book on Amazon, giving the appearance of being a “guru” solely by typing the word himself on the electronic dust jacket. It’s not clear who the current top guru is, because there are dozens and dozens vying for the title, with none of them showing any actual ability in the field. Worse still, most of them are unemployed, having been fired from “real jobs” and lacking none of the corporate successes of Deming and his circle.

This addiction to seeking out the next guru, rather than becoming it, cripples the profession. Few new concepts have arisen within quality management in the past 25 years, as if somehow the human race stopped evolving after the invention of Statistical Process Control and little red bead exercises. Now we struggle with defining and re-defining the simplest concepts, like preventive action, because the profession has become so filled with amateurs, there appears no way to dumb these things down enough. There isn’t much hope.

Quality itself isn’t dead, of course. Companies like Apple continue to innovate by pushing the boundaries of the quality of their products, but they do this in spite of traditional quality management practices, and most certainly while suffering through — if not outright ignoring — standards such as ISO 9001. But these advances are being driven by departments other than quality, oddly enough: they are driven by designers who are more in touch with their customers than most Quality Managers could ever hope to be. They are driven by understanding markets and trends, something today’s quality “guru” couldn’t even define, much less grasp.

Today’s quality manager spends so much time complaining about the lack of c-suite attention, they don’t know they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: managers don’t want to waste time on self-loathing whiners. Yet we continue to see the flood to books, articles and ISO 9001 clauses dedicated to “enforcing management commitment” as if the CEO gives a damn. Hint: he doesn’t.

inspirationBeaten down by their own victim complex, today’s quality professionals look for their savior, some miraculous, possibly mythological outside force that will, somehow, make it all right. The Superman who will finally put the words in the right order to cast a spell that gets the c-suite’s attention, and thus overnight make the quality profession matter again. It’s fantasy, and it’s wasting valuable time.

Instead, quality practitioners should abandon the guru obsession, and study. They should bring intellectualism back to the profession, return science to its rightful place, and then study more. But this cannot be limited to studying, they must practice, practice, practice. They should not wait for someone else to publish a book on the next quality breakthrough, they should make the breakthrough themselves. But if we continue to have a profession that is addicted to inspirational posters with photos of lions and vague statements about “Leadership!” then we have a lot of work to do.

So, my point is — if I even have one — it’s time to stop searching for a guru, and stop promoting other people as gurus — and become one. But not by publishing a dull paraphrasing of someone else’s work; instead, by “sciencing the shit out of” today’s problems and then teaching everyone else how you did it.

 

 

About Christopher Paris

Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 years' experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the author of Surviving ISO 9001 and Surviving AS9100. He reviews wines for the irreverent wine blog, Winepisser.

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