I like to pride myself on thinking I am two steps ahead of the bureaucrats, and not because I am particularly smart, but because being two steps ahead of bureaucrats isn’t particularly difficult. But this time I may have screwed up.
As reported yesterday, US TAG member George Hummel misquoted a TAG position, by claiming on LinkedIn that owning a copy of ISO 9000 would be expected of both ISO 9001 certified clients and their third party auditors. Of course the TAG never made such a claim (they can’t) and Hummel had to post an apology and retraction.
George Hummel (artist’s approximation)
It was another “quick takedown” action by Team Oxebridge, and had we done nothing bout it, Hummel would still be misquoting the TAG and forcing people to buy copies of standards they didn’t actually need. I thought it was important to get the misinformation corrected. I wrote to Hummel privately, but when he didn’t respond, I ran it up the flagpole to the TAG leadership, who shut Hummel down. His apology reads as if they wrote it for him.
And that’s the problem. Now the TAG will be more vigilant than ever in controlling the flow of information coming out of its already paranoid workings. Thanks to Hummel — and, equally, Oxebridge — the TAG is probably issuing a memo to all its members demanding they never state TAG positions on anything, anywhere, ever. Their terror of being misquoted — which in the Hummel case would be warranted — will shut them off from their “constituents” more than before.
The TAG meetings are already a weird affair, with secretive breakout sessions (occurring usually the night before the general assembly shows up) and secret committees and even more secretive email swaps, which is where the bulk of the decisions are made. The rules only require a 20% quorum, because the leaders want to make decisions without being hampered by low attendance. When the membership is present, the meeting usually opens with a reminder that everyone STFU and never talk outside of the meeting. The only exceptions are the three or four TAG leaders with special permission who can blather on all day long at those $1,000 a pop events.
As we’ve seen, the TAG isn’t beneath even lying about people’s credentials to get their own “approved” speakers to bump those that might be critical of their work.
But when a guy like Hummel says something stupid, and Oxebridge makes a fuss about it, the TAG leadership goes on full lockdown. Right now they are probably using a belt sander to grind down the tips of their fingers to erase their own fingerprints. This means even less information coming out of the TAG, and even less ability for ISO 9001 end users to know what’s going on, and a less informed user base.
So what’s the right level of response, then? When a TAG idiot slips, do we let it pass, out of a hope that the TAG won’t clench up further? Or do we keep pushing, in the hope that someday the TAG realizes that it’s actually answerable to someone, and they need to start engaging with people outside of their self-imposed ebola tent?
I don’t know. The situation is so broken, so ugly, there are no good choices.
Alternatively, we change the culture in the TAG. We adopt the ISO principles of openness and transparency, and stop potentially violating international regulations. We permanently dismantle the crony system, and improve meeting methods to ensure greater turnout. And we kick out dummies like Hummel who are just posting on LinkedIn to score points for being “on the inside” at the expense of the user community.
Certainly, taking the heat off of the TAG is not a good idea.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
