Yesterday, during a public webinar sponsored by ISO, US TAG to TC 176 representative Paul Palmes blurted out that “standards are written by those who show up.” This was in response to a question posed about the dominance of consultants in the TAG leadership, and the fact that all four of the ISO speakers were consultants themselves.
In his defense, Palmes didn’t say that by itself, and it’s unfair to play “gotcha” with a quote out of context. Unfortunately, the context doesn’t much improve the quote. Palmes was trying to make the case that the TAG leaders are volunteers who do this at their own expense, with only the occasional speaking engagement to offset things, but overall his argument was poorly worded and not at all convincing. (We are to believe that Palmes is a billionaire philanthropist who can pay to fly himself all over the world to attend conferences, without any reimbursement.) In the end, there was nothing in the surrounding words that in any way altered the meaning of his quote, and left everyone to understand he really meant it.
And I’m sure he did. Palmes is not an intellectual heavyweight, and is prone to repeating tiny slivers of pre-packaged talking points without deviating from the approved script. In the ISO webinar, for example, he merely repeated his argument that ISO 9000 is near-mandatory, in a nearly word-for-word repetition of his Quality Digest article. But Palmes is harmless, in TAG leadership terms, so the perfect guy to put in front of a Skype webcam.
Except when he says crazy shit, like “standards are made by those who show up.”
So why, exactly, is that problematic? It’s both factually and technically true, after all.
Because the part of the equation Palmes and his TAG leader friends leave out is that they control who shows up. Palmes enjoys special status as the being one of the few that Lorri Hunt will allow to trail behind her, even if on a short leash. Other than that, let’s see how the TAG and its functionaries ensure that they, and they alone, are the only ones allowed to “show up.”
- The TAG used its authority to try and replace an ISO 9001 speaker they didn’t like (me) with one of their “approved” speakers, meaning Hunt or Palmes.
- Palmes and his TAG cronies are nearly the only ones allowed to publish articles in major quality industry journals, such as Quality Digest. Articles that are in any way mildly critical of ISO 9001 or its development process cannot get published, no matter what.
- TAG leader Alan Daniels also helps run the show over at the AAQG/IAQG for AS9100 development, where they just openly refuse to allow people to join who they disagree with, by invoking rules of membership that their own people — including Daniels — don’t even comply with.
- The TAG attempted to have ISO reject a formal request for interpretation on ISO 9001:2008, presumably out of spite, since it too came from someone they don’t like.
- TAG leader Denise Robitaille telegraphed as far back as February of this year that user feedback was pointless, saying, “All the wringing of hands and ongoing debate will not change the outcome.”
- Former TAG member Sidney Vianna blathered on that user feedback was “moronic” and that “too much democracy and openness” was killing the standards development process. (In his defense, he did argue that some TAG leaders “benefitted financially” from the process, which is probably why he’s a former TAG member.)
- The TAG election rules are a travesty that ensures the leadership maintains its authority through an “election” of a single candidate hand-picked by the current leadership. The TAG leadership likewise resists calls for reform of those rules, because democratic elections have no home in American standards committees, presumably.
- Let’s not forget that while Palmes was, in effect, chastising people for not showing up in greater numbers than he and his consulting friends, he was doing so at a web event that blocked viewing by people they didn’t like.
So it’s fine for Palmes to take credit for “showing up” but he should remember he only gets to do so because he is the personal recipient of the good graces of an autocratic regime with an allergy to transparency, openness, impartiality and consensus… uncomfortable words which happen to be requirements under WTO international trade regulations, of which Palmes is no doubt blissfully unaware.
Perhaps its that environment that ensures good people don’t “show up,” and thus leave the whole thing to power-hungry bureaucrats?
So when your organization is arguing with labor lawyers over whether or not your workplace is “calm and emotionally protective” per ISO 9001, or how your “risk based thinking” failed to prevent that employee from slipping on the ice in the parking lot, you know who to blame. These under-qualified would-be emperors are only interested in promoting themselves, and have no idea at all the legal entanglements they are forcing on ISO 9001 users.
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.