Ok well I work for a small company. We recently passed our initial certification audit, and as such now I have a little more free time to tackle problem areas and focus on some real improvement.

Disclaimer: This is a great company, with great people.

The problem I face is that our biggest area of concern is employee satisfaction. We have very few benefits (extremely high cost medical insurance, 1 week vacation after 1 year service), and our President and VP are micro-managers to the extreme. They are very old-fashioned in their approach to business, and do not budge easily. Fortunately, they understand quality and customer satisfaction (or they wouldn't be in business), what they don't seem to understand is that the expectation of military like discipline (myself and a few other top people are ex-military) wears down morale. Penny pinching is a constant battle. Time off is an unspeakable horror. Being late is equivalent to quitting.

I want to address this area, and I think anonymous employee surveys are a decent first step in that direction. The problem I face is twofold though: employees haven't had an outlet in a long time (maybe ever), and I think this would skew the results in a negative manner while they vent their frustrations, secondly the Pres. and VP (husband and wife, btw) don't listen to employee complaints. Only when those complaints are safety related do they get any attention, employee morale seems to be greek.

I am new to Quality Management, and I don't quite know how to get their attention on this problem, but I do know (99.9% certainty) that if this is addressed, the entire organization will benefit drastically.

Help, please.

Look at it from a business standpoint: What is the impact of the employee dissatisfaction (assuming it is there)? Is it causing poor outcomes? Customer complaints? High turnover? etc.

Then turn that into dollars (assuming management really understands that!). What are those outcomes costing the company? (e.g., lost business, hiring & training, rework ...).

And I definitely would not do an employee survey without management agreeing to it up front. First quantify the above, and see if there is ammunition that you can use to get management attention.

Well, we have a solid core of employees, but it is VERY difficult getting new hires to stay for very long. What has prompted this thought is the now growing talk of dissatisfaction, and 2 or 3 employees that are preparing to leave. This is not official information yet (I was once a line-man so they trust me above other management), so I can not expose it. The problem is once we lose these people it may be too late.

We do not offer any formal training, only OTJ. So there is no cost of training. I can not use the threat of losing people as an incentive, because they are the type who refuse to be intimidated, even in the face of facts.

What I do have, that I can quantify, is excessive absences. I know the truth behind these absences, but I couldn't dare prove that correlation to the top management without betraying the trust that gets me the important information I use to improve processes and the system in general.

I know for absolute fact the dissatisfaction is there (outside of normal griping, which is always present and is good for morale), but how do I show that without "stepping on toes" or "betraying the trust" that employees have put in me?
:frust:

Are all managers blind or is there someone who is more open minded you could talk with about your concerns (without divulging any specific examples that could betray confidentiality)? The idea is to see if you can build a coalition.

There are three managers, 2 of us are in agreement. The last one is basically a yes-man, so he will voice support when they do, but will not go against it until they do.

There is much grumbling in current business circles that "The work ethic is dead."

It's not dead, but it is changing. New hires are less apt to put up with an oppressive work environment - or a sense they aren't trusted - than their elders. In fact, data suggest young people may care more about this culture than medical benefits.

So who you hire is bound to make a difference in what's expected. The younger they are, the less of what you described will be tolerated and your turnover costs will show it. See my paper Conquering Employee Turnover Costs (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=12001) for methods to measure those costs.

But it's easy to compare costs of benefits - it's not so easy to change management styles! My experience has shown it can take a generational turnover to get that done; or some epiphany, whichever happens first.

Your management team may need to use this as a decision maker about whom to recruit. If they want more discipline, they may need to look for older workers. If they want young people, they will need to think younger too - or else recruit veterans. But watch out! Veterans like to be treated like we have intelligence too. A veteran career counselor once told me that one of the common reasons vets have a hard time is the paucity of responsibility and authority in the workplace.

So your management will need good, honest data and appropriate choices to select from regarding this phenomenon. You can survey your employees, but I suspect you've no great need to. If you do, I suggest you use a survey like this one: Are We Making Progress (http://www.quality.nist.gov/Progress.htm) because it is structured in a way that isn't intended to point fingers at managers.

But all of this is pointless if they are not ready for the honest results and to act on them.

When I started my civilian work, it was in a machine shop full of deeply distrustful men. They believed I was to be the president's poodle. They had no experience with a woman in the inspector's role except the president's daughter, and in any case did not appreciate the need to hire an inspector at all. They wondered "What is wrong with us that we can't inspect?" Some months later I could detect thawing. When I asked what did it, one of the older members said he decided to take a second look upon being so surprised by the strength of my handshake. Overall I won them over by talking, with them versus at them, and telling them more details about quality systems and frustrations I could see and feel. I was able to get some things resolved, which helped "prove" my position, but the event that really did it was a heated argument with the shop foreman, which almost all of them could see. They couldn't hear us from the noise and should never have been allowed to see such a thing, but it did win over the last doubters.

That should never need to happen. Really, you may need to do your own "temperature checks" to see how it's going for you as well as the employees. Good luck with this.
:2cents:

Sounds like being between the rock and hard place. It is their business, and sometimes it will take a hard failure for them to change. I can understand you want to stop that from happening, but if conditions are bad these people need to find better jobs. I give a new job 3 strikes then I leave, I might be on new hire probation for 3 months, but I give them a full year to make 3 mistakes. I get these fly by nite temp agencys ask me why I job hop, I consider that a strike on them. If they mention it again another strike, so far I will not deal with any more temp agencys,,LOL I owe companys nothing, I am the asset, if they can not figure that out it is best to leave. I would tell the employees that. No reason for them to be unhappy.

I find people become "lazy" and will accept all kinds of abuse.

I find people become "lazy" and will accept all kinds of abuse. I have seen people take a lot of abuse and they weren't lazy. More like, they were more patient or believed they did not have better options. They were generally older employees, which infers nothing except they may have believed there would be few places where they could start over.

I think they deal with a lot of it, because they know they have had a major hand in building this business from the 200k/year it started as into the multi-million dollar company it is, and they don't want to let that go when tomorrow might be a brighter day.

Yes, they are older. The average of our employees is 23 years experience in their field. I don't think they would have trouble finding another job, but as I said, overall this is a great place to work. The only issue we have is an antiquated human resources policy.

Yes, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I was another shop floor personnel I would probably be leaving soon too. Truth of the matter is though, I am the QA Manager and it is part of my job description to go nose to nose with the President over certain issues. I have before, and will again, but I never do it without tact and without having my ducks in a row. That's what I am trying to do here.

I have considered getting a coalition together, involving the majority of the people. I worry about that though, because I am sure at the first sign of unionizing the whole idea would become a battleground, and no positive result could EVER come from that.

It may seem as though I am just venting, and maybe I am. I do want to fix this though, and I can see threads of light at the end of the tunnel, I just don't quite know how to approach it yet. :nopity:

I thank you all for the great ideas and thoughts, you have given me new directions to evaluate. Please keep em coming, comments, suggestions, even sympathy and tough love work at this point.

Thanks to the great Covers! :thanx:

I have considered getting a coalition together, involving the majority of the people. I worry about that though, because I am sure at the first sign of unionizing the whole idea would become a battleground, and no positive result could EVER come from that.



OK, it seems like you have a lot of experienced people. Why not come at this at a tangent?

Try to convince the owners that there are a lot of good ideas out there on the floor. Start a suggestion program (come up with a neat name for it) and offer some sort of incentive for submitting suggestions. Sell it as a possible money saving ploy. Try to limit the suggestions to process improvement, etc., although this may be hard to do - suggestion systems will almost always get the gripes and such. But, the good suggestions distilled out of the bad ones will almost always result in good (great, even) usuable ideas. So, if you can make the system work where you can "vet" the suggestions before they are submitted to top management, it would be a good idea. Maybe control the keys to the suggestion boxes?

With your work force it seems almost certain that great ideas will come. Reward those ideas that are used, and even those good ideas that show some thought but are not recognized.

Cash rewards are not always the best - people like to be recognized by their peers. We have a prize vault that has some neat items in it. Most worth less than $50. But, the winner's names go up on the bulletin boards in the plant. This helps to get people thinking, and suggesting, but they MUST see that their ideas are at least considered for this to work.

By building your people up, you build the whole organization. Start from there, show the value and committment of the people. Then you can start to address the other issues.

From what you have told us, that is what I suggest, but you are the one on the ground. I wish you the best of luck.

I don't know where you are, but where I am, getting a union started is counterproductive. It will not only work against your goals, it may mean that you get fired. Quickly.

Better to use the knowledge of the employees to increase profitability, while increasing their wages, wheater to than to increase the instability by encouraging unionization.. That is NOT your role. Time to show what you are made of. Unionization on your part is a cheap sellout. Time to " cowboy up".

FWIW.

Wow. I think I used to work there. Just kidding. But it does sound like alot of other companies. Several people have hit the nail on the head. You need to give the employees something, anything, to believe in. At the same time, you need to tie in the cost of doing things this way. Retention rates are a good place to start. Regardless of the amount of training, any company invests alot of money in hiring and setting up anew employee. Advertising, insurance, all these things add to the cost. It is very expensive for a company to run this way, see if you can put a dollar figure on it, then, show how much can be saved by increasing the retention rate say 5%. Then 10%. Figure the cost savings, then hit up management with this info.
Employee suggestions are great. You need to creat a feeling of involvement, regardless of whether they use it to vent or not. Concentrate on process improvement of course, which may show additional savings. Employee involvement in any form will go a long way to changing attitudes. It will take time. Be patient, and tackle the job one thing at a time. Unfortunately, the best employees are the ones that will have the most options, and thus be the first to leave. Replacing them is hard. You are generally left with those who feel they have no other place to go. These are the ones that need to feel involved to become productive. Keep it simple, and take baby steps. Complete one thing, then start another. There are many good ideas here. Use them one at a time, to much at once may overwhelm them and you.

Wow. I think I used to work there. Just kidding. But it does sound like alot of other companies. Several people have hit the nail on the head. You need to give the employees something, anything, to believe in. At the same time, you need to tie in the cost of doing things this way. Retention rates are a good place to start. Regardless of the amount of training, any company invests alot of money in hiring and setting up anew employee. Advertising, insurance, all these things add to the cost. It is very expensive for a company to run this way, see if you can put a dollar figure on it, then, show how much can be saved by increasing the retention rate say 5%. Then 10%. Figure the cost savings, then hit up management with this info.
Employee suggestions are great. You need to creat a feeling of involvement, regardless of whether they use it to vent or not. Concentrate on process improvement of course, which may show additional savings. Employee involvement in any form will go a long way to changing attitudes. It will take time. Be patient, and tackle the job one thing at a time. Unfortunately, the best employees are the ones that will have the most options, and thus be the first to leave. Replacing them is hard. You are generally left with those who feel they have no other place to go. These are the ones that need to feel involved to become productive. Keep it simple, and take baby steps. Complete one thing, then start another. There are many good ideas here. Use them one at a time, to much at once may overwhelm them and you.

Yes, and doing too much at once will freak out the powers that be.

It seems to me, from what we know, that the older workers, those with no place to go, will be the key to getting this place on track. But, making a difference is important to all workers, especially the younger ones, but even the older ones. We all want to learn, and we all want to train. The "older" guys still have a few tricks to train, usually. The young guns just want to find a way to kick butt. Why not have a system that allows both? A suggestion system is just a start.

The framework is there, assuming the marketing etc. is there.

But, I may be reading more into the situation than really is in thread, so take this with the usual grain of salt.

I think they deal with a lot of it, because they know they have had a major hand in building this business from the 200k/year it started as into the multi-million dollar company it is, and they don't want to let that go when tomorrow might be a brighter day.

Yes, they are older. The average of our employees is 23 years experience in their field. I don't think they would have trouble finding another job, but as I said, overall this is a great place to work. The only issue we have is an antiquated human resources policy.

Yes, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I was another shop floor personnel I would probably be leaving soon too. Truth of the matter is though, I am the QA Manager and it is part of my job description to go nose to nose with the President over certain issues. I have before, and will again, but I never do it without tact and without having my ducks in a row. That's what I am trying to do here.

I have considered getting a coalition together, involving the majority of the people. I worry about that though, because I am sure at the first sign of unionizing the whole idea would become a battleground, and no positive result could EVER come from that.

It may seem as though I am just venting, and maybe I am. I do want to fix this though, and I can see threads of light at the end of the tunnel, I just don't quite know how to approach it yet. :nopity:

I thank you all for the great ideas and thoughts, you have given me new directions to evaluate. Please keep em coming, comments, suggestions, even sympathy and tough love work at this point.

Thanks to the great Covers! :thanx:What you have described really doesn't sound like an HR policy. It sounds like an HR philosophy. It's more profound, more entrenched and harder to break.

Why do these top manager see fit to micromanage about in a multi million dollar company? I would think they would be too busy to involve themselves at the shop floor level.

I wonder if they understand their roles in a competitive company. I wonder if they are worried about their competitive position, or think they must keep the same type of involvement they did while it was growing.

I can put you in touch with an executive coach if you think it would be a help. He understands how and why the HR matter should be turned around.

...Please keep em coming, comments, suggestions, even sympathy and tough love work at this point...

…yeah, please keep your ideas coming (no matter how significant or insignificant they may seem)… they’re all helpful and giving different prospective…

…this is also one of the hardest things to establish, in my own opinion and personal experiences… in fact, this “employee satisfaction scheme” is not really popular in industry – specifically in countries where workforce is not only cheap but abundant!... and “vultures” (or capitalist in business terms) are using this “Achilles' heels” to get more profit… :(

…I remember one documentary regarding this type of scenario, where consumers are buying items on higher prices but they were actually produced in countries where labors are cheap and absolutely no “employee satisfaction” scheme :nope: … it would really amazed you of how much profit they are getting for selling them high at very low production cost!

…anyway, I guess it would be really great if you can share strategies that already proven working (meaning, you personally experience how it’ll works)… :cool:

...and thank you very much for sharing them... :agree1:

Wow. Thank you all for your input. It seems I have some serious thinking (strategizing) to do. I will continue to watch this thread very closely, but I am gonna spend a couple days coming up with a plan of action. This is a complicated matter, as you all seem to realize, and everyone has offered at least something that I can use while moving forward.

Thanks to all the Covers.

Here I go...

Hello! You have posed an interesting situation here.

Ok well I work for a small company. We recently passed our initial certification audit, and as such now I have a little more free time to tackle problem areas and focus on some real improvement.



What exactly is your position in the company? The problem area listed above-who determined that is a problem area, and does the upper management believe that is a problem? I'm not so sure they feel there are any problems in their company. I don't think they believe they are part of the problem. IMHO, the management probably believes the group of people they hire are "A sorry lot of people, and don't understand the value of real work".. or something like that. I think Jennifer addressed that quite adequately in one of her earlier posts.


Ok well I work for a small company. We recently passed our initial certification audit, ...

...I am new to Quality Management, and I don't quite know how to get their attention on this problem, but I do know (99.9% certainty) that if this is addressed, the entire organization will benefit drastically.



BTW... congrats on the initial certification and being new in quality. That is a noteworthy achievement.

Disclaimer: This is a great company, with great people.

The problem I face is that our biggest area of concern is employee satisfaction. We have very few benefits (extremely high cost medical insurance, 1 week vacation after 1 year service), and our President and VP are micro-managers to the extreme. They are very old-fashioned in their approach to business, and do not budge easily. Fortunately, they understand quality and customer satisfaction (or they wouldn't be in business), what they don't seem to understand is that the expectation of military like discipline (myself and a few other top people are ex-military) wears down morale. Penny pinching is a constant battle. Time off is an unspeakable horror. Being late is equivalent to quitting.



I know you realize this... but remember, it's their company to do with what they choose. So many times it's so difficult to see so much potential being wasted, but, that is their choice. The upper management must believe that change is in order, or nothing will ever happen.

One of the first jobs my wife had was at a small insurance agency with a very large insurance company. The guy was nice enough, and was never rude or mean intentionally. But the job lasted a couple of months (which she found out later was the trend with him). This guy had a woman who had worked for him for 15 years-Jan.

The only person who could do anything correctly was: Jan. Jan knew how to file things, Jan knows how to do this and that, etc. So when my wife would do things, it had to be like Jan. Now, Jan was too busy to train my wife, so the guy had to show her. Then, he would constantly come behind her and check through everything and correct her. It was never correct... because.... that's right, that's not how Jan would do it. So he let my wife go, because she was more trouble that she was worth.

My point is this-the mind is a powerful thing. It's so easy for people to create self-fulfilling prophesies that may never be broken. When you're the boss, there's really no one (other than customers and gov't) to tell you you're wrong. If you can keep those two happy, you're the king, and the sky can be whatever color you want it to be.

Life is way too short to work for somebody who believes they are the answer to success, and not the valued employees who contribute unique resources to make things happen.

Thanks for adding your wife's story Brad! Seems like her employer had actually developed a sense of security around Jan's work, or felt a personal connection to it in a relationship kind of way. This might be bearable if Jan's way really was effective...if there was a better way, it would be like a traffic barrier right in your wife's path! In any case, to him it meant there was a system.

My experience showed me that it's possible that no matter what we want to try, we could be turned down. I wanted to do all sorts of things in that machine shop. Silly things like label material so we could tell what it was. That finally happened after an expensive piece was misdrilled (a forged billet was mistaken for a cast billet), but only upon management's decising that, yup, it was a good idea - but they only did it for that specific material.

That remained the case even after I quietly started marking every drilled piece with its shop order number before shipping; when asked I could point out that never again did the customer call up our office lady and complain we didn't send this-or-that (they tended to get jumbled up in shipment). But since the time she was being saved didn't clearly impact the bottom line like that expensive copper billet did, and since he didn't think of it himself, the lesson was not a profound one.

Such a thing we can also expect for personnel matters, where employees' characters can get judged for absenteeism instead of the guy in charge looking into the mirror for his labor problems. Even if they lined up in rows and declared to him/her "We avoid coming to work because of the oppressive atmosphere YOU promote" in unison, the sort of person who will allow this culture might very well be immune to the idea that it's his/her lack of people skills at fault. Look up Narcissistic Personality Disorder and see if you recognize anyone. Hint: it could be someone successful.
:2cents:

But the people who don't fit my cynical model can be softened by the language of money. Use the calculators available as attachments on this site to present your case, but remember to be conservative and remember that employees' minds take time to change too.

What exactly is your position in the company? The problem area listed above-who determined that is a problem area, and does the upper management believe that is a problem? I'm not so sure they feel there are any problems in their company. I don't think they believe they are part of the problem.

I am the QA Manager. I do not report to anyone besides the President. The employees have determined this is a problem area, and I have taken it upon myself to try to do something, anything, to help it. No, upper management does not believe this is a problem. No, they do not believe they are part of the problem.

I am in the process now of attempting to calculate some costs of this atmosphere, and trying to approach it in a non-finger pointing, but more of... hey here's a possible idea to reduce our human resources costs by X %, way.

Thank you guys for your ideas, I am beginning (slowly), to feel that I may indeed be able to at least get the ball rolling. I am not ready to give up just yet, and I will be sure that when the stuff hits the fan I am prepared to get fired. :confused:

I am in the process now of attempting to calculate some costs of this atmosphere, and trying to approach it in a non-finger pointing, but more of... hey here's a possible idea to reduce our human resources costs by X %, way.


This was good advice to you, and a good approach.:yes::agree1: Speaking numbers will tend to get managers attention.

Compare this:

Boss, there's really a problem with turnover and employee dissatisfaction in the company. You should do something about it.

To:

The average turnover for our industry is 8%, and we have 18%. Given training, hiring/firing costs, I estimate that is costing approximately $20,000+ annually.


Then, they may want to argue the numbers a bit, but that's fine: you have their attention. I might be willing to offer 3 three solutions that you feel will remedy the situation.

It sounds like a miserable place to work. I'm not sure I'd stick it out.

I once worked in a small privately owner company where owner would turn up in his Rolls Royce yet employees would wear coats in Winter because they penny pinched on heating. I got myself a new job in 3 months.

Life is too short and anyone of any worth, would be voting with their feet.

An update on the progress we've made. My strategy of speaking their language failed at first. They weren't taking the things I said very seriously. I knew right away it was a credibility issue. The problem in this case is that there was no budget to hire a professional trainer to lend my argument credibility.

My comprimise to that, was in purchasing a copy of Juran's Quality Handbook. By finding and citing things that could be referenced to many professional consultants, and by showing actual data from other companies and their improvement efforts, I managed to peak curiosity. I still have not achieved the support from top to push a HR reform, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Through some reading and discussion, we have determined we are at the "consultive" level, and instead of looking at the final goal, we are focusing on the "next step". Benefits may take some time and effort (reducing costs elsewhere) to come about, but the culture can change for free.

Instead of asking for major changes, or major expenses, I am now only asking to form and use a special project team, with a budget and deadline set by the top, and no interference until the budget or deadline have been reached. By giving top the power of the purse, and by dividing the delegated authority over a few people and for a limited time, I have addressed tops concerns, while hopefully providing a proving ground for future success. I have also provided a "possible solution" to top for the "major problem" of figuring out how to motivate the workforce.

In conclusion, I am attacking this problem with the tried and true PDSA model. Plan: Try to appeal to the top while never comprimising on the value and concept of a QMS. Do: Use tact, but stand my ground. Study: Think about what worked (peaked interest), what didn't work, and how the argument could be changed to capitalize on the lessons learned and gain more support. Act: Get agreement for a small-scale, controlled "experiment" to show benefits of the argument.

The biggest lesson I have learned so far: GET SMALL WINS, AND NEVER GIVE UP. :agree:

This is going to take a while, but I think we are ALL starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. I will try to return and update the thread when any other positive or negative result presents itself. Thank you all for your advice, it has been invaluable.

EDIT: I've found my role in the company changing to a more trainer/mentor type position lately. This seems like the most powerful method for a QA Manager in a small company to assert authority; by giving people the internal drive and understanding, especially management.

Thank you so much for the update. This is such encouraging news!

Your discovery about your role changing is exactly in alignment with the industry movement, which tells me that your organization is, in fact improving - otherwise you'd be running around looking frazzled.

People who think they must be in control are, I have found, very often sincere - just mistakenly believe if they don't do that the thing will come undone. They think the other(s) just aren't up to it, or less often, that they don't care enough to take responsibility. Changing minds on this takes time, proof and patience. I think you are doing the right thing, and I predict it will continue as long as nothing serious disrupts it. Rejoice! :applause:

People who think they must be in control are, I have found, very often sincere - just mistakenly believe if they don't do that the thing will come undone. They think the other(s) just aren't up to it, or less often, that they don't care enough to take responsibility. Changing minds on this takes time, proof and patience.

This realization was important to me. I finally, with the help of my wife :notme:, convinced myself that their intentions were good, and it was only their methods that were wrong. This is an important distinction when your about to go into a meeting with the big cheese. Nothing wrong with the person, just the method; I now try to always keep that in mind.

Thanks for the kind words Jennifer. Your help has always been spot on.

EDIT: I've found my role in the company changing to a more trainer/mentor type position lately. This seems like the most powerful method for a QA Manager in a small company to assert authority; by giving people the internal drive and understanding, especially management.Your discovery about your role changing is exactly in alignment with the industry movement, which tells me that your organization is, in fact improving - otherwise you'd be running around looking frazzled.I second Jennifer's comments. The Q Manager of the future will be a coach, internal consultant, tutor-type of role. The Q Manager of the future will ensure that processes "police" itselves, but there should be no (or very little) policing done by the Q Mgr. him/herself.

The Q manager of the future will be whatever Top management defines him to be.

As to your delima SRGBE I recall a scene from the movie "The Wind and the Lion". It was the scene where a messenger arrives and presents the Raisuli (Sean Connery) with a human tongue and the following exchange takes place:

Eden: Why would anyone want to cut out a man's tongue?
Raisuli: Perhaps the previous owner had nothing pleasant to say.

Maybe that's why leadership was turned off or didn't pay attention or didn't care, or whatever...You didn't say anything that interested them.

There is only one thing that really, really interests leadership and that's $ and all those things connect with either increasing or decreasing $

Everything you say, if you want attention, needs to reflect $ somehow, someway. They want to know "what's it gonna cost, how much can I make back and how long will it take?"

Unless you can take intellegently about $ you're gonna be dead in the water from the git go....as you may have already noticed.

Yes, speaking $ is definately important. Even more important though, is that the things you say be believable. If you can ground this $ talk in irrefutable data you should be golden. But, when your in a situation like mine, you have to find more creative ways to talk $.

You need to turn that data into $

You get two people, one that uses all kinds of great data and the other that can talk in the language of business ($) the $ guy will win out 999 out of 1000 times

You need to turn that data into $

You get two people, one that uses all kinds of great data and the other that can talk in the language of business ($) the $ guy will win out 999 out of 1000 times

I agree with Randy! :yes:

We quality people do not always know how to $peak the language of management. And that my friends is Dollars, Euros, or whatever....

Stijloor.

When I realized my CEO thought that a QMS was primarily about credibility, and was merely an operating expense, the rest of his thoughts and actions regarding the same began to make sense.

Once I was able to show him that a QMS should primarily be about making a higher quality product at a cheaper cost, with traceability as one of the many beneficial "side effects", he has become much more interested in how things work.

I suppose I was ultimately forgetting the psychology part of the SoPK.

As much as wholeheartedly agree with Randy and Stiljoor, I will tell you sometimes the $$ conversation is one that they do not want to have.

I was presenting an improvement project in order to reduce initial product launch cost. I happened to use the last 3 project launches as my baseline. Umm...let's just say when they saw how much $$ was wasted in those projects - I lost them at that point. They didn't want to know anymore (nor how my plan could prevent it).

Btw, we eventually did get the plan in place it just took them recovering from the "sticker shock" of the baseline projects to be able to implement it.

Be ready that they may not be psychologically ready for the reality of the situation (yet).

John

Did you give them the other information like here's what we will get out of it and a date?

You used the term cost when you should have said "invest"

And any business person that claims to not be interested in $ is full of horsebagels :horse: