Quality Culture - Identify 3 "qualities" or "things" of a Quality Culture

[Crusader]

A co-worker presented a question here at work to all departments. (Student research question for his class.) The instructor said to pose the question to various departments. I thought I'd pose that question here to see how we answer.

Anyhow, here goes:

Identify 3 "qualities" or "things" of a:
1. positive quality culture
2. negative quality culture


My answer:
Positive things:
1. Upper Management Commitment / Support / Leadership
2. Teamwork & Open/Shared Communication
3. Meeting Realistic Objectives & Continuous Improvement

Negative would be opposite of the above.

Thanks for participating!
Lee

[ralphsulser]

Positives:
1-Customer and employee satisfaction
2-New and repeat business
3-Sustained profitability

Negatives:
Opposite of above

[Craig H.]

Positive
1. Open communication with customers.
2. Open communication with suppliers.
3. Open internal communication, with willingness and ability to act upon shared goals/vision.

Negative
1. Not invented here.
2. Stay out of my silo.
3. Wanna supply me? Take me to the ballgame.

[Ajit Basrur]

POSITIVE

1. Earn Trust from Customers
2. Walk the Talk
3. Adaptability to New things

NEGATIVE

1. Working in silos
2. Preferring to stay in comfort zones
3. Very poor Internal Quality Audits

[triner]

Positive quality culture
1) Always seeking continuous improvement
2) Highlight problems instead of hiding them
3) Values integrity of people and systems above all else

Negative quality culture
1) Inspect quality in
2) apply rules and policies only when convenient
3) Treat symptoms not root causes

[ScottK]

Positive:
1) Open mindedness of all employees, especially management
2) Particaptory culture (employees at all levels encourage to particpate in improvement)
3) Committment to improvement from all management

Negative:
1) Bandage symptoms because there is "no time" to find root causes
2) Management disinterest in the processes of the business, only looking at the bottom line
3) Frequent punishment for poor quality and no rewards for improvement efforts.

[Coury Ferguson]

"Identify 3 "qualities" or "things" of a:
1. positive quality culture
2. negative quality culture"


1A. The ability to look outside the box
1B. The willingness to change things-remove the block walls (paradigms)
1C. The ability to be open minded

2A, 2B and 2C: Opposites

[pldey42]

I just love the questions students ask; they're so often simple yet insightful.

FWIW here's my 2 pennies worth:

Positive culture

1. Leadership
2. Accountability
3. Stunningly open communications up, down, sideways that fosters rapid sharing of knowledge and learning.

I started with customer focus. Then I realised that true leadership and accountability will bring customer focus, whereas customer focus will not bring leadership and accountability.

I've made leadership and accountability separate because although they ought to go together, they often don't and I'm totally mystified why people who are otherwise good leaders don't instill accountability in their organisations. Some would say they're therefore bad leaders, but their followers would argue passionately otherwise.

Negative culture

1. Leadership that values self-interest above customers and staff.
2. Blame games. ("Mutually dependent sado-masochism" as one industrial shrink once described it to me)
3. Decisions based on politics and personalities instead of facts and measurements.

Just my 2c,
Patrick