We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit

Aristotle (384BC – 322BC) summed up perfectly the reason why so many improvement initiatives fail; it is because they are just that, initiatives.

I once joined a company where one senior manager repeatedly used the phrase “keep taking the aspirin”. When, after a short while, I asked what he meant he explained that the culture in the business was akin to having a thorn in your foot and, instead of removing the thorn, repeatedly taking aspirin to dull the pain. Some years later, in a different organisation, the Quality Manager complained “we never have time to do the job right, but we always have time to do the job twice”.

These comments both illustrate the point that Aristotle was making. Unless habits are changed then nothing else will; it is necessary to address the root cause of a problem in order to prevent it re-occurring yet, so often, once the symptoms of a problem have been addressed then nothing further is done. Organisations that embrace a true quality approach are rigorous in establishing those root causes, taking actions and then monitoring their effectiveness; they achieve excellence by design.

Establishing these positive habits can never be done by top-down initiatives, they only ever succeed by engaging and empowering everyone in the organisation and by rigorously measuring and managing achievements. Doing that in a simple and practical manner is how Qualitin’s ICG methodology has enabled so many organisations in so many sectors to realise such significant benefits over so many years.