One of the risks you run when starting a quality management system is encountering the resistance and skepticism of your staff. And this difficulty can spoil the entire project.
It happens many times that in a company this process has been started by carrying out a thorough diagnosis, defining the mission, values, policy and objectives, and presenting these statements to all staff as the beginning of a path to which they are intended to adhere.
But if you talk to any of the employees, you notice that they view those statements as something foreign to themselves, something that is not part of their job and what they disbelieve. One of the causes of this, especially when it comes to SMEs, is usually the one that I would like to address this time.
When a company decides to undertake a change of direction, a profound transformation, what they usually do is call a consultant to recommend what is the best way for their situation.
Many consultants, mainly those who work with large companies, are in favor of starting by making an in-depth diagnosis of the company's situation, and then defining the long-term objectives together with the management, and based on these, developing a strategy with a plan for its implementation.
This is how those statements of which I spoke at the beginning are defined. This is a valid path and many times it is what guarantees that the actions that are undertaken are, from the beginning, well oriented towards the direction that the company wants to take.
However, there is a risk that everything will become beautiful words, correctly thought out, but totally empty, at least at the beginning of the process, which will make those who try to oppose that process have good tools to use those statements in favor of their opposition, since they will be able to prove that they are foreign to reality.
Imagine that you work in an insurance company and one day you see a man arrive who begins to meet frequently with the director. After a time, they gather all the employees with the director and the consultant (that man you were seeing), to present them the project they have designed together, with its objectives and plan, where you are already involved in a specific role. What feelings do you think it would cause you? You probably adhere to the project because you think it is successful and it is what the company needs; Or perhaps it will be something against you and you will not see yourself in that role that they chose for you. In both cases, however, chances are you're left with a feeling of something imposed from the outside, starting with others (and what you'll try - or not - to get involved in and make yours). Something you did not participate in or were consulted about.And you will ask yourself the doubt thatit is possible to achieve such an ambitious project.
These sensations normally appear in the group of employees of a company that undertakes these projects. Remember that the most difficult thing to achieve to initiate a major change is the adherence of the people who will have to implement it.
The projects do not usually fail for technical reasons but for failures in people's attitudes, coordination and adaptation.
In the book " A new management system to achieve world-class SMEs ", the authors Andriani, Biasca and Rodríguez M. recommend another path for SMEs that, according to their experiences, is more appropriate and safe.
1. This begins when the director identifies the most serious problems facing the company. From this simple diagnosis, a short-term plan is prepared (it can be 3 months) to start generating improvements in that main aspect. These improvements are implemented with working groups and achieve short-term results practically immediately.
2. Then new short-term improvement actions are started, and in this way this form of work is exercised by all the members of the company. The initial objective will not be so much to completely solve this serious problem that has been identified, but to generate internal trust. In other words, people working in this way and achieving partial results are motivated and begin to believe that a transformation is possible with this form of joint work.
3. Finally, when this stage has matured, it will be time to carry out a more in-depth analysis to extend the term of the improvement plan to one year, and thus, following the reverse path, from action to planning, we arrive when defining goals, policies, vision, values, with a belief system and internal adherence that will make them unstoppable.
So I invite you not to wait until you have a "diagnosis" of the ills of your company, but to use your experience, your situation, what you are most concerned about today to start exercising with your team.
I wish you the best of success.
