Talking about total quality and international quality standards such as ISO 9001: 2000 or ISO / TS-16949 is synonymous with an organized company, with defined priorities, with controlled documented systems, focused on the appropriate training for its personnel, based on processes, with a philosophy of continuous improvement and with metrics to evaluate its performance in the key areas that guarantee its proper functioning to ensure its market and achieve the growth planned by its managers.
Confucius already said it, when his disciples asked him where he would start if it were to govern a country… Confucius replied: "I would like to improve the language." Amazed, his disciples told him that this answer had nothing to do with his question. What did it mean to improve the language? And then Confucius clarified:
“If language lacks precision, what is said is not what is thought. If what is said is not what is thought, then there are no true works. And if there are no true works, then neither art nor morality flourish. If art and morality do not flourish, then there is no justice. If there is no justice, then the nation will not know which route is: it will be a ship on fire and adrift. For this reason, do not allow yourself arbitrariness with words. When it comes to governing a nation, the most important thing is the precision of the language.
How true and wise these words resonate to apply them in the administration of a company… Total quality systems and international standards are there. How do I use them? How do I get the message across to my employees? What is the language I use to publicize my quality system?
Is the language we use tame or rude? Do you know what the difference is? The word docile or docility has its origins in the word "docere" which means "to teach" or in the word "doceri" which means "to be taught", and means the condition of "who allows himself to be taught".
To use a docile language to implement a total quality system or an international standard, is then to adopt the attitude of Wanting to teach or allow to be taught.
And I ask you, businessman friend; What would be easier? Use a language that teaches? Or use language that punishes or offends?
Here, in the language, you have a key that can be the difference between the success of implementing a true quality system that focuses on results through properly implemented metrics and that is carried out day by day in all your operations or in making up a quality system that has to update a week or three or four days before the surveillance audit comes, to "pretend" that your company works under the rules, regulations and requirements of a total quality system just to maintain a role (read certified), that talks about quality before its clients and society, but that in reality it is only a “beautiful and very expensive appearance”.
If we use a "rude" language, we will not be adopting the practice of "teaching"… And a quality system above all, teaches.
A quality system must have the "mental clarity" of a child when he understands everything… And also a quality system must be able to be explained in a "transparent like crystal" way, if it cannot be understood and explained in these two ways, the quality system will not bring the true benefits to the company.
A quality system cannot see itself defeated in the field of arguments… If a docile and proper language cannot explain the quality system, we can hope that the “makeup wolf will dress as a sheep and begin to propose peace ”. Ridiculous thing.
A misused language in total quality will result in the same employees of the company "exile" to the quality system of their daily functions and begin to make up formats and data to appear to comply with the procedures and methods for doing things, but without actually carrying them out according to the quality system implemented.
A quality system must be able to help the people who "live" it, to enlarge their paradigm of what should be one of the parts of human life (the part of work).
If the quality system does not help us to "grow" as humans with respect to our work phase, the quality system is not well designed and has left out a very important part of its goals.
If today they ask us: “And you, a businessman friend, where would you start if you were managing a company? What would your answer be? Would you talk about getting results based on expected money? Or would you speak of "improving the language"?
Well, that would depend on whether you are focused on achieving your goals in the short term or in the long term.
If outlining a quality system like ISO 9000, which has been around the industry for 17 years, is difficult, imagine trying to account for the language and how to use it to the greatest advantage in implementing a quality system, this might seem like an impossible task.
However, an appropriate language will always bring better results.
Let's talk about a bit of history: Heidegger returned to the fact that language is "the mystery that defines man"; for man, language is his "identity and historical presence, his unique way of being"; everything that can be said and "communicated" is housed "within the walls of language." For Steiner, the current condition of language is one of "unequaled precariousness", accentuated mainly by this fierce displacement towards the entity and only towards it. The mystery where the "flash of Being" dwells, towards which Heidegger tries to return.
But today, what happens today? Could it be that human beings are facing a “language crisis”? What is the direction that our language has taken? Is only language in crisis or also thought?
I think that the majority of human beings have forgotten how to think and the most that the great majorities are doing today is just remembering. Repeating over and over again mental images that we call thoughts… But the true art of thinking, where we ask ourselves why we have studied, where we investigate and analyze things, is dangerously out of fashion. And little by little we are becoming a repetitive society. Too much television and too little reading, I would say.
Or is it that human beings have forgotten to read poetry? And what is poetry? Can we stop thinking by not reading poetry? Can we have a business poetry? What does poetry have to do with total quality and ISO 9000? Can poetry help us to improve our language to better implement a total quality system in companies and achieve the expected results?
According to Heidegger, poetry is more than just the handling of language; it is the foundation of all language… For this reason, if we speak of language and total quality, we must also speak of poetry. According to these definitions of Heidegger, it would be practically impossible to want to separate language from poetry… Certainly a novice aspiring writer like his servant would not dare to do so.
In fact, poetry invites us to think… A poetic language in our speech stimulates thought, which has been so dusty lately.
Thinking in a poetic way is equivalent to “creating” and why did man come into the world, if not to be a creator?
And when analyzing certain poetry, we must find its "essence". So then, if we can say that a quality system is a business poem? What is the essence of our quality system?
Do you know her, businessman friend? Do you know the essence of your quality system? Do your employees know about it?
So why do we make up systems, methods and procedures?
If our total quality system ISO 9000 or whatever, has not defined its "essence", the system will cease to exist faster than you finish giving payments to your consultant.
But let's go back to the beginning: what is language, according to the poet?
Around 1800 Hölderlin wrote: «Man has been given agency and a higher power, and has been given the most dangerous of goods, language, so that with it he creates and destroys, sinks and returns to the eternally alive, to the teacher and mother, to show what it is. On the one hand it is the "most innocent of all occupations" and on the other the "most dangerous of goods." Heidegger analyzes this contradiction by attempting a conciliation in the following way:
Whose good is language? How far is the most dangerous of goods? In what sense is it a good in general? In front of other beings, man has built where to keep himself and what to wear. Home and dress. Who is this? Who is this man compared to other beings with whom he co-inhabits? First of all, man is a mystery; he must show what he is to "reveal who he is." It has to be made evident to him. Manifest. It is what it is. As God said to Moses: "I am who I am." His existence on earth speaks of belonging to her. Unintentionally or willingly but without fully remembering it, we are heirs to this belonging, to things as we find them. It remains for us to assume what we find as "intimacy" to continue creating. Language, insofar as it speaks, by its essential character, is a good for man.
And I add, language becomes dangerous when it is used to destroy, to slander, to lie and speak in a quality system, when it is used to make up data and to impose wills by "inventing" a system that is not available. Of course, the most affected by this lie is the same company that makes up its documents, because it does not even know the shadow of the benefits and benefits that a true well-designed and implemented quality system can provide.
Language is good when we make ourselves understood, that is, when others understand what we want to communicate; then then, it is an evil when we do not make ourselves understood by others.
The good use of language and total quality… At the end of the day it leads to dialogue.
If we are able to "dialogue", we are making correct use of language, if we cannot dialogue and we have to impose by force or by hierarchy (speaking of companies), then we are not making a good use of language and as Confucius said: "Our company will not know what the route is and we will be a burning ship adrift".
