Throughout many years of professional activity, I have found that some old beliefs that complicate their lives and make them lose money continue to be valid in the minds of small entrepreneurs.
It seems to me that this is very unfair and unnecessary, both for them and for their employees and customers. Things may be different and I would like to comment on why.
Here is a summary of the ten objections that I consider the most frequent when considering the implementation of improvement projects in small businesses. Surely some could be the one that prevents you from solving your current difficulties and I hope that these reflections will help you to begin to overcome them.
MYTH 1: "Quality is expensive"
In reality, the costly thing is to forget to improve the quality. In today's world the competition is increasingly cruel and ruthless, which is no longer news to anyone. But it is an important fact of reality that we must take into account.
In this scenario, we have only two ways to differentiate ourselves: by better quality or by better price. If we opt for the latter, our days as entrepreneurs are numbered. There will always be someone who can trade lower and the outcome is not difficult to anticipate.
Do we have enough financial backing to risk this positioning strategy and continue to cut prices indefinitely until we eliminate all competitors?
And the real problem doesn't even lie in this.
No matter how low our prices are and how much support we have, if the quality of the products or services falls below the minimum that the customer expects, we still lose it. It has many alternatives and is increasingly exercising its power.
Therefore, economizing on quality management is the worst business decision that can be made.
MYTH 2: "Quality gives work"
Yes maybe. But continually fixing faults that we could have prevented takes a lot more work. And this without counting other consequences, such as chasing dissatisfied customers to try to recover them, or throwing material in the trash and having to replace it urgently (at a higher cost), or maintaining permanent altercations with employees because we assume that they are "to blame" for the mistakes.
And now for the best part: when we learn the basics of quality, we realize that the key is to work less, making sure we only do the things that add value to the customer. The rest is waste. It's the job we don't want to do anymore.
Process improvement is the way to remove all the burden from our operation, make it faster, cheaper and with fewer failures, to ensure that we can truly satisfy and retain our customers.
MYTH 3: "Quality is for big companies"
Another catastrophic mistake. When resources are very scarce, as is the case in small companies, we must make sure more than ever to avoid waste by all means, as I said in Myth 2. Perhaps the large ones could afford some waste and, even so, not make. They know that the name of the game is efficiency - the relationship between what goes into production and the results you get.
This perception is largely due to the fact that only large companies advertise their achievements in quality, because they have the financial capacity to do so. They are the most visible.
But today, many small entrepreneurs have realized that their only option for survival is to improve quality and arm themselves to compete.
Quality has not been the exclusive heritage of large companies for a long time. Today, no small business owner can afford to think that if he continues to turn his back on quality, it will come for free.
MYTH 4: "Quality adds bureaucracy"
And yes, we have enough with the tax returns. But let me tell you something: bureaucracy is not quality. It is quite the opposite.
An intelligent quality management system uses documentation to improve results and lower costs. Any document that does not allow you to do this in any way has no reason to be and should be removed.
I propose that you review the papers that you currently have in your company. Does everyone assure you of this?
It's more. When we work on quality we discover that:
- well-designed procedures make it possible to do work in a predictable, programmable and safe way, to ensure delivery on time and products without failures streamlined forms make work easier and ensure that we do not forget anything important recording those activities allows you to know who did what, when and how, to hold accountable when the time comes and give support if needed.
Therefore, the only possible conclusion is that a properly designed quality management system is not only non-bureaucratic, but it is the best business option if the goal is to improve profitability in a sustainable way.
MYTH 5: "My clients never complained"
A small correction: perhaps those complaints never reached his ears. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen. I want to mention as an example a couple of situations that are more common than one might imagine.
Situation 1: customer service
- There are many ways to complain, even without words: it is what we call "non-verbal" or "gestural" language, which is increasingly important when it comes to communicating (and not only with clients). How can you be sure that this has never happened when you do not attend to them personally? Complaints employees receive may be about themselves, their attitude or their style of care (personal or telephone) - you may not find out until a novel mess has been made.
Situation 2: we didn't even know
A very dissatisfied customer sometimes doesn't even give us a chance to hear his complaint. He simply goes to buy elsewhere, because more and more "customers vote with their feet." Do we keep an account of these cases?
But, of course, if you think your service is perfect, maybe you are right and your customers have never truly complained. Think about it.
MYTH 6: "What I do works: why improve?"
This myth has a lot to do with No. 5. But it is also related to a maxim of popular wisdom (?) That goes more or less like this:
Everything changes around us. 30 years ago we did not use a cell phone. 15 ago we didn't have Facebook. 10 ago we did not share photos or chains of jokes on WhatsApp.
And yet some entrepreneurs believe that what they have been doing for the same number of years (or perhaps longer) cannot be improved!
If this were so, it would be difficult for those businesses to have survived to this day. Adjustments always occur, albeit unconsciously. But by not doing them in a systematic way, you lose your biggest benefits and repeat old mistakes over and over again. No progress.
On the other hand, I am sure that no one is entirely satisfied with its profitability, which could be substantially improved if what I said about efficiency in Myth 3 was taken into account.
Because quality not only has to do with the products or services that the company delivers to the client, but - much more important - with the results of that work for the businessman's pocket, because the survival and health of the business depends on that.
You really don't want to earn more?
MYTH 7: "My employees don't obey"
I have known many employers who spend hours "writing procedures" but never get their employees to execute them as expected. Maybe at first they try, but it doesn't last long. Everything ends in great frustration.
Could it have happened to you? Please write this tip and keep track of it:
If you want a procedure to be done, let it be designed by those doing the work, with your help (not the other way around). They do not need to know how to draw a flowchart or in what language to write the documents.
Just explain to them what they should achieve (the "quality characteristics"), for what purpose they should achieve it (meet the "customer requirements") and what resources are at their disposal, so that your people have the information they need to discuss and propose the best way to do it. The best procedure.
Let them do tests. That they correct. Let them try again. Let them measure the time it takes for the entire process. I promise you this way they will make sure it works and find a way to fix it if they don't.
Because they designed it themselves. They have no excuses.
In this way, you are starting the path towards the dream of any entrepreneur, small, medium or large: that teams are self-managed and require the least possible supervision.
MYTH 8: "My employees don't understand quality"
Over the years I have been (and greatly) surprised to discover how many new (and complex) things people with a very basic education are able to learn and put into practice.
And the general conclusion that I draw from these experiences is that, if a person knows how to do the work, they are also capable of analyzing and improving it.
People like to do things well and if they have a chance to improve, they do so in good spirits. What's more: the learning curve is much shorter than one might suppose when it occurs in the workplace itself, that is, in practice. It is what we call "active learning", the best and fastest way known to incorporate knowledge.
But most importantly, new opportunities create an environment of motivation and commitment like nothing else could. Better than a raise.
MYTH 9: "I don't have time to do quality"
Once upon a time there was a lumberjack who showed up to work in a sawmill. The salary was good and the working conditions even better; therefore, the lumberjack decided to practice all his experience.
The first day when he presented himself to the foreman, the foreman gave him a saw and designated a work area for him. The excited man went out into the forest and in a single day cut down eighteen trees.
"I congratulate you," said the foreman; keep it up.
Encouraged by the words of the foreman, he decided to improve his own brand, so that that night he went to rest very early.
In the morning he got up before anyone else and went to the forest. Despite all his efforts, he was unable to cut more than fifteen trees.
Sad for the poor performance, he thought that maybe he should rest longer so that night he decided to go to bed with the sunset. At dawn he woke up determined to exceed his mark of 18 trees. However, that day he only cut ten.
The next day there were seven, then five, until at the end of that first week of work he only cut two. He couldn't understand what was happening to him since he was physically fine, like the first day.
Tired and out of respect for those who had offered him the job, he decided to resign, so he went to the foreman to whom he said:
-Sir, I don't know what's wrong with me, nor do I understand why I have stopped performing at my job.
The foreman, a very wise man, asked him:
-When did you sharpen your saw the last time?
-Sharpen? I've never done it, I didn't have time to sharpen my saw. He was too busy cutting down trees!
…
Like the lumberjack, the inertia and the vertigo of each day prevent the employer from perceiving the causes that little by little make his work more difficult, damaging his results and depleting his energy.
When we manage quality in a systematic way we can create alarms that tell us when something is wrong and why, with enough time to take effective action.
MYTH 10: "My company is too small"
How small is “too” small? Five people, three, two, ONE? Even a professional who doesn't even have an assistant can reap huge benefits from managing her own quality. For example:
- optimizes your efficiency through proper planning, to be able to accept more work, ensures that you do not forget anything, through checklists, find out the opinion of your customers through surveys or interviews, to find out what could be improved.
The income of that professional depends on this and other similar things. Its "profitability".
And if a single person can do this, there is no company so small that its size prevents it from obtaining juicy returns if it faces systematic work to improve the quality of its products or services.
Because, in reality, there is not a company that does not manage its quality in some way.
Do you have a notebook with the names and details of your clients? Do you write down the orders on a piece of paper? Do you keep email communications and file them in a folder on your computer? Do you control what suppliers give you and check it against the invoice?
These are all records that reflect activities, which have been carried out in a certain sequence and with some purpose. When that goal is customer satisfaction, we call it a "quality management system."
ISO 9000 standards and the like are just trying to get you to do it consistently, to extract the greatest possible benefits from your work.
Because that's what commercial ventures were invented for.
(Adapted from the ebook "POSSIBLE QUALITY: How to walk the path of excellence without dying trying")
Jorge Carrizo Moyano
