Is Your Organization Ready For Quality Leadership Culture?

It is never too late if you are planning to build a quality leadership culture for your organization. These are challenging times and only companies that continue to meet or exceed customers’ expectations will come out stronger from this period of economic malaise. Frankly, no organization or business can do without it if they plan to be around for long.

To help facilitate success, at least a few top managers of the group or company must be on board. We provide here a simple Checklist that allows you to do a quick assessment of your organization’s readiness to implement quality leadership culture.

Checklist For Quality Readiness:

You need to be very honest when using the checklist above. Count the number of checks in the list above after you completed it. If you have less than 6 check marks, you might want to try following the steps recommended in my previous article entitled “How To Start Right Building A Quality Service Culture” before embarking on much larger scale campaign.

In Closing

Remember that Quality usually starts with just a few people in any organization. However, the higher those people are in the organization, the more likely the process of building a quality leadership culture will succeed.

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How To Start Right Building A Quality Service Culture

Quality usually starts with just a few people in any organization. The higher those people are in the organization, the higher the probability of success. Any single group can declare itself a quality group and thrive without the overall organization being on board. It is rare for entire organization to agree on any one agenda when effort and involvement on the part of everyone will be required. 

To ensure that a good beginning is in placed right from the onset, the following is recommended: 

• 1. Provide coaching for upper level managers
• 2. Have upper level managers and the board of directors go through a seminar on service quality
• 3. Do an upside-down review. Have subordinates rate the managers on quality readiness
• 4. Have upper level managers go through an executive retreat to assess this cultural readiness and work through a plan to change the culture. This is done by defining the desired culture and then doing a gap analysis by surveying employees to see how close the current culture is to the desired outcome. Outside facilitators can be most helpful. 

Leadership training comes in many forms. There are four basic types; feedback, personal growth, skills building, and conceptual. Each has its drawbacks and advantages. The latest trend, however, is to use a value-based approach. 

Value-based leadership maintains that if we share certain values, the bond between us will be stronger than if we follow the same commands. It requires leaders to articulate the company vision and then create an environment where employees can figure out the answers. 

The Japanese went through 20 years of changing a very authoritarian management philosophy into one that involves considerable direction from the top and input and decision making at the bottom. 

Total quality service is both top-down and bottom-up management. For it to succeed, leadership has to be responsive. Work on the leadership first if this is not the case. Unresponsive leadership will only make employees and customers resentful as heightened expectations are dashed against the arrogance and resistance. Most organizations have a bit of this in place, but ultimately leadership has to walk the talk.  

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How To Create A Climate For Positive Engagement

You have the power to create the ideal environment for communication, one that creates a positive experience for you and others around you.

If you know you have the skills to work with others effectively, your attitude toward them is going to reflect that - you know you’re ready to address whatever may warrant your attention. You are less likely to have your back up against the wall or be defensive. You are also less likely to be overly cautious, holding back. Instead, you’re confident and willing to engage.

Choosing a mind-set to make a good impression of yourself will influence your behaviour - in all sorts of ways. The tone of your voice will be positive and engaging. Your listening skills will be sharpened and at the ready. And although in a telephone conversation your body language would not be visible to the other person, it will nonetheless manifest itself in the way you come across. If you are in a face-to-face setting, your body language will certainly reflect the positive words you use in the conversation.

When you consistently express this mind-set, you will influence the behaviour of people around you. They will respond in a different way than they otherwise might thus create a positive environment for all.

Much of what we are describing comes back to the importance of choice. With a mind-set to make a good impression of yourself, you make the choice to respect the other person and treat him or her as you would have him or her treat you; your attitude and behaviour would naturally reflect that commitment. This applies to personal relationships as well.

The bottom line is with a mind-set to always make a good impression of yourself, it helps you establish a genuinely respectful relationship between you and others. Even if you have to tell the customer that his product was back-ordered or that his appliance sent in for repair isn’t ready for collection - or must say no in any fashion - the customer can still feel that you have handled the situation in such a calm, confident, professional way that he or she would still choose to have another contact with you in the future. 

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Beware The Silent Customer

Most of us are living lives in the fast lane. Just as technology is rapidly changing, so is our lifestyle. The way we do things are a whole lot different than we used to, we walk and talk a lot faster, always in a hurry, and even our tastes and preferences are changing.

Our expectations are at an all-time high. We are more demanding than ever with growing affluence. We are spoilt for choice. Ask yourself as a customer, do you bother to take time to tell people exactly what you want? The answer is most probably “No”. You would expect the quality or service you want for whatever it is you’re buying and you expect the other party to know.

I was with a close buddy recently who wanted steak for dinner. We went to this restaurant in mid town and ordered a rib-eye and sirloin steak complete with soup, salad, red wine, and dessert and coffee to end off. He preferred his steak done medium-well while I like mine well-done as usual.

When our soup was served, it wasn’t hot. In fact, it tasted like it was mass produced and left on the kitchen stove for some time. The garlic bread that accompanied it was no better. It wasn’t freshly toasted and soaked of melted butter.  Twenty minutes later, our steaks arrived. Mine was almost burned (I could tell even with the brown mushroom sauce over it) while his was clearly rare when he cut it. Meanwhile, the waiters were busily serving other diners. I suggested we have his steak sent back to the kitchen but he said to forget about it.

Thirty minutes later, we asked for the bill. The restaurant manager presented us the check and enquired if everything was to our satisfaction. My buddy simply replied, “Fine, thanks” and the manager happily moved on.

“Fine! Why didn’t you tell him your steak was served practically raw fit for the lions? They messed up your steak and you said fine?” I protested. “Oh, I can’t be bothered. I’ll just make sure I don’t come back,” he replied with certainty.

Here is the scary situation. The manager thinks everybody is happy while the customers are thinking, “We are not ever going to come back here again!” My friend did not even register his dissatisfaction on the customary customer satisfaction form located at each table.

So how do you know what your customers are thinking about you? Just because they are silent does not necessarily mean they are happy.

What can you do?

1. Openly and habitually seek feedback from your customers - good or bad.
2. Even if your customer should reply that everything is fine, still ask “If there is one thing we can do better, what would it be?”
3. In the feedback card, use words like “Please give us your honest comment. We love feedback as it will help us serve you better.”
4. Then go to work on improvements based on the feedback received or your customers will know sooner or later that you are insincere about improving.

And finally, if you do get customers who complain, remember to thank them. They are probably speaking on behalf of many dozen other customers who thought similarly but didn’t tell you. Learn from it and make sure you win them over and keep them coming back.

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog and get our Free Report on “10 Secrets to Successful Employee Engagement”. If you have comments, we would love to hear. Please post them below.

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