bizarre post - but lets go for it...........

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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:39 pm

OK,

Absolutley nothing Baiter related hence in the general section....

I have very recently taken on a new team at work, some of whom we say have some 'development opportunities and needs '..... work in insurance industry and managing a reasonably educated bunch of people........

Basically, my remit is to get the team into shape and ensure we start to deliver some "high quality outputs" - oh I love management speak......... Very Happy

What I am asking for help on is some pictures (preferably) or examples of similar products or sevices but good and bad (eg BA or Qantas v Air Nigeria) or for those in the UK (Aldi v Marks & Spencer foodhalls) to install the perception that a quality commodity has a certain consistency and feel that oozes quality.

Also, any tales of how you did this would be appreciated......

Cheers

Fen.

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:00 pm

In a former job I needed to help some folks that were not performing well. My strategy was different than what they were used to so I said if they take my advice than if we succeed they can take credit and if we fail I'll take the blame.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Something like this?

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:23 pm

get a few Dilberts

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:12 am

^^^ South Lake Tahoe City Council Meeting.

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:47 am

No need to show pictures or make pointless speeches to motivate your team.

At the end of the first week just get them one by one into your office and ask them "exactly what is it you do around here"? Come Monday they'll be bouncing off the walls with new and original ideas.

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:29 pm

Ahhh. Familiar territory here.

We usually work with manufacturing companies rather than financial sector or services, but people are people.

The classic Quality Assurance comparison example always used to be Rolls Royce vs Mini.

Technically, you're not talking 'quality' here though, but grade. 'Quality' according to the ISO standard definition boils down to 'fit for purpose'.

So for example, Aldi sell cheap stuff without the frills, of a standard that their customers are happy with. Therefore they are still provide 'quality'. Just that it's a different 'grade' of product/service.

I suppose what you're looking for is instilling a sense of pride in the team, and getting across that your product and service should be BETTER than the customers' expectations. The way to do that is to take the overall objectives, i.e. improvement in sales, or whatever, and start breaking that down into more practical objectives that all work towards achieving the top management objective.

From there, you can start setting measures (or Key Performance Indicators) [hark at me, wiv' me techie speak!], so that everyone knows exactly what's expected of them. Strangely, even though being measured would seem to be something that p's people off, we always find that knowing exactly what they're doing and what's expected is a huge motivator instead.

Of course, in order to be able to 'measure' and set targets, you have to have the systems in place to be able to collect and report the relevant data. I always point out that 'just because it's easy to measure, doesn't mean it's relevant', and also that 'just because it's urgent, doesn't mean it's important'.

If you're doing training, it's always nice to have 'consequences' of not doing things correctly. Not sure how it would work for you, but I always like to use the Piper Alpha disaster as my example, since the chain of events that caused the eventual explosion started with one piece of paper (a 'permit to work' form from a maintenance guy) not being filled in and filed where it should have been!

So I guess, to save boring the pants off others on the forum any further, if you think it's worthwhile bouncing stuff off another brain, feel free to PM. Trouble-shooting in small companies or teams is what we do. When we're not purveying products and clothing of a dubious nature, anyway Very Happy

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