Every so often, major projects rise unexpectedly to distract me from the work I am trying to accomplish. At times, these projects are eagerly welcomed in spite of their tendency to draw heavily upon my attention and time, at the expense of other such projects I am attempting to accomplish. Such has been the case over this summer, ever since the month of April, when I was tasked with deploying and managing an entirely new ISO 9001:2008 certified Quality Management System within our office. Yesterday, we successfully completed our audit to confirm the status of our implementation of the system in accordance with ISO (with 1 minor non-conformance) and thus receive our certificate – I now feel comfortable returning to the world.
But, having been thoroughly steeped in the experiences of this new realm, my thoughts about creative work, organizational behavior, and workplace design have been irrevocably altered – for the better, to be sure, but altered nonetheless. So, for the sake of framing any future ideas I might express, it must be understood that my mind now operates within an entirely different context, more heavily weighted by the concepts of quality management and continuous performance improvement as proposed by ISO 9000 and the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria.
Interestingly, I have discovered, much to my relief and delight, that the ideas on Organizational Ecology and workplace design I have been proposing all along are, in fact, reinforced by the underlying philosophies and taxonomies expressed in the above mentioned quality frameworks. Indeed, the best practices described therein invoke the power of processes, systems, and environments to influence organizational behavior and performance. As a former professor of mine simply stated:
“It’s not the person, it’s the SYSTEM.”
As this statement implies, the SYSTEM can either work for the benefit of your company, or against it (or both). Thankfully, it is also anything but static. Change can be made, but absolutely must be driven by Leadership.
The ultimate objective of that SYSTEM, for any organization, is sustainability – to facilitate the ability of the organization to do the best job it can today so it can do it better, faster, and with more and better knowledge tomorrow. Therefore, it would behoove the leaders of any organization to take an introspective look at the mechanics of its SYSTEM (i.e. its workspace, its processes, and its systems collectively) to look for opportunities to improve across all facets of the business:
- Strategic Planning
- Customer engagement
- Workforce engagement
- Operations
- Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
- and most of all, Leadership
(Those with knowledge of it may notice that the above business elements are taken directly out of the Baldrige Criteria.)
How are your leaders managing performance in your companies? How are they improving? If you don’t know, there is a very good chance your leadership is overlooking a critical aspect of business performance, namely, workforce engagement. I would encourage everyone to begin asking these questions and getting involved in continuous improvement efforts within their own organization. After all, this is your industry, your company, and your work – it should also be your pride and joy.
Now, go show the world that it is.
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