Build Pride in the Workplace

Dr. Terry McSween

Today, many of us have come to realize that quality is a behavioral issue. “Put pride back in workmanship. Drive fear out of the work place.” With these simple words, Dr. Edward Dewing one of the country's leading quality experts, enjoins American managers to deal with behavioral issues relevant to the success of quality improvement eons. The implication is that we must create a positive work environment where people are motivated by a sense of achievement and accomplishment, where people work because they want to, not because they have to. Dr. Deming is very clear that management has responsibility for “the system” which encompasses all aspects of the work environment, including those management practices that impact motivation and teamwork (Deming, 1986).

Unfortunately, Dr. Deming is less clear about exactly what needs to be done. How do we give someone pride in doing the job right? How do we get management and employees to work together as a tram? What is the process that we must put into place to create such a positive environment? These are simple questions, and the answers are simple in concept. Unfortunately, the application of simple concepts is often surprisingly challenging.

For most organizations, creating a positive work environment requires three things: an increase in the use of positive consequences; a reduction in the use of aversive control and a well-designed feedback and involvement process that keeps people informed of how they are doing.

Increase positive consequences

How do we forget, at work, the power of a simple “Thank you?” Dale Carnegie shared the secret several decades ago when he suggested that we “express honest and sincere appreciation” (Carnegie, 1981). Praise and a simple “thank you” are powerful tools for creating a sense of pride in the work place. Everyone acknowledges the importance of an occasional “pat on the back” but few of us engage in the practice on a regular basis and with the sincerity required to make it meaningful. In the old way of doing business, managers only talked to employees when they had a problem. The new way requires a better balance in our social interactions with coworkers.

Beyond the social graces, we must create meaningful celebrations of our successes. Whether we pop the cork on a bottle of champagne or send a manager out to dinner with her husband, we need to make the world a little brighter following our successes. We need to have some fun together when we have been successful Such celebrations are simply too important to leave to chance. Companies small and large should have a formal plan for what events they will celebrate and a menu of different forms of celebrations that may be appropriate to those events.

Reduce aversive control

Managers must learn not to use threats, nagging, criticism or other forms of punishment to get things done. The first major step that a manager can take is to work with employees to change the system in a way that corrects and prevents problems, not to blame employees for those problems. The emotional response that employees have to such chastisement destroys the teamwork, loyalty and creativity necessary for an effective organization. In such environments, employees work to avoid getting caught. They will fail to report important data or play games with the numbers. Such environments create morale problems and turnover. The work people do is because they have to, rather than because they want to. In short, much of what gets done, gets done for the wrong reasons.

Design effective feedback and involvement processes

Many companies straggle with how to get people involved in measurement. A major part of the difficulty typically lies in the practices described above. A well designed feedback system should apply the concepts of statistical process control and increase employees' control over their environment. A poorly designed system simply increases the paperwork or reports such data to management. An important purpose of measurement is to provide people with feedback on their successes and accomplishments. The data should direct future efforts and provide focus for employee involvement efforts.

Many companies tell their employees to use graphs and measures and improve the quality of their products, and then wonder why the charts don't get started or maintained. If we want people to use graphs and measures, those graphs and measures have to be meaningful, and in a positive way. The challenge for management is to create a team process that ensures the value of those graphs and measures.

Why so difficult?

Quality improvement is not simply training people in SPC and starting teams. One of the hardest parts is changing old habits of how we work together. Changing behavior is very difficult, as anyone who has tried to quit smoking or lose weight or start exercising can testify. Leadership must change the way they talk with employees about performance. Changing those management practices of an organization takes a systematic effort. Such an effort starts by creating a better understanding of why people act the way they do and the give and take of relationships. Beyond this basic understanding, we must develop and live by a “code of conduct” that provides positive guidelines for interacting with our fellow employees.

The customer focus of today's quality programs provides a starting point for understanding the give and take of relationships at work, both internal and external to the organization. Within organizations, everyone has customers and suppliers. Employees are the customer for much of the work done by managers. Yet, managers and business owners don't typically treat their employees like they do their customers.

Employees can find meaning in both their relationships at work and in the contribution they make. We have to build those relationships and give everyone the opportunity to make a contribution, and to have a strong sense of that contribution. We not only want people to do the right things, we want them doing the right things for the right reasons. This means that people make a change because it is the right thing to do, not simply because someone told them to make that change.

All of us, managers and employees alike, spend too much time in the work place for it to be without some positive meaning. We simply can't go on working for the end of the day, or the weekend, or retirement. There is more to life than that. This is the real opportunity as we follow the roadmap to change.