We talk with Anna Farion, creator and executive leader of the „Unretouched Quality with Anna Farion” project, organizer of the largest National Quality Congress, numerous workshops, and webinars, expert of the Production Engineering Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Vice-President of the Qualitas Foundation, about the role of quality culture in building the success of companies and organizations.
What is quality culture?
Quality culture is the foundation of an organization’s DNA, including leadership, way of thinking, actions, decision-making, and relationships between employees. Sometimes we gallop so fast that we lose sight of the values, goals, mission, and vision of the organization. To help it achieve lasting results, guidelines are needed for assessing, developing, and improving the organizational quality culture. Because every organization has a quality culture, whether it is aware of its existence or measures it. This is an integral part of organizational culture, focused on supporting the implementation of quality policy and achieving goals related to delivering products and services that meet the needs and expectations of customers and other stakeholders.
Why is it so important in today’s organizations?
Organizations that consciously build a quality culture achieve lasting results, lower error rates, and higher team engagement. To effectively integrate quality culture with the broader organizational culture, an organization should: support actions that promote th quality of a product, be customer-oriented, identify and manage risks and opportunities that may affect its management, analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of processes, implement continuous improvement practices, and achieve long-term benefits.
What should a healthy quality culture consist of?
A company or organization must ensure that its vision, mission, and values are closely tied to its strategic goals. These goals must reflect the organizational context and the needs and expectations of all stakeholders. In the face of dynamic changes and growing demands, developing a quality culture that responds to these challenges will certainly gain value through the application of quality management principles described in ISO 9000:2015, with particular emphasis on the importance of leadership and people’s involvement.
Implementing quality management principles is intended to help create and maintain a quality culture that supports long-term success and adapts to the changing business world. Could you explain them?
Seven quality management principles focus on the customer to better understand and meet their needs. Leadership that guides the organization towards excellence and inspires employees. Engaging people so that every team member actively contributes to achieving goals. A process approach that ensures effective and consistent operation. Improvement to continually improve and develop all aspects of operations. Making decisions based on evidence, which enables conscious and fact-based management. Managing relationships to maintain positive and productive relationships with stakeholders.
Why don’t companies use the seven quality management principles in a complementary manner?
You’re probably familiar with the maxim popularized by Confucius, which encourages refusing to speak, see, and hear in certain situations? Quality – in addition to many definitions, indicating striving for perfection and meeting the assumed criteria and principles – must be a conscious choice and a daily deliberate effort of every person, always and everywhere.
What does implementing a quality culture look like in practice?
Companies still build their organizational structures based on experience. However, it is worth noting that experience only gains value when the future is not exactly similar to the past. In many industries, trends are changing so quickly that experience is not only irrelevant, but also potentially risky. Without freeing the strategy-making process from the tyranny of experience, the chances of an industrial revolution are slim.
Continuous Improvement is not just a set of tools and methods, but above all a management philosophy that should be deeply rooted in the organizational culture. For an organization to achieve lasting success, it is necessary to be consciously involved in the improvement processes and the development of employees.
What is the significance of the leaders’ attitude?
Top management plays a key role in the continuous improvement process. Their commitment cannot be merely declarative – it must translate into concrete actions supporting pro-quality initiatives. The management sets the direction, defines the strategy, and creates the conditions for shaping an organizational culture based on values such as: employee commitment, transparent communication, openness to change, responsibility for results, and innovation and creativity in finding solutions.
ISO 9004:2018 emphasizes the need to formally define an organization’s mission, vision, and values, which is the foundation for effectively implementing a quality culture.
How did your adventure with quality begin? What inspired you to create the „Unretouched Quality” project?
I can’t pinpoint the date when I first made a conscious decision and took responsibility for it. However, I remember that I discussed the topic of quality during my engineering, master’s, and eventually postgraduate studies in Quality Manager. My professional work has been related to quality from the beginning. I went through all the positions in the organizational structure, from a flat surface conservator, a claims specialist, a quality engineer, a quality manager, an operations director, to the owner of the company, taking on various roles: cleaner, auditor, trainer, consultant, mentor, facilitator, and leader.
The unretouched quality project is a response to the needs of companies that face the challenges of change, struggle with the difficulty of making decisions based on facts, within a broad organizational context, and company owners often expect their employees to „paint the grass green,” resulting in „watermelon indicators” – green on the outside, red on the inside.
What advice would you give to companies that want to start consciously creating a quality culture in their organizations?
I invite you to numerous events, webinars, and workshops where we develop leadership skills based on holistic management of the organization. In connection with the three-year anniversary of the „Quality without retouching with Anna Farion” project and my nomination as vice-president of the Qualitas Foundation, I am pleased to invite you to a special event, organized at the invitation of the Opus Unicus Foundation of Iwona Szoka, in the unique space of the Museum of Metallurgy in Chorzów, which will take place on September 19th this year. Participation in the event is free and intended only for: participants of the National Quality Congress (OKJ), members of the Quality Master Club and partners of the QUALITY WITHOUT RETOUCHING with Anna Farion project.
The Business HUB editorial team spoke with Anna Farion.
The interview appeared in the June issue of Business HUB..
Online version of the issue available for download: HERE.