It’s that time of year again, when everybody remembers the resolutions they made the previous year and are embarrassed to admit they probably didn’t live up to all of them But is that such a bad thing? I mean, usually one makes resolutions that include some, that in hindsight, one was probably better off not doing.
Given the challenges the world economy is going to face in the next few years, and make no mistake about it, what happens in the world affects us, and what happens with us affects the world; outsourcing has extended our reach into the world, and it has become dependent on us.
While the first quarter of 2012 will show some improvement, it has been bought at a price, and unless fundamental issues in the world economy are addressed the second and third quarters will not be so rosy. And as I mentioned in my last column, the smartest minds in economics are predicting a whopper of a crash somewhere in 2014 or 2015. So my suggestion is that we all take the steps needed to resolve to meet the challenge of succeeding in a recession, so we are ready. Resolve to put quality 1st on your list for 2012.
How does one do that? How do we put quality first? Let’s have a quick look at Chrysler. Chrysler’s recent history has had its ups and downs, with its worst point taking place right before Lee Iacocca had to step in and save the company, when, in effect, they fired their engineers in order to cut expenses and please Wall Street.
It worked for a short time and their stock shot up, but imagine the cheese company with no cheese makers. A couple years later, they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Lee Iacocca came in, borrowed some money from the government, saved Chrysler, and paid the money back. You would think that they would have learned their lesson. But they didn’t, and under a former General Electric executive, Robert Nardelli, they applied 6 Sigma to cut costs with enthusiasm.
Cutting costs will put you out of business, and it almost did. Chrysler was saved only by a combination of another federal bailout and their being purchased by the Italian car company Fiat whose president Silvio Marchione said “companies need to get on the Quality Revolution.”
But we needn’t just talk about cars, because the number of American cheese factories that were in deep trouble because of mediocre quality product and service, which were then sold to European and Canadian competitors, who turned them around and made them profitable in a flash, should be enough to give us pause. Is the enemy us?
So resolve to put quality at the front of the line. How many cheese companies actually take the time to travel around the country, see what condition their cheeses are in on different grocery store shelves? Which means more than just visiting the buying office, it means actually walking into the store and spending some time in the store observing what’s going on.
How about standing and observing in front of the cheese case until you see someone buy your cheese then talk to them about how they use it. Please remember, while a distributor may buy your cheese directly, and they may send it to a retail store to be sold, it is the consumer who uses your cheese who is the real customer, the one who creates the flow of money.
How about doing a small but well-crafted survey of the people you sell to directly to find out what’s important to them, and what they think of you? There are all kinds of programs like survey monkey online that you can use to do this. Or you can put one up and send it in paper.
Quality is not something that you put just on a label. You can’t succeed with quality service, but a mediocre product. There were a lot of wonderful Chrysler dealerships, with great service, that were let down by the quality of the Chrysler automobile.
So how can a cheese company embrace quality both within and without the walls of its plant? If cost-cutting makes things worse, how do you get your costs down?
Look at your company as one system, like the human body, where everything is connected and must work together in harmony. Then begin to eliminate barriers between the different parts of your company, eliminate internal competition and get everybody working towards a common aim.
Eliminate fear. Fear is the mind killer. Stop treating people like widgets, and learn how to talk to them in a way that allows you to discover their hidden talents and abilities. For instance, when I was working in supermarkets in the late 1980s, there was a major earthquake. All the stores lost their wine except one.
Why? No one knows who, but someone a decade beforehand had put a little bit of fishing line across the front of the storage shelves. When we executives arrived after the earthquake, all of the bottles were hanging at a 45° angle, but the fish line stopped any of them from falling further.
Never underestimate the ability of the people who work for you. Create a system of teamwork that allows you to leverage the best of everyone, rather than a system that suppresses the majority of people in order to create a few heroes. We don’t need another hero, we need strong teams.
Finally, take time to dialogue. Dialogue with your customers and your employees. Dialogue with your peers. To help with the peer part, The Deming Collaboration leads peer groups online, where you not only get to talk four hours a month with peers from similar size businesses and different industries who act like a top notch advisory board, but you get to do so in a format facilitated by some of the finest international consultants in the world, at a reasonable price.
If interested, send an email to catalyst@demingcollaboration.com and ask about iPeerGroup™s. Unless of course, you don’t care about profit...DS
Dan Strongin is managing partner and owner of Edible Solutions,
a consulting company focused on helping companies making great food
make a profit. He will be writing a monthly column in Cheese Reporter.
Strongin can be reached via phone at (510) 224-0493, or via e-mail at dan@danstrongin.com. You can visit and blog with Dan at www.managenaturally.com.
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