Quality is in the Tools

Early in the EOS Journey, we emphasize that becoming your best as a leadership team requires us to speak the same language. This means agreeing on our common glossary of terms and what those terms mean.

After hundreds of sessions with entrepreneurial leaders, a term I hear a lot is “quality”. Every organization strives to deliver “quality” goods or services, but hard as they try, “quality” remains an elusive goal because everyone has a different view of “quality”. Often, it depends on what they think it will take to satisfy any given customer (or employee) on a given day. Frustration sets in as employees in sales, operations, and finance see success through the lens of their own priorities.

In successful businesses, leaders are crystal clear on a simple definition of “quality”:

Quality is conformance to requirements. It’s that simple.

In every industry, there is a range of “quality” for the delivery of the product or service based upon customer expectations and the niche that the organization has chosen to serve. Without defining the specific requirements for satisfying the customer, companies often waste time and money trying to please customers whose expectations aren’t aligned with their pricing.

The EOS Tools offer a framework for teams to help clarify their requirements for both customers and employees:

1. Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO) helps teams define their Core Values (cultural requirements), Core Focus (business model requirements), and Marketing Strategy (the requirements and expectations of your Ideal Customer).
2. The Accountability Chart helps crystalize the roles each employee must fulfill for them to conform to the requirements of the job.
3. Rocks provides companies, departmental teams, and individuals with requirements for the quarterly accomplishment of key priorities.
4. The Scorecard provides clear activity requirements for the company and departmental teams that need to be met each week.
5. Measureables provide each employee with the specific requirements for their individual weekly success.
6. The Process Component provides a 3-Step Process Documenter that helps teams define the requirements for each step of their unique processes. Once documented, they can become shared by all for consistent execution.
7. The Quarterly Conversation (5-5-5) provides leaders and their reports with a cadence for reciprocal feedback on the requirements from the perspective of both managers and their employees.
8. The Level 10 Meeting provides a weekly cadence of the requirements each leader must meet to solve issues by completing To-Do’s.

Organizations running on EOS find that using these tools helps them define conformance to requirements for every activity in their business. With the requirements defined, the organization has shared standards. Once your standards are clear, subjective opinions about “quality” disappear, and issues involving strategy, performance, and results become easier to solve.

If you want to build an organization that embraces quality in every dimension of your relationships with customers and employees, the answer is in the EOS Tools. For more insight into how EOS can help, visit www.eosworldwide.com to find a Professional EOS Implementer or download your own copy of the EOS Tools.