Welcome to this new instalment of How To:Quality. Your 3 min guide on how Quality Professionals address various business needs to drive Improvement and Governance.
This year, the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) announced the theme for World Quality Week in November. It is ‘think differently’. The CQI provides a definition to the theme. I usually post a special article closer to the celebration week, but this year, I wanted to share this in advance, to hopefully provoke some creative thinking.
In this post, I will share the CQI’s definition of the theme alongside few techniques to help you participate in #WQW25
How to: Quality
Think Differently Definition
The CQI provides the definition and reason behind each theme every year. This year, the focus was on three areas: alignment, performance, and people; all playing a part in our ability to cultivate a successful quality culture.
Organisations must cultivate resilient and agile quality cultures to navigate today’s complex and ever-changing business environment. A quality culture fosters innovation, efficiency and improvement for success. Whether you’re part of a team, leading an organisation or focusing on personal development, we invite you to adopt a new perspective on quality that will help you thrive, drive innovation and make a lasting impact.
CQI, 2025
For a Quality culture to foster innovation, efficiency and improvement, it will no doubt rely on people involved. In this post, I will cover the people piece in the theme and will simplify this with two categories: oneself, and others. And to simplify it even further, I like a diagram that is shared in a book: The Decision Book by Mikael Kroger’s and Roman Tschappeler (2008). The diagram shares strategies that cover the following:
- How to understand yourself
- How to understand others
- How to improve yourself
- How to improve others
The book has 50 different strategies in the above four areas. I wanted to share 4 thought provoking strategies that will hopefully help you consider your next alignment and performance efforts.
A. How to understand yourself: The unimaginable model
This model explains how everything is connected and helps answer the question: ‘What do you believe in that you cannot prove?’ If you want to delve deep into your own self, try to plot one idea in each quadrant. How does that impact the decision you make? Now imagine each team member in your organisation is doing this exercise. Can you see how it exponentially grows and gets complicated? My own take on it is that if you are embarking on an initiative to enhance the Quality culture of an organisation, try and help people imagine the world you are creating! The rest will follow.
B. How to understand others: The AI Model
One of the interesting models shared in the book is called the AI Model. AI stands for Appreciative Inquiry in this instance and not artificial intelligence. The theory was being developed and is attributed to David Cooperrider. It says that each person has a different approach to things, and to help people and businesses bridge these differences you should focus on what is going well rather than what the problem is. The theory says there are four types of people:
- Fault-finder
- Dictator
- School Teacher
- AI Thinker
The fault finder would say this is good BUT, the dictator would say NO, the school teacher would say no because, while the AI thinker would say yes and.. I think this is an interesting concept to be mindful off when you want to foster an environment of thinking differently. You can check my articles of personalities traits and the cycle of motivation on the topic.
C. How to improve yourself: The BCG Model
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) model is used in the book as a model to improve yourself. The BCG developed a model to assess the value of/ impact of an investment. It used a lot in workshops and brainstorming sessions to help businesses determine which product is the next best thing. In this instance, the product is YOU.
I personally think this is a good concept to follow with some tweaks. Instead of using it for the next best go-to-market innovative, use it for your own development and up-skilling. Instead of Market Share vs Market Growth, use it for personal growth and business impact. I illustrate it below. The same four boxes apply: cash cow, dog, question mark and stars.
- 🐮Cash cow: high business impact, low personal growth. These are your business as usual activities. Do not cut them off. Look at ways to make them more efficient. Use AI (artificial intelligence) to introduce automations and reporting to free your time.
- 🐶Dog: low business impact and low personal growth. These are activities you can totally remove.
- ❓Question marks: activities that are low business impact (so far) but have high personal growth. These initiatives are worth investigating. You do not know what positive impact the personal growth you will experience will bring to the business. Def worth exploring
- ⭐️Stars: these are the no brainers! These are the initiatives that have huge business impact and high personal growth too. They are likely to involve you stepping out of your comfort zone as well.
D. How to improve others: The Hersey-Blanchard Model
The Hersey-Blanchard Model is also known as the situational leadership model. This model takes on the people style to the next level. It says that leadership style should not be adapted to the people you lead, but rather to the situation you are working with. In other words, if you are working with one colleague only, all situations could apply. The model differentiates between four approaches:
- Instructing
- Coaching
- Supporting
- Delegating
The level of support needed by your stakeholders or teams dictates the leadership style you should adopt.
💡And because you are a Quality Professional, make sure you are familiar with the six hats model. You can find out more about it here: How to Wear 6 Hats to make better decision.
I hope you enjoyed this post and you found the strategies useful to trigger a different way of thinking for you and your teams.
I wish you all a productive year, and looking forward to celebrating with you in November.
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