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The Great Quality Congress 2019: "attention is the new gold"

This year was The Great Congress of Quality on Thursday, May 9. The 23rd edition already, but for colleague Marco it was his first. A congress about the issues that face us as quality professionals and - fortunately - also some directions in which we should look for the answers. An impression.

From a tame to a wild context

As Martin van Staveren, core professor at TU Twente and author of the book Risk Leadership, put it at the conference, "We are going to live in a VUCA world. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. Freely translated: an environment that is constantly changing, uncertain, complex and can be interpreted in multiple ways. The environment in which we work and live is changing rapidly. We are increasingly faced with value tensions: values such as earning money, sustainability and being good to each other have to be balanced. A wild context, in other words. For example, because of the digital revolution we are in the middle of, says Nyenrode professor Bob de Wit. Things like the Internet, big data, 3D printing, block chain, robotics and platforms like Uber bring with them strategic paradoxes to which we must find an answer. Especially since we are on the eve of yet another new era; that of artificial intelligence. In it we will have to deal with Machine Learning, Robotic Beings, Machine Trading and perhaps already Sapiens 2.0.

The ultimate solution no longer exists

Where in the tame context one solution was the best, in the new era there is no longer an ultimate solution. We will have to choose. According to Martin van Staveren, risk leadership is the tool for that. Summarized in the following three questions: "What do you want?", "What is uncertain, for whom?" and "What will you do, with whom?". The modern version of Deming's PDCA cycle.

Dr. Danielle Braun, as a corporate anthropologist, also looks at organizations in a slightly different way. According to her, an organization can well be compared to a tribal tribe. The board of directors has the role of chief chief, upper management is sub-chief, the employees are the berry and nut-gatherers, the people from the specialist staff are the hunters. The support staff, which includes the quality manager, has the role of mages. "Magicians have a special position: they are the lubricant in the company. They can and know things that other people don't; they have magical power. Like magicians, quality managers often have one leg outside the organization; they make the connection between 'outside' and 'inside.'" In the company, the quality professional makes the connection between the employees and the MT, just as the magician in his tribe makes the connection between the natives and the chief.

The professional must connect

How we will solve the issues in the new, wild world may not yet be clear. What is clear is that we will have to keep talking to each other. Only in this way can connection be made. For example, to hear or tell passionate stories. Like Ynzo van Zanten, the Choco Evangelist at Tony's Chocolonely. He spreads the story of chocolate makers with a mission; to make the chocolate world 100% slave-free.

Need support?

No quality without passion. Or as Braun put it, "attention is the new gold." Would you like our attention? Contact us at +31 (0)30 - 65 66 010 or info@precongroup.com.

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