Quality: A Journey, Not a Destination

Patrick Stone, our Corporate Quality Manager, writes a quality blog regularly. With his permission I grabbed a couple to share with the family. Below is one titled “Quality: A Journey, Not a Destination”

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” -Henry Ford

Quality is often thought of as a thing to be obtained. We want good quality parts, good quality products, and good quality service. However, like success, quality is not something you can obtain once and always have. Instead, quality is a constant journey of doing what is right simply because it is the right thing to do.

Quality must be constantly challenged to improve in order to remain evident. Tracking quality problems and finding ways to eliminate their causes is required to ensure we are providing customers with the high quality products they deserve.

Zoeller’s commitment to quality is world class. It has been one of the four core values for the company since it was founded over 75 years ago. Utilizing field data in parallel with quality improvement principles has allowed the Zoeller brand name to become synonymous with high quality. In order to maintain the high quality products and services that our customers deserve, we must continuously review trend data, find root causes, incorporate corrective actions, and repeat.

Zoeller’s slogan “Trusted. Tested. Tough.”™ is a tribute to the foundation of quality inherent in the company’s culture. Our brand is Trusted because we have high quality products. Our products and designs have been thoroughly Tested. Our products are Tough because we make continuous improvements to them.

In the end, because having good quality is a journey, we must work every day to earn the badge of trust as we have for the last 75+ years.

As Bonus Material I thought I would include a second blog titled “Returning to WHY?” I thought this may give you better insight into the mindset of a leader in the company.

“All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.” – Simon Sinek

The quote above from the great (in my opinion at least) Simon Sinek brings to light a very important aspect about what makes some companies great:  in short, they retain their reason for existing over time.  Zoeller Company’s CEO, John Zoeller, once asked a group of his leaders why they thought the company does what it does.  While some good answers were brought up, he summed them up with few words.  John said the reason that Zoeller Company does what it does for the last 80 years is simple:  it’s to improve people’s lives.  He furthered this by explaining that whether we’re talking about customers, suppliers, or employees, Zoeller Company’s goal is to make their lives better.

Over a year later, he asked me during a one on one why I do what I do.  While the question caught me by surprise, I took a little while to think about it.  I didn’t do this because I was trying to formulate what I thought he wanted to hear; after all, it would have been easy to regurgitate the reason he shared with us.  Instead, I was reflecting on the real reason (the root cause) of why.  While I could have easily said things like supporting my family, impacting the community, and many other similar reasons which all are part of the reason, the real reason for me is that I want to serve.  Before you think “oh no, here we go again with these buzzwords that everyone is throwing around without any real substance to them,” let me qualify my response a bit.

If you were to lookup the definition of “serve,” you’d find many (everything from tennis jargon to the actions of wait staff).  But in this case, I think the definition that fits best is:

serve: to be of use in achieving or satisfying.

When I think about why I do what I do, I love to be of use to others to help them achieve their goals or to satisfy their needs.  Regardless of whether we are peers, I am their boss, they are my boss, or we’re just acquaintances, I want to do my best to help them achieve their goals.  I sometimes have to ask myself if what I’m doing is in line with my “why” and change course if it is not.  Also, my “why” is not the only thing that I do, but it is the reason behind the things that I do.  What I mean is, I cannot only serve others as it would consume every waking moment and I would not achieve my own goals.  When reflecting on my previous role with a different company, what really ended up making me want to leave was that I’d lost my “why” and could not support it in the role I was in.

I am, of course, not perfect in focusing on my “why” (or anything for that matter.)   But the key, in my opinion, is to keep trying.  Find your “why” and do things that support it.

So, my question to you is “What is your personal why?” and I challenge you to do things that support it.

His Role:   Corporate Quality Manager, Zoeller Company (ZCO)

Start Date:   January 3, 2017

His Projects:   Responsible for the quality of all products and processes across the corporation, responsible for reducing redundant inspections, and responsible to continuously improve our products and processes.

His Previous Experience:   Engineering, quality, and leadership in a large Aerospace company.

School:   BS Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University FW, Master’s Business Administration from Indiana Institute of Technology, Master’s Engineering Management from Indiana Institute of Technology.

Free Time Activities:​​​​​​​   Building things, old muscle cars, fishing, reading, pretty much anything with my wife and 3 kids.

Fun Fact:   ​​​​​​​I built a massive playset that I designed in my backyard for my 3 kids (pictured below).  I had actually built one once before at our previous house but the buyers wanted the playset included with the house.  So this is Stone Playset 2.0!