There are five steps to being A.D.E.P.T in life is about: A chieving Quality – Success & Mission D eveloping People - Skills & Learning E nabling Longevity - Values & Forms P reparing for Change - Flexibility & Conversation T hinking Creatively - Strategy & Collaboration First, Achieving Quality - which touches all other aspects of our behaviours. Philosophy "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature." Marcus Aurelius Achieving Quality Marcus Aurelius, was a Roman Emperor from 161 - 180 CE; that's a long time ago. Yet, a quote like the one above is timeliness. So often in business today, we hear of quality as defined by metrics, measures and other external factors. However, according to Aurelius, quality was something internal starting in our thoughts; "taking care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. Achieving quality starts with your thoughts - thinking quality. Then Aristotle came along and defined virtue as: "...the importance of developing excellence (virtue) of character as the way to achieve what is finally more important and excellent activity." (Wikipedia). So the term excellence or quality have been around for a long time. While Aurelius appealed to the quality of mind, Aristotle appealed to quality of action (or virtue). Both are important. Then modern quality business began to define quality as meeting a certain predefined measurements, such as Total Quality Management (TQM), which culminates in that standard being the client. | Approach The Commitment to Quality Starts Internally. The most challenging and sometime elusive area in business is achieving client satisfaction. While quality in business derives most of it's meaning from external factors, to be effective as a business leader, Achieving Quality is a skill has to come from within first and foremost. There needs to be an inner commitment that begins in our thoughts... such as, "I believe in myself and am excellent at what I do." Or, "I will listen carefully to what the client has to say, repeating it, writing it down, clarifying it." Quality starts within an moves outward. The Standard of Quality is Defined Externally. So, while the commitment begins from within, the standard or definition comes from outside of us. Much like Aristotle's view, their is an external standard (which has all sorts of other philosophical repercussions that I'll avoid here). Essentially, all business definitions today agree that quality is driven by the client, and can be summed up as requiring BOTH of the following: 1.A feeling - the aesthetics, the look, how it feels; when someone walks into an Apple store, there is no question that aesthetic is a huge portion of the sell factor. Clients wants something that feels good in their hands, looks good, has that ethereal sense of quality that can't really be put into words. Sometimes clients CAN'T put it into words, but they know what they like and don't like. 2.A standard - I want a mountain bike, not a road bike; 50 inches high, color, etc. While the "feeling" is there, the role of the business leader working with the client is to help them define the standard. Achieving Quality is not about perfectionism or an obsessive neurotic behavioural imbalance! It's about commitment to satisfaction, both for yourself and others, and is the heart beat behind everything we do - personally and professionally. This coaching method will focus on: 1.Internal - how we internalize quality that affects behaviour, attitude, self-discipline, interaction, purpose 2.External - how we apply quality in personal and profession situations: listening, communicating, implementing |