Fusion of Purpose, Core Values and Quality

To get it right, we need to build up the software. How many people realise what that entails.....For a start, let's take a leaf off Robert Pirsig's classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The following are excerpts that will help us to stay focus on what counts.

A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares

Right values, and subsequently right thoughts

Right thoughts produce right actions and resulting in work which is a reflection of serenity in the centre of it

Gumption equates to enthusiasm

A person who seeks quality will be filled with enthusiasm for his work

2 types of gumption traps are: from external sources (setbacks) and from within ( value and truth traps )

We cannot say the outputs are of quality or not without looking to the past or future.

A passionate caring is central to understanding and maintaining a system because system maintenance occurs within an emotional context

Next, the importance of keeping score.



How often we encounter people who don't really care about their work. Usually it is a case that they do not even know what their jobs entail. It is a case that we know it best as it has always been done this way HERE....who cares what customers think?

Well, we see many an instance that such gumption traps create the pathway to failure.

It has been said that in building a franchise that will last, we need to look beyond strategies and tactics. Not only must a visionary organisation have a clear cut vision, it must also have enduring core values and purpose.

Some interesting issues:

Can an organisation grow rapidly while maintaining its core values and purpose?

Should an organisation seek growth at the expense of its core values and purpose?

Without core values and purpose where can an organisation head to?

The idea is to align interests of collaborators whose sense of purpose allows them to figure how to build innovative institution that expresses its core values and earns a sustained reputation for great products.

It is about:
- What processes can we create that will give us an excellent entity?
- What type of enduring entity do we want to build?
- On what principles?
- What guidelines and methods should we construct that we give us a kind of entity we envision?

In other words, it is about clock-building ( as opposed to time telling ).

The dilemma encountered by people is that they feel that they can only handle one consistent theme and are thus hostages to the tyranny of the OR. According to the book Built to Last, we should embrace the genius of the AND.


Translated into reality: it is about purpose beyond profit AND pragmatic pursuit of profit; philosophical, visionary, futuristic AND superb daily execution, "nuts and bolts"; organisation aligned with a core ideology AND organisation adapted to its environment; Big Hairy Audacious Goals AND incremental evolutionary progress; etc.

The test of a first-rate ( world-class ) intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function ( Scott Fitzgerald ). This is exactly what visionary organisations are able to do.




Keywords: quality, value systems,
trust, domain knowledge, technology, networking, maven traps, speed of trust, lifestyle

Read more!