Quality is a Measure of How Much You Care – Five Ways to Upgrade the Quality of Your Life

My start in the quality world was as a newly minted Second Lieutenant in the Air Force when I was “volunteered” to be on an Inspector General team. At first, I thought it was penance for “break all the rules” let’s shake up the world energy of someone just out of college. But, the General in charge of us explained, “You can’t fix something with the same type of thinking that created it.” He wanted the “rule breakers” on his team. This is where I first learned the formal tools used for quality management.

I went on to a twenty-year career in process and systems design before creating the Accelerated Learning and Project Management processes that became the basis for Cheetah Learning. Now that Cheetah is 100% virtual, our Cheetah PMP coaches say “students get to spend ‘quality time’ with Michelle.” I teach the quality management sections of the Cheetah PMP Exam Prep program.

This has inspired me to codify forty years of experience into real-world solutions that improve the overall quality of life

Here are ways to use the five levels of quality to create a more fulfilling and rewarding existence:

Create a Culture of Caring – This is the DNA of a high-quality experience. In Cheetah’s Certified Virtual Leader program, Cheetah students assess their CQ – that is their caring quotient. It’s a measure of how much they care about the people they engage with on a day-to-day basis in their personal and professional lives.

To illustrate why and how this is relevant in a business context, let’s compare and contrast Ford Motor Company to Tesla. The legendary Henry Ford increased the pay of the assembly line workers so they could afford the new cars they were building. Today, Ford Motor Company has left it up to each individual manager how they work with their staff on back-to-the-workplace policies related to pandemic remote work. Compare this to Tesla where the employee parking lot shows most people working there are not the target market for their cars and their high-profile boss has demanded all white-collar workers return to the office. The culture of caring is built into the DNA of Ford – probably the reason they are still around 120 years later.

I ran into a Buddhist years ago who imparted these words of wisdom, “the quality of your life depends on the quality of your associations.” It wasn’t a big leap to realize the quality of my associations was directly related to how much I cared about them.

Focus on Improving Circle of Influence Processes – We each have agency within our circle of influence to cultivate processes where we can efficiently bring out our best. In my first week as a research scientist in a systems engineering office, I was invited to several meetings. I noticed three of my colleagues manufacturing reasons to avoid these. After the first one, I sent the organizer questions about various topics so I could be better prepared the next time. I was told, “we create topics when we meet” (it was no wonder my colleagues wanted to avoid these). When I got to the conference room, on the whiteboard, I jotted down everyone who was invited. (I said, “I am doing research.”) As the individuals showed up, I recorded the time they arrived next to their names. This did several things – first I stopped getting invited to these ineffective events so I didn’t have to waste time figuring out how to get out of them. Second, if people did want me there, they knew we’d work out the agendas prior to my attendance. This earned me the nickname “Military Michelle.” But when they disbanded our department, I kept my position because they wanted to use my more effective processes to run significant company meetings.

Do Daily Retrospectives  – In Agile project management there is a 15-minute daily kickoff standup meeting where the project team members look at what is going well, what needs to be improved, and what obstacles are in the way of progress. In my approach,  Cheetah Agile Projects, I add in a similar personal end-of-the-day retrospective as a way to wrap up the day and allow the subconscious to get a head start on the next day. A daily retrospective even when I’m not working on a specific project helps me celebrate the good in life and address issues when they are small and more manageable. I do a daily retrospective right before I go to sleep and it looks at:

1. What went well for the day?
2. Where am I going to take a “mulligan” and attempt a do-over tomorrow?
3. How can I remove obstacles standing in the way of me being the best version of myself?

Revitalize with Spring Cleaning –  It’s valuable to periodically review what is working and revise as needed. In quality speak terms the first part of this is called doing a “Quality Audit.”  There is also a technique in quality management called the 5’s Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain that is related to this concept. The intent here is a periodic evaluation and upgrade of day-to-day processes. (For example, I recently did a spring cleaning on my smartphone and got rid of apps not adding to the quality of my life). I prefer the term “spring cleaning” as it’s an “out with the old in with the new” – that new lease on life feeling is more energizing and attractive. Cheetah Students take a course called the PM Of Spring Cleaning to master these skills.

Confront Issues with Kindness and Compassion  – this is the lowest level of quality. In manufacturing terms, it’s how you address defects. Doing the first four levels of quality typically significantly reduces the frequency and severity of issues that arise. On the occasion when they arise, Cheetah students in the Certified Virtual Leader program learn how to resolve issues with the most direct, lowest intervention level possible, focusing on adjusting the systems dynamic (or processes) rather than finding fault or blaming individuals experiencing the challenge. This includes feeling guilty when you fail to get desired results from a faulty process (relevant for the majority of people who try dieting only to gain all the weight back, or more).

In Air Force Officer training we were advised to live our lives in a way that “Made our Mama Proud.” The litmus test was – “would you want any of what you’re doing to appear on the front page of the newspaper.” Adopting these five levels of quality can avoid being tomorrow’s bad news headline. Moreso, they create a rewarding and fulfilling high-quality existence while empowering others to do the same.

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, CCPM, RYT

Chief Cheetah, Cheetah Learning

Find out more for becoming a Certified Virtual Leader