I have helped develop and promote the Behavior Based Quality approach because of my belief that having a strong positive Quality Culture is good for business and generally good for the human condition. I believe that deep-down people truly want to do what is right. It is just “other stuff” that gets in their way.

Before you dive into this article you can read Part 1 by clicking this link.

Why do people behave in an at risk quality Manner?

Generally, people do what works for them. In many cases they may not have had a Quality Incident as a result of doing their job in an at risk quality way. This may be true but over time the risks stack up against you. Heinrich’s triangle although specific for safety related issues suggest that for every 330 unsafe acts, 29 will result in minor injuries and 1 in a Major or lost time incident.

I believe that a parallel can be drawn in Quality terms that for every 330 at risk quality acts, 29 will result in minor non-conformances/compliance issues and 1 Major product recall/compliance issue. Having trended such issues in the past I believe the correlation of 300 to 30 to 1 is about right.

Overtime the greater number of at risk quality Behaviors that you accumulated the greater the probability that minor and eventually major issues will occur. People behave in an at risk quality Behavior for a number of reasons. Examples that I have seen are;

• Workflow when more steps are introduced without consideration to adding additional time to complete the steps
• Additional checks added with no additional time to complete them
• Line managers ignoring bad practice
• Increased product demands
• Steps that should be completed in a process are having other negative impacts on the operator and this is not understood at the time. The operator stops performing the required steps because of these negative impacts.
• Fear of disciplinary action for at risk behavior events

Generally the reasons for the at risk quality behavior reveal themselves during the ABCD analysis phase of BBQ.

How do you stop people behaving in a risk quality manner?

When incidents are identified in Non-Conforming reports or Internal Audit reports or other sources they tend not to focus on the behavioral aspect of the issue. Often they point to training or a system issue without going into the people aspect. This often results in renewed Quality slogans, Campaigns or retraining to address and bring about change in people’s attitudes to Quality.

The link from attitude change to behavior change is very weak. This can be explained by the fact that a single attitude comprises of at least three components. Thinking (cognitive), feeling (emotional) and the intention to the act (commitment). In addition a single attitude is usually linked with a set of other related attitudes.

To change ones attitude you need to target each component of each linked attitude for all employees and this becomes an enormous and next to impossible challenge.

Positive Quality Behavior change can then lead to new belief

Thankfully the link from Behavior change to attitude change is much stronger. If you consciously change your behavior you also tend to re-adjust the associated attitude and belief systems that fit the new behavior. This is because people tend to resolve any conflict/discrepancy between their new behavior and attitude in an attempt to align them. They want to reduce the tension caused by the mismatch between their new behavior and old attitude.

Positive Quality Behavior change can then lead to new belief and attitudes that underline and support the new set of behaviors. An example of this is an Oxygen sensor that was manufactured at a Tyco Healthcare facility that I worked in. One of the biggest issues we had in terms of in house scrap (circa 10%) was air bubbles in the silicon window that took the Oxygen level reading. I demonstrated that the bubbles made no difference to the performance of the device and spoke with and showed the operators the data. A scrap target of less than 1% was agreed and this was exceeded within a week.

The new norm reflected the fact that air bubbles were not an issue and this aligned with the new agreed scrap rate target. There were no complaints from the customer base and this was also shared with operators to help with the reinforcing of the new norm.

Positive reinforcement brought about by peer pressure

An additional factor that enhances attitude change by focusing on behavior is the positive reinforcement brought about by peer pressure. Psychologists have known for some time that group acceptance demands conformity to the groups behavioral and attitudinal ‘norm’.

If a working group adopts the thinking and ‘norm’ that quality focus and standards is best for all concerned then the group as a whole will tend to apply social sanctions to the individual who deviates from this norm and behaves in an at risk quality manner. If people wish to remain part of the social fabric of the group they soon revert back to quality focus and standards.