The Wilderness of Business and Life

God's chosen people were working as slaves in Egypt. None of them chose this path in life but it was all they knew. They had food to eat and a roof over their heads so things could have been worse. Then along comes Moses who, on behalf of God, tells the slaves that they were to be freed and delivered to a wondrous land. "Sounds great" was the reaction. "What about the Pharaoh?"

Moses boldly tells the Pharaoh to let the people go worship their God for three days in the wilderness. Pharaoh says no. God then starts the plagues to work on Pharaoh and to test Moses' strength and courage.

As the plagues progressed, the Pharaoh cracks the whip on the slaves. His thought was if they had enough time to wonder in the wilderness for three days surely they needed more work. The overworked, chosen people grab Moses and tell him to stop. "Just leave well enough alone. Things were tolerable until you came along."

But God and Moses did not quit. Eventually, the people leave Egypt and enter the Wilderness. They no longer had rules and structure to live by. No one told them how to live and what to do every day. In short, they had no standards for living.

Well, it doesn't take long for the complaints to start about hunger and thirst. Gratitude gave way to material needs. God listened and provided.

Soon after entrance into the Wilderness, God begins to implement standards for living. We all know about the Ten Commandments but there were many more. In very specific detail, God (through Moses) gives instructions for living and worship. All he asked of the people was to obey the rules and they would reach the land flowing with milk and honey. At times, they struggled to follow the standards and God acted to bring them back to the laws and rules.

In 1996, my company decided to pursue QS9000 registration. It was a painful experience that initially seemed to be an exercise in tree killing. All we did was write procedures and instructions dispersing stacks of paperwork throughout the organization.

I learned several things during the registration process. First, any workplace must have standards. I'm not saying they must be good or bad standards but only that they must exist. Standards are the basis for continuous improvement. How can you improve a process if you don't know what it is? You define the process by creating standards for work. Train people to the standards and hold them accountable to the standards. If they don't follow them, actions must be taken to bring work back to the standards. As simple as that.

Without standards, you have organized chaos. The technical term is variation. One person does the work differently from time to time. Multiple people perform the work differently over time. The effect is cumulative and usually has bad business consequences. Variation leads to inconsistent product and services. Inconsistent product and services lead to unsatisfied customers.