Fast Lane
Quality control
How to focus on continuous improvement
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business Broward/Palm Beach | March 2008
Donn Flipse
president and CEO, Field of Flowers
Donn Flipse has a laser focus
on the continuous improvement of processes and quality, and he encourages his
120 employees to have the same
focus. Flipse, founder, president
and CEO of fresh flower super-store Field of Flowers, says that
if employees focus on continuous improvement, they can help
you improve quality and reduce
costs and problems.
“By eliminating waste, your
costs come down, and you’re
able to capture the market by
having not only better quality
but lower prices for your customers,” Flipse says.
This commitment to continuous improvement of quality has
helped the business grow 35 percent during the past three years to
reach 2006 revenue of $8.1 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Flipse about how to keep your
company focused on improving
quality.
Q. How do you maintain a
focus on quality?
By developing a mission
statement and values, a strategic statement of the basic way
the company intends to conduct itself and go about business. Put down a statement,
and then teach it to everybody.
We have an orientation program where we teach people
our mission, values and long-range plan. Try to convey to
employees your business philosophy and strategy of putting attention on continuous
improvement of quality within
the company.
Q. How do you communicate
your strategy and philosophy?
Engage everyone in the process. Instead of coming to work
every day with the idea of, ‘I’m
going to do a good job and do
my job the same way I did it
yesterday,’ get beyond that and
have people come to work
every day thinking, ‘I’m going to
do a good job, but I’m also
going to think of how this job
can be done better.’ Get them
into that continuous and unending improvement mindset.
Use a suggestion system. We
encourage people to make a
suggestion and put it down in
writing. The suggestion will be
studied, and it doesn’t
mean we’re going to do it,
but it does mean that we
will look at it.
If you make changes
simply because somebody thinks you should,
that’s not improvement,
that is just tampering
with your processes. It’s
making changes without
any basis of knowledge
about whether you
improved anything.
Q. How do you create
a culture of continuous
improvement?
Buy in to it and model
it. If you don’t walk the
walk and live according
to your philosophy, culture, mission and values, then nobody
else is going to pay attention.
Teach key managers this and
keep doing it. It’s easy in the pressures of business to fall into bad
habits, but stay focused on what
you believe in.
Processes are the responsibility
of top management, and if those
processes are not sound, then
there are going to be problems.
It’s easy to blame those problems on the front-line people,
but they’re not the ones at fault.
Believe in it; it can’t be the management theory de jour. It
has to be something you stick
with and believe in because
only if you believe in it are you
going to stick with it.
Q. What is the key to
empowering employees?
In some cases, empowerment
can be used in place of good management. You’ll say, ‘I’m empowering you to do your job right so
that we can achieve our goals.’
What that means is, ‘If I don’t
like the goals, then I’m going to
kick you out.’ Instead of improving the processes (that) your
employees use and taking responsibility for these processes so that people can do a good
job, you might use this empowerment catchphrase and say,
‘I’m empowering you, now go
do it and do a good job.’
The unsaid side is, ‘If you don’t
do it right or if I’m not happy
with the results, then I’ll get rid
of you.’ Empower people in the
positive way. Give them information about how the business
works, how their job fits within
other jobs and how they have to
do their job properly so others
can do their job right.
If you teach them that, they are
empowered to make better decisions because they know how
things work beyond their cubicle.
Q. How do you reward
employees who help improve
quality?
There is a good and bad way
to reward. I tend not to use pay
for performance — setting goals
for people and saying, ‘If you
achieve those goals, you’re going
to get a bonus.’ That sends a
negative and demeaning message. ...
... Set compensation at a proper level that represents their fair
market value, and then engage
everyone in continuous improvement. You might not only
meet the goal but exceed it. If
you were working on pay for
performance, if you get up to
that goal, why go any higher?
Rewards should come not just
in the form of extrinsic things,
like money and benefits, but
also the things that are intrinsic,
such as pride of workmanship
and freedom from fear of being
controlled.
Make it part of the mission and
values. Manage in a way that’s
consistent every day and with
your mission and values.
HOW TO REACH: Field of Flowers, (800) 96-FRESH, (954) 680-2406 or www.fieldofflowers.com
