How One Person Can Change the Reliability Culture

How One Person Can Change the Reliability Culture

Nicholas W. Eyrich, Robert E. Quinn, and David P. Fessell published in the Harvard Business Review an article titled “How One Person Can Change the Conscience of an Organization”, dated December 27, 2019. In the article, they discuss how corporate transformations, while assumed to occur from the top-down, actually it is the middle managers and first-line supervisor that can make significant change happen.

They look at what it takes for one person to make a significant change within an organization. As reliability or quality professionals, we often have the opportunity to spot needed changes. It is then up to us to tackle those challenges to make the change happen.

Change starts with one person

You, a single person, can initiate and make change happen. You can improve the reliability of your product or system. It starts with having a clear intent and goal concerning the improvement. And, it starts with the willingness to speak up about the need to make that change to achieve the improvement.

Why do we run this test when no one uses the results? Including the ramification on system reliability when shifting to a new vendor may help us avoid reliability issues…