We recently had two national accreditation reviews taking place at our agency. Such inspections always bring a bit of anxiousness among staff as the reviewers have the opportunity to “look under every rock” within the organization and each of the (5) reviewers assess our work through their own lens and areas of expertise. For me, the one overriding takeaway from such an exercise is simply that you can’t piecemeal quality. You can have a stellar individual or department, but your job as a leader is to make sure that quality standards are infused throughout every part of your organization — and that is no easy feat. What can you as a leader do to encourage the least motivated of your staff members to bring their “A-game” to the work at hand?

1. You can’t. But you can support your people in shaping the culture, which can.

One person can set the expectations, but it takes groups of people to embrace those expectations and encourage others to do likewise. What are you doing to help your teams take responsibility for the results you hope to achieve? Are you asking how you can support them in their task? Have you shown them what the desired state looks like? Have you modeled a commitment to quality in all you do? 

2. Recognize individual gifts and graces.

No matter how many people may have a similar title and job expectations, everyone brings their unique skills to the table. Find out what those are. Then, rather than expecting identical behaviors from everyone in a particular role, look at how you can shape positions in such a way that each individual can maximize those parts of the job at which they excel. By allowing people to focus on what they do best, engagement increases and quality improves.

3. Make expectations clear and measureable — and you can’t have 47 of them!

People can only focus on so many things at one time. Decide what is most important to ensure the quality outcomes you seek and focus on those things. Only those things. There is a tendency to measure things just because you can . . . not because they necessarily move you toward your goal. Stop doing that. If you can’t articulate and measure the three most important things, how can you expect your people to be able to? 

4. Connect the dots for people.

If your maintenance team or (pick your position) can’t see how their performance impacts the goals of the agency, if they don’t think what they do matters all that much, the likelihood of a consistent, quality performance decreases in equal measure. Connect the dots for your people. Spell out for them exactly how their performance impacts the overall success of the organization. And if you can’t, why do you have the position anyway?

The key to overall organizational success? You can’t piecemeal quality.