An executive from a company that makes electronic components complained to me that her workforce lacked the talent to move quality beyond the organization’s current level.

“My people are simply not up to the challenge,” she sighed.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Quite frankly, they are satisfied with being good enough—nothing more, nothing less—and leaving as soon as they can,” she replied. “We’re a component company. It’s not very exciting work.”

We then talked about some well-known innovations and the people who created them:

• Jonathan Ive, the in-house designer responsible for the now iconic iPod, iPhone, and iPad, as well as other products.
• Chris Anderson, a staff editor at Wired who created the concept of “long tail economics,” and later wrote a best-selling book about his findings. Long tail economics is now studied by business and economics students around the world.
• Claire Diaz-Ortiz, an early hire at Twitter, who developed many of the social media concepts that transformed Twitter (and other platforms) into major media leaders.

Talent drives excellence, and excellent always drives quality. Talent contributes to the overall success of the organization, and demonstrates to others how excellence is within our grasp. While it may seem that talent is spontaneous and unplanned, the truth is, talent already exists within organizations—you just need to know how to tap it.

The problem in many companies, and with many individuals, is that we’re often focused on people like the programmer who is a coding genius or the salesperson who has a knack for closing deals. Sometimes we’re so focused on what is most visible, that we miss talent waiting to be mined.

Part of this is our failure to notice people who are the everyday heroes. These are the people who make the rest of the workforce more productive, and able to focus on improving quality. These individuals are often anonymous, sometimes only known by a few people in your own office. For example:

• The woman in accounting who is the ‘go-to’ person for Excel spreadsheet formulas. She helps your entire staff standardize formulas and formatting, thus encourages productivity among many others in the workforce.
• The mail clerk who has a flair for fixing the copier. Maybe he doesn’t have any actual training, but he knows that with your particular printer that certain bug in the copier software produces error messages can be bypassed by pressing a few buttons on the keypad.
• The young kid who was just hired who has a knack for using computers and knows all of the keyboard shortcuts for quick access to programs and functions. He hasn’t been around long enough to affect productivity, but give him time.

Each of the people I mentioned I have heard about from others. This is the “office lore” phenomenon – the people with unique talent that helps the company move forward. These people possess talent that is just as vital to success as a single history-making invention.

Talent is an essential part of business, and something that should be encouraged with all employees, not just those involved with the well-known projects and assignments. Talent shows itself through innovation and creativity, but it also motivates people in the organization by inspiring all of us to find higher levels of excellence.

Most importantly, talent exists throughout the organization, and enables people to contribute, succeed, and feel invested in the company. And when everyone feels invested in the company, we all win.

Did you know that people have been trying to define “quality” for more than a thousand years? I found one of the earliest attempts by the Greek philosopher Aristotle from his text the “Nicomachean Ethics.”

Here is where Aristotle calls out the virtues of excellence: “Formed in man by his doing the actions, we are what we repeatedly do… excellence in a complete life… [is what] makes a man blessed and happy.”

The conclusion? Quality is not an act, but a habit.

The first step to acquiring any habit is through repetition. For quality, this means continuously pursuing everything that we believe is excellent. Moreover, it requires total dedication – from you and everyone around you.

Before we can take these first two steps, we must accept quality as personal responsibility. That’s the essence of people power – a process propelled by rational thinking passed down from ancient times—from Aristotle no less!

Attaining quality requires the dedication of the whole universe of stakeholders – people with whom you interact and frequently communicate; every supplier and distributor as well as every manager and frontline worker and, of course, your friends and family.

The quality habit belongs to anyone who decides to embark on the path to excellence. I believe that’s what Aristotle meant when he wrote “we are what we repeatedly do.” But what happens after that?

When people adopt the quality habit, other people notice. People who lead—whether it’s a team at work or the family at home—have a special duty to reinforce that message constantly. They must deliver the message in every meeting and encounter they have and by walking the talk, demonstrating their commitment to quality in their lives. If not, who do they follow? Without such a leader, who will answer the call for quality?

The best leaders of quality make sure that everyone has a chance to speak his or her mind. They sharpen the focus on quality by example. They are the cheerleaders, but they are also the collaborators. Leaders and followers alike must believe that, in the end, the pursuit of quality applies to all the people, all the time.

Quality also means having an “I-can-do-it” mentality. If you treat a co-worker or your spouse like a child, don’t expect them to behave like an independent-minded, responsibility-seeking adult. There’s a direct connection between empowering people with confidence and support, and their attitudes towards believing in and improving quality.

Quality is unique to everyone. There’s no such thing as “one size fits all” in quality. It’s always tempting to look for a policy or a procedure that can be applied across the board to situations to fix a quality problem. Sure, it would make life so much simpler. But let’s be real. When has that ever worked on a sustainable basis?

Whether it’s fixing an issue or making something as perfect as we can, the maintenance of quality requires adjustments in the process that evolves with specific needs for each situation. Even though hammers and screwdrivers are handy tools, you wouldn’t try to tighten a screw with a hammer or straighten a piece of metal with a screwdriver. The way you’ve always handled a situation in the past may not be appropriate or realistic because circumstances are different.

I don’t like using cliché terms because they tend to trivialize meaning, but in this case quality truly requires “out of the box” thinking; creative applications of old ideas, or new approaches that produce better solutions. Once you get a better understanding of how to deal with and understand what quality is, you’ll see how having a quality mindset helps you arrive at the best solution for any given situation.

In the food profession, Chantal Coady is a superstar. How did she get there? Chantel was never satisfied with anything until it was perfect—good enough was never enough. She was always passionate about chocolate, even as a child. When she was old enough to work, Chantel took a part-time job in the chocolate department at Harrod’s, the famous department store in London.

According to Chantel, she was “underwhelmed” by the presentation and the lack of emotional engagement from both her colleagues and management. She did a lot of thinking and came up with an idea. Armed with limited financing, she decided to leave Harrods and open her own shop. It was called Rococo Chocolates. Chantel was just 23 years old, but right from the start, her shop was a success, known for carrying fine chocolates from Belgium and France.

She soon learned that there was a whole other world when it came to making high-end chocolates. Unwilling to compromise, she started making her confections, experimenting with textures, colors and eventually coming up with unique flavors like geranium and jasmine. Her candies received so much recognition that many major chocolate makers started imitating her distinctive flavorings and even her candy-making methods.

Looking to improve the customer experience, she added organic chocolates to her product line. She even campaigned to convince big candy makers to get rid of hydrogenated vegetable fats and sugar. Chantal started a school, the Rococo School of Chocolate, and authored three books on the topic. She created chocolates for people who were vegan as well as those who couldn’t have sugar.

Chantal is continuously coming up with something new, and improving what she does. She’s completely focused on listening to what her customers want, and never compromises if there is something more or better she can do.

Chantal is a prime example of what I call, the Quality Mindset—she is resistant to settling for anything less than the best. This personality trait may sometimes be difficult to maintain because people tend to get frustrated over challenging tasks.

Excellence is an important component of a Quality Mindset; excellence comes from working with a new idea and pushing yourself to continuously improve. When you experience resistance, you increase your willingness to reach out to see if there is something more or better you can do. In addition, you are also resistant to sliding back into bad habits of settling for anything less than the best.

I want to be clear that resistance doesn’t mean you aren’t willing to compromise. Indeed, all of us need to engage in empathy towards others who are contributing to whatever it is we are doing. By being resistant, we add another layer of discipline and determination to reach a goal. And if, in fact, that means we have to compromise with a team member (i.e., add more work or even starting over) then so be it.

Resistance is about battling the temptation of taking shortcuts and the easy way out. Resistance means not giving up, but it may involve giving in by being empathetic and flexible. Like Chantal, we can achieve our goals and so much more by not settling for being second best.

The Challenger space shuttle disintegrated in mid-air, killing all seven astronauts. It was later found that a $900 O-ring was to blame.

Years later, the Space Shuttle Columbia was torn apart during re-entry. This time, it was “unexpected consequences” of large chunks of ice that hit delicate wing parts during launch.

In both cases, official reports concluded that at least part of the problem at NASA was that the agency suffered from “talent drain.” I do not believe that is a complete assessment. According to hearings and research, NASA engineers had issued cautions about design flaws. Some even foresaw the precise failures that caused the disasters. The problem is, the leaders of the organization—the managers, directors, and other decision-makers—ignored the warnings. All of the warnings were passed over by management.

The Challenger and Columbia disasters are a sad legacy for a storied organization like NASA. There was a time when the leaders and managers not only listened to their engineers–they relied on them. In April of 1970, the U.S. manned space program was at its height. Americans had already launched two successful moon missions. Apollo 13 was on the pad and three astronauts blasted off from Cape Canaveral.

On the third day after launch, disaster struck when an oxygen fuel cell ruptured and practically destroyed the service module. The service module was the white cylinder mounted behind the command module. It was packed with vital electrical and thrust equipment. Without it, not only were the astronauts not going to finish their mission, their lives were threatened.

The next three days turned into a fast paced troubleshooting process. The crew, flight controllers, engineers and other astronauts worked to solve one life-threatening problem after another: lack of electrical generation, lack of thrust, lack of room, lack of heat.

They used spare parts and cannibalized components that were not designed to be modified in flight. They used duct tape and space suit parts in ways that nobody ever imagined. Working as hard and fast as they could, the team pieced together a miracle.

At the very end of an agonizing return trip, the entire team had to manually calculate final adjustments to aim the craft at a precise angle for re-entry.

In this instance, the individual talent of every engineer and technician who participated in the discussions was the only thing that could save the lives of the three astronauts. They were motivated, of course, and had a strong desire to change how things were done. In fact, this was an imperative: if had they done things by the book—the way the manuals instructed—the astronauts probably would not have made it back at all.

Everyone in that building had to think more creatively than ever before because human lives depended on it. This was American ingenuity at its best. If any idea had a chance of working, it was considered. No idea was too far-fetched. Square pegs were squeezed into round holes to save the crew of Apollo 13.

In the end, everyone at Apollo Mission Control—from the janitor to the launch director—learned a critical lesson from the experience. They learned that “good enough” is never enough, especially when it comes to dealing with people’s lives. Processes, procedures, and designs were all re-thought over and over again. Nothing was left to chance. No one was satisfied with the status quo.

Six days after launch, the Apollo 13 capsule splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean thanks to ingenuity and teamwork. Although the Apollo program lasted for just four more flights, I’m pretty sure the talent at NASA felt that they could accomplish anything.

Of course, talent does not surface only during crises where lives are hanging by a thread—experience has shown me that talent shows itself when leaders encourage it. When leaders are honest, empathetic, resist compromises on quality, the team—and talent—will follow.

Not all waste is created equal. Some of it is extremely valuable; especially when it teaches us something about the way we run our business. The owner of an insurance brokerage in Los Angeles, CA – we will call him “Cooper” – relayed this story to us recently.

Cooper was working late one night on a presentation for a new client. The printer in his office malfunctioned, so he routed a document he needed to the printer that the staffers shared. As he waited by the printer, he looked down at the trashcan and was startled by what he saw: heaping but neat stacks of printed email, dumped straight into the round file. At the time, his office had about 35 employees, so he imagined that it was an isolated incident. But he knew that he should take a closer look.

The next morning, he asked his administrative manager about the trash and what he heard surprised him even more. Two years earlier, he had set what he thought was a mundane office policy to require a paper record of all emails relating to client business.

Email was still a relatively new business tool. Cooper didn’t know that people tended to communicate with each other via the “Reply To” function. As a result, many emails grew into long strings of messages that included every comment made with the important details sprinkled all over. Outlook and other email managers help search for the important bits, but when you print, you get the whole enchilada including every joke, recipe, sports prediction, birthday greeting, salutation, and thanks.

Because of the policy, agents were forwarding customer emails to staffers. At the close of every day, the staffers printed everything, kept what they needed and tossed out the rest.

Cooper measured the stack of paper and found that it was almost even with a fresh package of paper, or about 500 sheets. The real shock came when the manager revealed that this stack was light. Not only did the process occur daily, many times the amount of waste was double, even triple what Cooper had seen.

Cooper and the manager estimated that the cost of wasted paper from printing emails was running up a $300 a month bill; $7,200 since the email policy was passed. When they added toner and staff time, the total cost soared to more than $14,000.

Talking with agents and staffers, he learned that everyone thought that the policy was wasteful and inefficient. And yet, no one took the initiative to anything about it.

Not long after this incident, a non-paper solution was adopted and Cooper was pleased that he could reduce cost and increase efficiency from one small change. Then he realized that this one example was a symptom of other perhaps more costly problems and worried where they might be. About a year later, “The Ice Cream Maker,” was published.

Cooper bought a copy and read it one afternoon. Inspired by the concept of using quality as the benchmark of behavior throughout his business, he bought a copy for everyone in his office. To this day, new employees receive a copy as part of their training.

Another underlying message in this story is the fact that many businesses pass office policy without attention to a quality process. Had Cooper focused on the outcome rather than the solution, he might have avoided this problem entirely. Luckily, the trash was the clue. In my experience, the cost of such mistakes can produce even greater expense.

Something to think about the next time you’re in a position to set what you think is a mundane office policy.

I am deeply troubled by the increased pace of self-inflicted crises in our government and economy. We have been witness to one event after another during the last several years, each with seemingly greater levels of consequence and damage. Not surprisingly, this is all happening under the watchful eyes of two of the least productive congressional sessions in history.

Questions persist as to whether our representatives can actually manage the country’s business without wasting time, money, and even lives. From my perspective, it appears that our elected officials and policy makers prefer political theater to resolving problems.

Consider the so-called “sequester,” enacted as law at the start of 2013. It was another impasse; another political crisis. Congressional leaders and President Obama knew they had to do something, but ideology prevented them from doing something constructive.

The Sequester was a flawed policy that nearly everyone knew wouldn’t work. Many people who participated in the decision warned of consequential damages that could eventually increase the cost of operations and decrease the quality of services delivered. And some of those predictions have already been proven to be correct.

No business survives long making decisions in that way. From my perspective as a management consultant for more than twenty years, it is clear that our current government is focused on putting up barriers instead of tearing them down and creating opportunities.

When I train executives and managers, I teach the importance of listening. As a core competency of successful leadership, active listening brings organizational cohesion. It enriches social interaction and optimizes decision-making though mutual interests. When leaders want an organization to grow, they tear down barriers and look for opportunities. Why can’t we get our government to do the same?  We can, but only if we demand it.

Yet, rather than ask representatives to enact such a change, I challenge each of us, as citizens and voters, to begin the process. After all, it is our duty to elect leaders to represent our interests. “We the people” empower the national agenda—we set the political priorities by what we think and what we believe.

More important, how can we ask our government to adopt a new standard for management if we are distracted by political theater? How can we ask for a new quality standard, if we are not willing to practice it ourselves?

I propose a “cause for quality” in which we see past the differences and build consensus. We don’t need a new party platform or a petition to achieve this goal. But we do need a dose of reality. If we stay on the path we are currently on, if “we the people” fail to change course, my fear is that the crises will only continue and our losses will only grow worse.

Granted, there are significant differences between running a country and running a company. When businesses fail to embrace quality, customers complain, and sales drop. If there are no changes, poor quality will lead to even more lost sales and the business may ultimately fail. However, companies can reorganize, re-invent, re-invest, and recover.

What happens when quality fails in government? The effects are invasive and long-lasting. When government leaders fail quality, economies falter, institutions fail, and individual futures are destroyed. The country can rebuild – we’ve done it before – but no one can replace personal suffering. Just think of the long recession we had to endure. Do you want to endure another?

The root cause of the current failure in Congress and the White House is our own—we lack a true understanding of what is going on and are not engaged in any significant way.  To me, the threat of failure is clear and the answer obvious. We either build up and strengthen the very foundations of this great democracy, or leave things as they and allow the country to continue to erode. We must not tolerate another self-inflicted crisis.

To begin, we all need to stop playing the blame game. It’s not just your representative’s fault, the President’s fault, or the fault of anyone in government. It is our collective failure to recognize poor judgment. It is our fault for accepting poor quality decisions instead of demanding more from the process. The economic advancement of any nation depends on how its citizens practice quality. We are all shareholders in the United States of America.  As such, we have the responsibility to participate and work toward meaningful change.