Fundamental: “Quality Begets Quantity”
Many of you may know, I am a proud father of McKenzie, my precious 4-year-old daughter. One of the many things I am working with her on is the importance of taking care of what you have, and in doing so, more will come. I think this is a very important concept for her to learn early in life. The same concept I’m teaching my daughter, translates perfectly in business. In my work, I was fortunate to be introduced to this statement many years ago by an influential leader that seeded into my professional development, and I continue to learn from to this day. What does it truly mean to take care of what you have? As a measure of standard, I live by, I always ask if I would allow my child to be served in this program. Does it meet or exceed my personal standard of care? So, I ask each of you, would you allow your child to be served in the program you lead, or the support you provide at Thompson? If the answer to that question is no, then we have work to do.
The fundamental belief “Quality begets Quantity” in our culture simply means the recipe for success or programmatic growth lies in our willingness to focus on providing quality programming and services. We define “Excellence” at Thompson as the gradual result of always trying to do better. If we take this core value and put action behind it, growth or “Quantity” will come. So, what does it look like to focus on quality? Questions you should consider:
- Does my program meet or exceed required minimum standards?
- Do my programmatic operating guidelines set the standards for the team?
- Am I using my program logic model as a vehicle for examining service delivery and tool to monitor program data?
- Does my program achieve the desired outcomes?
- What does the data say about:
- My program: Dashboard / Scorecard
- My staff: HR onboarding and exit surveys
- Internal, Peer Record, External Reviews: Feedback from PQI team
- Recipients of the service: Satisfaction Surveys
- Training compliance
- Am I using data to continuously improve my program operations? What actions am I taking to align my practice and my data?
Some of you may think this belief is just a “Thompson” thing, but I urge you to consider this belief as a “success” thing! As I close out my personal thoughts, I truly believe if we are diligent over the few; we will be blessed with much, Matthew 25:23. If we truly want to live out this fundamental belief, I urge all to focus and buy in to Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) at Thompson. The children and families we support deserve the best.