In traveling first between the two different worlds of Africa and Europe, and now throughout North America, I perceived so clearly that in Africa people are paramount, whereas in the western world processes rule. In Africa, processes are transparent; in the West, they become convoluted and complex.
Do people who are deeply satisfied with a process smile a lot?
When I was a boy in Africa, I was employed by my uncle’s construction company to run around the job site and report back which crews were smiling and which were not. At seven years of age, I did not understand the blueprints, but I understood (sometimes better than the adults) whether the crew felt engaged and productive or frustrated and angry. Invariably, a lot of toothy grins and joking amongst a crew led to good Quality workmanship, whereas scowls and frustration led to rework. (We called this job assignment Mood Indigo—more on MI coming up )
People and processes change from social group to social group and often from country to country, continent to continent. Despite the utopian dream of a worldwide standard that everyman can recognize, the social results of what people and process are doing are different from culture to culture.
What is deemed totally correct or Quality-compliant in one culture is often offensive in another. Humankind has grappled with this issue throughout the ages, and often the result has been cultural fiat by force of arms to subjugate a culture that disagreed with another’s conception of Quality.
Ask
whether the crew are smiling in Europe or North America and your sanity
will be questioned. Satisfaction with a process is judged by a review
of the reported results (paperwork, digital or not). The western world
seems to insist that the work-processes that most of its inhabitants are
involved in should normally be unrewarding and unchallenging, almost
like a penance. It is unfashionable to speak of a vocation except for
clergy or artists. The rest of us talk about our “day jobs,” “keeping
our noses to the grindstone,” and “advancing our careers.” This view of
work as a penance is reinforced by contrasting to it a glorified view of
retirement as a great change after which Quality of Life radically
improves, if the retiree is not too exhausted and has not forgotten how
to enjoy life.
This
is also the process format the developed world is exporting to Africa,
and we are still stunned at the poor results and promptly blame the
recipients of our superior western or pseudo-eastern wisdom. In the
western (metaphorical) world, we are much more comfortable with the
paper mask results that people wear—What school did you go to? What are
your qualifications? How much money do you make? What car do you drive?
What type of house do you live in?—than with the real person behind the
mask. Ask any person in most western companies about the Quality of what
they do as it relates to the satisfaction they feel by doing it and you
will probably get this type of response: “I do not really enjoy what I
do because of XXXX, but you have to make a living, so …” To say that
this has no reflection on the Quality output of what they do is naive.
This
is also the process format the developed world is exporting to Africa,
and we are still stunned at the poor results and promptly blame the
recipients of our superior western or pseudo-eastern wisdom. In the
western (metaphorical) world, we are much more comfortable with the
paper mask results that people wear—What school did you go to? What are
your qualifications? How much money do you make? What car do you drive?
What type of house do you live in?—than with the real person behind the
mask. Ask any person in most western companies about the Quality of what
they do as it relates to the satisfaction they feel by doing it and you
will probably get this type of response: “I do not really enjoy what I
do because of XXXX, but you have to make a living, so …” To say that
this has no reflection on the Quality output of what they do is naive.
