Masonry Magazine December 1995 Page. 25
Promoting Your Productivity Improvement
An effective story must be told in terms of customer benefits. Keep the self-congratulations internal; keep the results external. Translate these benefits into concrete, recognizable, and real-world examples.
By DAVID CHEATHAM, APR
Development Manager, FMI Corporation
LAST YEAR your company launched a TQM process. Five months ago you invited your major subcontractors and suppliers to participate. A major owner-and your largest client-is praising your team for improving productivity on an important project. But when you approach a prospective client in your area about working on a similar project, he says he isn't aware of your reputation for quality.
What's going on here? Your firm performed well and deserved the image enhancement from a strong track record. But without a proactive plan to capitalize on your achievement, your firm is practically invisible to key influencers and decision-makers.
Contractors that make the effort to achieve higher productivity, improved quality, and increased safety ought to make the most of it. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to go through the planning, managing, and expense of a productivity improvement initiative and then keep the achievement to yourself.
Promoting your productivity initiative not only increases your current and prospective customers' awareness of your firm; external promotion also helps keep internal motivation high.
How should you market TQM? How can you publicize the tangible customer benefits such as lower costs and greater efficiency, as well as the intangible benefits of employee empowerment and greater teamwork?
Turning Productivity into Profits
First realize that productivity, quality, and safety improvements are not simply internal goals. Rather, they are differentiating factors that can set your firm apart from the competition. Unfortunately, terms like "total quality management" and "productivity improvement" have been used so much that they've lost much