I lost my Bose headphones recently, they were beautiful and the sound impeccable. I cannot afford to pay $200 for another pair so have been buying made in China $3.00 ones from a two dollar shop. They do not do the same job and they do not last for very long, stretch them too far and they become headphone not headphones,
I can always excuse this with the fact it will take nearly 100 pairs of them to cover the cost of another set of Bose headphones but the quality is just not the same. What is it that has us declare what is quality? Relationships, computers, phones are several areas in our lives that we use this word for, so what has the world said about it and how have they defined quality over historical times, lets have a look:
1. Steve Jobs, CEO of the iconic Apple company kept the launch of the Apple 2 computer on hold for over a year until his company got it right, the first successful mass produced computer and the beginning of a journey that saw him being sacked from his position in 1985 and returning to save the company in 1997 with ideas such as iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Store, the iPhone, the App Store, and the iPad.
2. Quality is developed by having integrity in what you do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 month a year, all the years of your lifetime: Circle of Life.
3. Do you perform only for an audience, remember your soul is watching if you are in the middle of a desert.
4. Kaoru Ishikawa is known for his diagrams that are known as fish-bone diagrams that showed the causes of a specific event. They were used to turn around the quality of an event, showing that failure could be turned into success: Resilience. Failure to Success.
5. They say you can change or create a habit over a 21 day period, quality is on of those thing you can create in that time too. It doesn’t take for ever.
6. Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to “win” as a team or an organisation; and it is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring.
Yet, while leaders set the direction, they must also use management skills to guide their people to the right destination, in a smooth and efficient way: Leader of the Pack
7. John Ruskin(8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. he definitely lived the above quote in the many areas he strived in life.
8. I have always loved this speech by Allan Watts on the subject of Choice, may we make them sincere, intelligent and skillful: Allan Watts – Choice.
9. Many people have issues in increasing the amount they charge for their services, especially in the healing sector. How much do you charge for your gift? Provide quality and it should not be an issue.
10. In producing quality in our lives, there must be a high level of caring involved. As this quote states it’s not in the knowledge you have gathered over the years but the effect you have had on people that is remembered at your passing: If Everybody Cared.
11. Peter Drucker ( November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as “the founder of modern management”.
12. A rather controversial statement as we are all born within our mothers wombs and then it is up to us to survive and prosper with the support of what is offered to us: Time of my Life.
13. The king of fire-walking, Tony Robbins says it is the questions we ask in our lives that have the quality of it occur. Never stop asking quality questions.
14. I spent a lot of my teens hanging around with people of questionable quality to try to get at my parents. I gave it up and spent a lot of time alone before I found my tribe: Can’t Get Enough.
15. Said to be a taskmaster to the extreme, Steve Jobs had this as his motto when dealing with his employees, a request for the best quality possible each day.
We have the choice of leading a quality life or one that is so so. I vote for the former.
Namaste until next time, my dear friends.
I am an Interculturalist 