Article produced by Waldir Ciszevski, a Stratec partner

We are experiencing changes in the Brazilian political and economic landscape, and the moment is opportune to rethink the future. At this time, it is worth understanding that changes in our lives are unconditionally linked to Total quality today Organizational Excellenceand to continuous improvement and success, as we live in an environment where a continuous improvement process is no longer an option, but a prerequisite for organizations.

Wisdom

Conceptually, change begins through knowledge. For someone to have a “behavioral shift,” even a positive one, awareness of information is necessary. The verb that characterizes this stage is knowledge. With this rule, only cases of abnormalities in the psychophysical health of individuals are excepted. As a practical example, let's imagine that the process of change in the feasibility analysis is “quitting smoking.” A person who is currently a smoker wants to change to the next process of being a non-smoker. Therefore, the first step would be for the individual to have the information, awareness, and knowledge that smoking is bad for their health.

“The changes in our lives are preconditions unconditionally linked to total quality, excellence, and success, as we live in an environment where a process of continuous improvement is no longer an option.

A vontade

In this case, the step following knowledge is people's attitude. Popularly, there's a certain confusion between attitude and behavior, as it's mistakenly believed that attitude is linked to action, and in its essence, it is not. Attitude means a value judgment about certain knowledge, meaning it's the analytical way of thinking in relation to some information we have. The verb that characterizes this stage is to want. Attitude means wanting or not wanting something. Continuing the example mentioned above about “quitting smoking,” an attitude towards this process can be “wanting to quit smoking” or “not wanting to quit smoking.” This personal assignment of value is not always aligned with knowledge, because it is possible to have been taught that smoking is harmful, but even after that information, not wanting to quit the addiction.

The action

The next step that constructively completes the change process is the individual behavior of people. In this case, explicitly, behavior has a direct relationship with action. Therefore, the verb that characterizes this stage is to do. Following the initial example, after knowledge and attitude comes the time to act, which, in this case, is tangibly characterized by quitting smoking or continuing to smoke. Once again, it is worth remembering that alignment is not necessarily experienced in practice, because after knowing that smoking is harmful, and after wanting to quit smoking, one may continue to smoke.

It is worth noting that, while conformity between knowing and willing does not guarantee doing, it is certain that for a change to occur, this agreement is necessary in the initial two stages. No change happens if we don't have the necessary knowledge or, even if we do, we don't want to change. In other words, we need to be willing to change our knowing and our willing to then change our doing. Only after this change in individual behavior will the change, by a ripple effect, spread through the same stages to a group, to an entire organization, and to a society.

This is how a business management consultancy, for example, carries out improvement projects in a consistent and sustainable way, optimizing overall business productivity, as well as impacting specific productivity in particular areas.

Business results typically come from three vectors of impact, namely the Organizational outcomes (organization of processes, documents, information, systems, ideas, ideals, etc.); behavioral outcomes (human development in areas such as man-productivity, machine productivity, leadership, sales, customer service, among others) and Economic-financial results (tangible consequence of the previous).

If we are willing to change, there is a fantastic and giant chance for personal and business improvements. However, if we believe that we or our organization do not need to change in this current competitive environment of continuous improvement, then embarking on such a process will cause conflict. To change, we need to be willing. Therefore, at this moment, I invite everyone to change more, grow more, and improve even more. Do you know what the additional result that starts immediately will be? Survival, stability, better competitiveness, more success, and greater satisfaction.

Waldir Ciszevski is the executive director of Qualitivity Consultoria & Gestão Empresarial, a company specializing in organizational diagnostics, business results, and management consulting.