What can a chamber pot teach us about quality management...
I did not expect that one of my more interesting reflections on quality would come from... an exhibition of chamber pots.
Seriously.
At one of the exhibitions in Wroclaw you can see an extraordinary collection of chamber pots, toilet chairs, and the earliest toilet bowls - from the 18th to the 20th century.
Among them are:
- porcelain chamber pots decorated like vases,
- elegant toilet chairs resembling royal thrones,
- bidets hidden in stools,
- the first flushing toilet bowls.
And interestingly, many of these objects do not look like chamber pots at all.
They look more like:
- a stylish armchair,
- an innocent stool,
- a decorative piece of furniture.
Because designers 200 to 300 years ago understood something very important:
there are functions that the user simply does not want to see.
So they hid them.
And then came the realization:
good quality is also often invisible.
As long as everything works:
- processes flow,
- systems operate,
- standards are followed,
...nobody pays attention to it.
But all it takes is for something to stop working:
- a process gets stuck,
- a system crashes,
- standards disappear.
And suddenly...
quality lands on the first slides of the management presentation.
A bit like a sewage system.
As long as it works, nobody thinks about it.
When it stops, everyone very quickly starts appreciating its importance.
Should it not sometimes be the other way around?
P.S.
Sometimes the best thoughts about quality can be found in very... unexpected places.