Quality Assurance processes got you down? Do you have departments or employees who simply focus on “getting the job done” instead of “getting the job done well”? Are you tired of repeatedly pointing out the same QA mistakes over and over without ever seeing any improvement?

If this sounds familiar, this post is for you.

You Need a New Strategy

It’s a good bet that you’ve repeatedly begged and begged (and begged!) your coworkers to focus on quality and to be thorough - all to no avail. Why can’t you get through to them?

Deep down, you probably realize that repeating yourself once again won’t change anything. After all, you’ve probably heard that Einstein quotation: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” You know you’re not insane, but you don’t know what else to do.

The problem is that humans do not respond well to verbal pleas, begging or even logic. (If you’ve had a teenage child, you know what I mean.) While we like to think that we act logically and rationally, many of our actions are dictated by the environment and under-appreciated, subconscious motivations.

If you want to improve your QA processes, stop yelling or pleading. Change your approach by tweaking the workplace setting and latent incentives by using these 5 ideas.

Ways to Improve Quality Assurance

1. Institute One Keystone Habit Into Your Processes

Whether we realize it or not, habits rule our lives. Think about what you did this morning when you got to work. Now think about what you did yesterday. And the day before. My guess is that you’ve unconsciously fallen into a habitual routine that dictates much of your work day.

The good news is that we can spur significant changes by disrupting just one of our habits and replacing it with a different one - a keystone habit. This type of habit can have exponential results. Additionally, it need not even be clearly related to the effects it produces.

A popular example of a keystone habit is making your bed every day. It’s often said that if you want to succeed in life, make your bed first thing when you wake up. Making your bed doesn’t directly cause you to succeed in life. But making your bed every morning is a way to start the day off with a ‘win.’ This win has a spillover effect to the rest of your day and over time leads to big changes.

The power of changing a keystone habit in business can be seen during Paul O’Neill’s time as CEO of Alcoa. While investors were worried about financial issues such as capital and company subdivisions, O’Neill would only talk about safety. He wanted to make Alcoa one of the safest companies to work for. This keystone habit of paying an exceedingly high amount of attention to safety had a spillover effect of creating excellence in general. Within a year, Alcoa set a new record for profitability. (For a great recounting of O’Neill’s use of keystone habits, order The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.)

Identifying and instituting a keystone habit is like having a cheat code.

How can you find your own cheat code to help your QA processes?

It takes some creativity and experimentation to find and implement the correct keystone habit. Start by isolating a single aspect of the problem you’re dealing with. Then, think of just one thing you wish your QA team would do or say that would address that aspect. INSIST THAT THEY DO OR SAY THIS EVERY TIME. In fact, make it a checklist item - make them “check it off” on a checklist every time so they are held accountable for performing the new keystone habit.

For example, I once advised a company that had to match clients with job openings. Investigators in charge of researching job openings sometimes simply read the job descriptions without diving deeply into what was “really” required for the tasks. They were not taking that extra step to make sure a job was a good fit instead of simply a fit ‘on paper.’ As a result, clients were repeatedly placed in jobs they were not suited for.

I advised the company to institute the keystone habit of requiring investigators to always ask for one detail not necessarily specified in the job ad. Alternatively, they could ask what is the most unique thing someone in this role might be expected to do. Simply asking either of these two questions had the spillover effect of making the investigators think more deeply about the job openings and whether they were truly a good fit, resulting in fewer job mismatches.

Finding good keystone habits is unique to each situation. But once they are identified, they are easily implemented and have outsized positive effects.

2. Play “The Weakest Link”

You may be familiar with NBC’s game show called “Weakest Link” in which contestants work together to build up the prize pool. They then can vote off a competitor whom they see as presumably the weakest link in their attempt to build up the potential winnings.

While this version of the game doesn’t involve voting anybody out of their job, it can nonetheless effectively pinpoint problems in a quality assurance process.

Suppose you’ve got to prepare a case file that will be reviewed by an adjudicator in some agency. Once the case file is completed, gather the relevant team members and play the weakest link game. Have them all read the case file and vote (through secret ballot) for what they think the weakest part of the case is. Then tally the results.

Playing weakest link has several benefits. First, it makes team members view the case differently. Instead of trying to “make their case,” they’re trying to tear it down. Going through this process alone will uncover many lapses in quality. Second, it encourages staff members to create better case files in the first place - they don’t want to be responsible for cases with a lot of weak links. Most importantly, it will point out at least one, if not several, places where quality can be improved.

In a similar vein, you could imagine there is an evil demon that has unlimited powers to ruin a case file. What aspect of the case would the evil demon most easily focus upon. (For a thorough explanation of how to apply the evil demon technique, see my previous blog post “Workplace Disputes? How to View Problems through the Same Lens [8 Tips].”)

It shouldn’t be difficult to find fun and creative ways to play “Weakest Link” with your quality assurance concern.

3. Alter Workflow with the Ziegarnik Effect

What’s the Zeigarnik Effect? I thought you’d never ask.

Named after Lithuanian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, the Zeigarnik Effect highlights the fact that people keep unfinished business in mind. Once the task is finished, however, everything related to it is forgotten.

Did you ever take a final exam and then immediately forget everything you had just learned? That’s the Zeigarnik Effect. You prioritized the information so long as the task was unfinished (i.e., you still had to take the exam). Once the business (exam) was finished, however, you felt free to let it all go.

This effect isn’t restricted to students studying for exams. It shows up at the office too. Employees just want to get the job done so they can get it off their “to do” lists. As a result, they are incentivized to cut corners. This process of cutting corners to get the job done (even if the corner-cutting is done subconsciously) leads to low-quality outcomes.

An easy fix for this issue is a slight change in workflow. Find a way that the task does not get ‘crossed off their list’ until it is approved for quality at the next level. For example, if employees are working on a certain stage of a case file, that case file doesn’t come off their list of tasks until it is completely discharged from the company’s responsibility. This way, employees are motivated to complete their tasks with the highest quality possible. They will not want the case held up at a later stage and staying on their checklist.

The Zeigarnik Effect’s influence on quality assurance will look different in every industry. Nonetheless, you can easily find ways to prevent tasks from being considered “complete” too early. Keep the employees responsible for their work or product until it leaves the company’s doors.

4. FedEx It!

This is another workflow hack if you can fit it with your company culture. Charlie Munger likes to tell the story of FedEx’s early days when packages were shipped to one central location each evening. They all had to be unloaded and then reloaded onto the correct vehicles overnight so the deliveries could be on time.

But the quantity was too much - employees couldn’t seem to ever complete the transfers on time. There were just too many packages! Threats, enticements, and moral pleadings had no effect. You just can’t change the amount of work and the time it takes by begging.

Or can you? As it turns out, FedEx DID solve their problem with one significant tweak. Instead of paying its employees by the hour, workers were told they could go home once all the packages had been transferred … even if their shift wasn’t over yet. And wouldn’t you know it, it WAS possible for all the packages to be unloaded and reloaded on time. The motivation to go home early was incentive enough to perform at a higher level.

Put another way, FedEx It technique is centered on “quota versus time.” In this example, high quality meant a certain quota of packages being transferred within a certain amount of time. Once the quality (i.e., quota) was met, FedEx workers were able to go home. Higher quality in less time - a true win-win.

Having to sit in an office for a prescribed amount of time excites nobody. Give employees a way to reduce that amount of time if they do high-quality work, and you won’t be able to contain their enthusiasm for quality.

Find ways to incentivize quality results that can lead to less time in the office or at a desk.

5. Pre-suade with Pictures

If you ever watched the show How I Met Your Mother, you no doubt remember Barney’s office. Behind his desk the walls were adorned with inspirational photos of rockets and jet fighters with captions such as “Legendary.”

The photography in pictures such as these is appealing. But surely the images and accompanying captions don’t have any tangible effects in the real world, right?

WRONG! As implausible as it seems, such words and images do mysteriously create substantial outcomes - even in the business world.

These types of images and captions actually pre-suade those who see and read them to act in accordance with those words and images.

No, the italicized word above isn’t a typo. Pre-suasion is the scientifically-supported idea that unappreciated and subtle cues prime us to act and be persuaded in particular ways. Robert Cialdini elegantly and convincingly explains the concept in his book Pre-suasion. (I highly recommend it. It contains a long discussion of the Zeigarnik effect too.)

Cialdini describes a study in which callers in a fund-raising call center were divided into two groups. One group was exposed to a photo similar to the one above of a runner winning a race. The other group was not. The results? Those who had been exposed to the inspiring photo beat out the other group by 60%.

Talk about return on investment! A 60% increase due to simply seeing a photo.

The beauty of this technique is that it can deliver exponential results while being easy to implement. For example, do you have a team that does some sort of investigation? Buy them a picture of Sherlock Holmes to hang up. (That’s what I did with one company I worked with.) It costs almost nothing to hang up a picture or include an inspiring illustration on certain handouts. So, indulge in some elementary art appreciation. What do you have to lose (except potential 60% improvement if you don’t)?

You Can Improve Quality Assurance Processes

You don’t have to resort to begging and pleading with coworkers to pay more attention to the quality of their work. You can improve quality by implementing new and different kinds of strategies surrounding habits, games, workflow and pre-suasion.

Begin to utilize the five ideas given here and put some of your QA worries behind you.

Did you find these tips useful? If so, let me know how they helped your organization. Sign up for my weekly newsletter HERE for more tips to optimize soft skills in your business environment. You can also follow Philosophy 4 Business Leaders on LinkedIn and browse my website www.philosophy4business.com. Contact me if you would like my help implementing some of these ideas in your business. Finally, share this blog with others through your social media channels by clicking the relevant icon below.