by Dr. Hakeem Hammad, CEO, Xi Horizons Consulting, Ireland

Create Constancy of Purpose is one of the Shingo Guiding Principles and is a key enabler for establishing enterprise-wide alignment. It is also the first of W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points for Management (see Out of the Crisis, pg. 23).

#1. “Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.”
The Shingo Institute provides the following definition of Create Constancy of Purpose:

“An unwavering understanding of why the organization exists, where it is going, and how it will get there enables people to align their actions, as well as to innovate, adapt, and take risks with greater confidence.”

The success of any enterprise will solely depend upon its employee commitment to a shared understanding of why we exist today and what the future looks like. Developing and sharing a clear constancy of purpose with the entire workforce in a timely manner will build confidence and trust for every team member in their enterprise, and in turn maximize their commitment toward not only meeting but exceeding customer expectations and continuously striving toward market leadership.

If people have strong faith in their organization then their behaviors and attitudes will completely shift from being passive thinkers to active thinkers who constantly look for creative ideas to simplify and improve product or service value stream in order to maximize shareholder value. This is why Deming believed that supervisors need to find ways to translate the constancy of purpose to the individual employee.

In the book, Out of the Crisis, Deming also said: “Establishment of constancy of purpose means acceptance of obligations like the following:
a. Innovate. Allocate resources for long-term planning…
b. Put resources into: Research and Education
c. Constantly improve design of product and service. This obligation never ceases…” (pg. 26).

To put things into perspective, I share a real-life case study of a division in a multinational company. An employee at one of the division’s manufacturing sites felt disconnected from the division’s vision. This was due to the nature of the products they produce compared to what the other sister sites produce, and the employee wasn’t certain how long the site would exist.

The management quickly addressed the employee’s concern by creating a site vision that articulated why the site exits today and why the site should continue its operations for years to come. The vision was shared with all employees, which created a clear constancy of purpose for every employee and resulted in a great impact on employee morale and engagement.

As mentioned above, create constancy of purpose is one of Deming’s 14 points of management, but on the contrary, a lack of constancy of purpose is included in Deming’s list of 7 Deadly Diseases of Western Management.