Over the past five years, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Kaitlyn Merrin from Merrin Co., an international ISO consultancy. In the early days, I was there to share my knowledge of ISO standards and support her with tenders and system builds, acting as a second pair of eyes.

When I first started out as a certification auditor and an ISO trainer, I would prepare and practice for days before!

My preparation for certification audits consisted of a detailed audit checklist, printed pages of the previous audit report, an updated and prepared new audit report, plus post-it notes to remember my ISO standards and PPE.

My preparation for delivering training, was a run through of the slides, reference to my hand-written notes in the course workbook and hours of sitting at my computer practicing my delivery.

I shared this post recently. I wanted to be honest with everyone that I just wasn’t feeling it this year. The post I shared was:

I’m usually all about setting goals and charging into the new year, but this time it hit differently. I caught myself thinking, “Same sh*t, different year.”

And then I thought of a hamster wheel! You know the feeling—running and running but never really getting anywhere? That’s where I found myself. And honestly, I still kind of feel that way today. And possibly I’m not the only one who’s felt like that.

But here’s what I realized—it’s OK to feel this way. It’s OK to take a moment to sit with it instead of forcing positivity or slapping on a new goal just because the calendar flipped over.

What matters is what we do next. If I feel like I’m stuck on the hamster wheel, then it’s my responsibility to figure out how to step off—or maybe even get flung off it (because, let’s face it, sometimes that’s exactly what we need!).

Your resume is a crucial document that showcases your professional identity. Throughout my career, I’ve reviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes.

The challenge consistently lies in how to make your resume stand out in the crowd. Many students frequently ask about the best ways to update their resumes, specifically in the ISO Industry. Recently, I received an email that sums up these common concerns perfectly.

I recently emailed a student to follow up on a previous conversation. His response was:

I really appreciate how quickly you got back to me. It’s awesome when people are on the ball like that! Quality over deadlines is something I’m passionate about, and I hope to spread that mindset to my team. I’m really excited about our upcoming meeting and getting into some productive discussions with my boss. By the way, if you have a spare moment, I’d love to pick your brain a bit about handling bosses with different priorities, particularly when it comes to navigating situations where quality isn’t their top concern.

I’ve been reading a lot about Organizational Culture lately. In particular Michael Henderson’s book Above the Line. There are a few key areas that Michael focuses on in his book which can be viewed as ownership and accountability, alignment, measurement, change management, leadership’s role, communication and employee engagement. Do these seem familiar to you? They certainly do to me! So where does Culture fit in with ISO 9001 and a quality management system? This got me intrigued and so I took a new look at ISO 9001 with a fresh focus on organizational culture just to see what I would find.