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.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, What the Next Generation of Project Management Will Look Like, it states that a recent global Gartner survey suggests that project manager is actually expected to be one of the fastest growing project management office (PMO) roles across the next two to three years. An outcome of this survey identified Next-Generation Skills that Project Managers need, to have a decisive role to play in this new environment, where complex challenges must be addressed such as overcoming organizational silos, managing hidden interdependencies, and realizing cross-team efficiencies.

In a recent newsletter, I included the below paragraph:

This could be a challenge for hard-core systems people to get their heads around. You see, a quality management system promotes a ‘system’, it promotes processes, procedures, and evidence that they were followed. However, to build a culture to achieve enhanced customer satisfaction it should be happening ‘in the moment’. I can see some of you running and screaming already!

In a recent small poll I conducted on LinkedIn I asked the question Where does the organizational culture intersect with a quality management system? Where do you see the intersection in ISO 9001? The most common response was that the intersection in ISO 9001 stood squarely with Leadership.

I worked with a Tier 2 construction company for over 10 years as their certification auditor. The Directors (the leaders) of the company were physically at the opening and closing meetings, however I always felt they weren’t fully present. They were simply paying ‘lip-service’ and their Integrated Management System (IMS) showed this. It was all talk and no action or commitment.

The most recent questions I have been asked are about moving into the role of an auditor, specifically moving up to the ranks of a certification auditor. These questions range from:

I am an internal Auditor and I’m trying to be an external Auditor. Every application I send I get rejected because I don’t have external Auditor experience. How can I get experience if I don’t get a chance?