The Ice Cream Maker notes

by Subir Chowdhury.

book about Quality.

• Profits are the result, the by-product of great service, great quality, great teamwork -- not an end in themselves. 
• Turn what you do every day out of necessity into something you love to do.
• But you can make any job fun, and fulfilling -- if you show them how they are contributing.
• Every company has two kinds of customers -- inside the company (employees) and outside the company. 
• Better we treat our employees, the better they treat our customers. 
• When i focus solely on results, on store profits, we don't do as well. But when i focus on helping people.
• Focus on the process. Sports analogy. Jack Nicklaus never looked at the leaderboard til last day of tournament. Because if you think about your score, you'll lose your focus on how you achieve a good score. 
• LEO - Listen. Enrich. Optimize. Listen to both customers. Enrich the products or services. Optimiziing the customer experience. 
• Few companies listen. Most have DJ Syndrome. Play what they want, not what listeners want. 
• Quality is defined by the customer. And you get their definition by listening to them. 
• Customers have several needs: 1. basic; 2. performance; 3. excitement, what delights them. (surprise them by over-delivering). 
• Most American companies are better at delivering "excitement" than they are providing customers' basic needs.
• Help people. Help your customers. 
• Continual improvement: need to be thinking about how to improve your product or service every day. 
• Success comes down to three things: 1. strong desire to change how we do things whenever we see something that we can do better; 2. a willingness to think outside the box to come up  with the best solution; 3. an urge to improve everything we do. 
• from LEO - optimize. Not just improve, but optimize. Means strive for perfection. Perfection is a real and tangible goal. 
• To achieve for Perfection, you need: 1. recognize the price of failure; 2. do it right the first time; 3. get absolutely dogged on the details; 4. get productive paranoia; 5. passion for perfection, a task into a mission. 
• The small stuff is the big stuff. 
• Less emphasis on company fireman, and more on company fire marshals, the people who prevent the fires from happening. Everyone is a fire marshal. 
• Quality is consistency. Be judged at our worst. Have sustained excellence.