Always seek quality ahead of quantity in 2012

An earlier conversation urging a preference for quality ahead of quantity probably aroused puzzlement among some.

The drive for quality in modern businesses is overt and almost without fail rewarded monetarily or in a way that enhances the self-esteem of an individual or a group of people.
Business today sees quality and the subsequent recognition and reward for its achievement largely through the prism of customer satisfaction.
That satisfaction, according to the hierarchy of most businesses, certainly the successful ones, is unquestionably about increased sales; about the growth of the company and so more throughput.
Contemporary economics lives within a language code that is confusing to the un-initiated, even to many who speak the language, but stripped of its bewildering fineries, the more throughput a company has, the better the end result, assuming its governance is in order.
In this instance, quality is simply about ensuring the maintenance of an ever increasing throughput, which in a world without restraints is honourable and so worthy of our applause.
However, our world is in reality quite different from the seemingly infinite world in which our ideas of growth and business were conceived.
Beyond the remote original thinker, whose sanity was questioned as was their allegiance to God or the gods, the piecing together, since the Industrial Revolution, of the mercantile world happened largely in ignorance that nature was calling the shots and not, as it was then believed, and still is by many, some mythical supernatural being.
Quality in its modern meaning is about whether your new washing machine lasts two or twenty years or whether or not your car will perform as intended for its expected ten years.
Quality time also means spending an uninterrupted hours with your kids, rather than being divided between them and some portable electronic device or simply being distracted by thoughts that you should really have your shoulder to the wheel and not “wasting” time with your family.
The idea of quality has been so distorted that its real meaning has been disenfranchised and the essence of it being hijacked by our modern industrial world to ensure riches and comfort for a few and servitude for everyone else.
Quality, in its deepest sense and if we are to unravel its mysteries, demands a whole societal re-focus that puts the wellbeing and contentment of people clearly ahead of the manufacture and consumption of “stuff”.
Work is clearly essential to our wellbeing, but it needs to be work about survival and not work building and making stuff that simply depletes the world’s resources and has little to do with, if anything, enriching personal psychological value.
Quality is something that takes time, it is personal and its achievement is hugely satisfying.

Considering the past, building the future

Seemingly unproductive discussions about the latest Murray Darling Basin plan cause reflection upon Malcolm Turnbull’s first speech to the Australian parliament eleven years ago.

Richard Heinberg has written about the end
of growth, to which the modern world
 is addicted.

The then newly elected member for the New South Wales seat of Wentworth said: “I am proud to be a part of a government which has led the way in better management of our water resources”.
Honourable thoughts and intent, but after a more than a decade of talk, we are still talking and while that outcome is not personally Turnbull’s responsibility, it is about the tolerance, fairness, justice and frustrating procrastination attributable to democracy.
Being in the shadows of the recent failure of climate talks at Durban, what Turnbull said in that maiden speech seemed prescient; “We must assume on the basis of current science that our world is getting warmer and our country, at least, drier”.
The Sydney based politician, however, is obviously an agent of economic growth, a fact clearly illustrated by his private successful business interests, when, among other things, he said in 2004: “Nothing increase choice or widens the horizons of families more than a strong economy”.

Richard Heinberg's latest
book, The End of Growth.

That was more than a decade ago and economic growth is still today the mandate of governments around the world and is simply the extension of a paradigm that prompts quantitative decisions; decisions that determines success or failure in our contemporary business world.
However, the idea that growth will reveal a future rich in happiness and material goods is dead.
One who is unafraid to talk about the end of growth, having in fact written a book with that title, is American author, journalist and educator, Richard Heinberg.
Writing in his latest newsletter, Heinberg said, after explaining the economic contractions the world faces because of energy depletion: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. If we focus on improving quality of life rather than boosting quantity of consumption, we could be happier even as our economy downsizes to fit nature’s limits”.
Standing at the eve of a New Year, the least we could do is seriously consider how we equate the exhaustion of the world’s resources with the idea of ever expanding growth, and in doing that it would quickly become obvious that the tumour-like growth driven optimism of most is sadly misplaced.
The downsizing Heinberg points to is inevitable, but the decision to favour quality ahead of quantity is a choice.
Modern business parlance is about quality, but that push for excellence is primarily about ensuring the achievement of goals aligned with quantity, or in simple terms, growth.
Future happiness and contentment hinges on us having the integrity to ensure that in everything we do in 2012, quality should precede quantity.