5-Star Career

Define and Build Yours Using the Science of Quality Management

Penelope Przekop

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000473452
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Industries across the globe manufacture products and provide services that you deem 5-star worthy; their goal is to satisfy your needs and desires. They follow the proven science of quality management to make that happen because it is common sense, and its effectiveness is irrefutable. 5-Star Career: Define and Build Yours Using the Science of Quality Management provides common-sense, strategic context for personally implementing quality concepts that reflect your goals as well as your own definition of a 5-star life and career.

This book provides the following benefits:

• Explains how the science of quality management can ensure customer satisfaction, which is what industry uses to gauge the quality of products and services.
• Relates that explanation to you on a personal level including how the basic concepts and components of the science apply to your career/job, the path it has taken, and can take.
• Challenges you to identify your authentic needs and desires following the thorough process, research methodology, and data analysis corporations rely on to understand their customers. It tells you how to do all of that, and provides a unique tool to help you gather and analyze the right type of data and information.

• Clarifies the critical role that controlled systems and processes play in the science of quality management, the role they play in the personal application of quality management, and their surprising power to ensure intended outcomes.
• Explains how to apply the proven decision-making methodology (used by industry) to identify the best possible process that leads to the career you deem as 5-star worthy, and to address the career elements that will satisfy your authentic needs and desires.
• Relays how risk-based decision-making is key not only to identifying a process that ensures success but also to addressing the unexpected curveballs that will surely come your way.

Penelope Przekop built a 30-year career around the science of quality management while struggling to overcome the uniquely disturbing childhood she shared with her brother. Along the way, she internalized the science used to build quality into products and services and discovered how it can be personally applied to build and manage not only the quality of a career but also the quality of a life.

1 Give Me 5-Star Everything

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855260-1

“Strive not to be a success but rather to be of value.”

—Albert Einstein

Imagine it’s 2020 again (just for a moment). You’re finally in a clean set of PJs relaxing in your favorite comfy chair. It’s been a long day of serial Zoom meetings in your makeshift office. Soft slippers are on and a blanket is in place. It’s time for the guilty pleasure of online shopping. You’re searching for the perfect surprise gift for dear Aunt Mabel. You recall the potato soup she always whipped up just for you. She dropped whatever she was doing to chat during your teen years, regardless of the topic. She’s getting older now and seems lonely at times. You hope that a thoughtfully selected, unexpected gift will give her a little cheer tomorrow. You’re determined to find a surprise that will have value and meaning to her (and that Amazon can deliver within 24 hours).

There it is! A kitchen widget made for her! She’ll love its quirky edges and useful purpose, and it matches her pink polka dot kitchen. It’s 3-star rated so you read several reviews to ensure that it won’t fall apart upon arrival. Based on the cost, it seems fine. Aunt Mabel will give it 5 stars and that’s all that matters. Sold!

You just experienced a successful shopping process guided by your plan, specifications, and goals, all with Aunt Mabel in mind. This new kitchen widget is valuable, and its value is the outcome of a successful process. It took longer than you imagined but you’re thrilled. You know she’s going to love it. Now you can get back to binge watching Schitt’s Creek.

You could have saved yourself time by taking a different shopping approach. With one or two clicks, you could have transferred your purchasing power to thousands of shoppers who know nothing about you or your Aunt Mabel. All you do is search for the highest-rated Gift for Aunt on Amazon and hit Add to Cart. Let’s pretend you took that route. When the expensive, 5-star rated, newfangled, electric muffin stuffer arrives at Aunt Mabel’s door, she opens it saying to herself, “What the heck? Well, that’s sweet! It’s the thought that counts.” Then she shoves it in the back of the closet she spruced up last week with yellow-flowered wallpaper. She values that you thought of her; however, she doesn’t value the muffin stuffer and wishes you hadn’t spent so much.

Your shopping approach was more or less successful. You found an item and purchased it; you got the job done. If that’s enough for you, all is well. However, if your goals were more aligned with the first approach, you may feel a disconnect, especially given that you spent more money than planned. Hey, maybe it wasn’t your fault. You did your best, right? You had a busy day, and Schitt’s Creek is so good! Netflix is addictive, and the world just isn’t what it used to be. Later that night in bed, you clutch your body pillow thinking that Aunt Mabel probably won’t know how to use that fancy kitchen appliance. She just needs to get out more. If she would just do that, you wouldn’t have to worry about her so much. Your last thought as you drift off is, “Oh well, life’s a process. And after all, a kazillion people gave it 5 stars.”

We live in a world obsessed with ratings. We prefer to purchase 5-star products, read 5-star books, eat at 5-star restaurants, and watch 5-star movies. We love reading online reviews and heavily rely on ratings to make decisions about nearly every aspect of our lives. We compare cost with ratings and are thrilled when we find a highly rated product or service at a price we can afford. Quality ratings are a fantastic way to evaluate and select actions to take and decisions to make. Let’s face it: we even rate and categorize our experiences with those around us using our own internal criteria. This doesn’t make us judgmental; it makes us human. First impressions represent a cornucopia of ratings, all subconsciously tabulated within seconds. According to research at New York University led by Daniela Schiller, there are regions of the brain that sort information based on its personal and subjective importance and summarize it into an ultimate rating, a first impression. Meeting people activates the same region of the brain responsible for assigning prices to objects. Vivian Zayas, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, and her colleagues, found that people continue to be influenced by another person’s appearance even after interacting with them face-to-face. In a university study, first impressions formed simply from looking at a photograph predicted how people felt and thought about the person after a live interaction that took place one to six months later.

The World Isn’t What It Used to Be

The incredible technological advances of the last 25 years paved the way for Fortune 500 companies to bring a quality rating strategy directly to their customers. Technology and the science of quality management met, and the 5-star quality rating system was born. Consumers ate it up; it makes logical sense and appeals to the senses. Now nearly every company in every industry on the planet is on board. And we love it!

Most likely, you would not love to publicly rate the quality of your life, or the lives of those around you, including careers, on a 5-star quality scale. Many companies require managers to assess and discuss employee ratings with more senior management on an annual basis. I’ve never met a manager who enjoys that process or who would want to make the information publicly available. It’s safe to say that no one wants to write an online review of a neighbor’s, sister’s, or co-worker’s life or career and assign a quality rating. Yet many of us internally compare our lives, job performance, and careers to those around us. The mysterious they say that you should refrain from doing so and they’re correct. But it’s tough not to do it! It’s hard to see other people succeeding in areas where you’re coasting through or even floundering. It’s painful to feel lonely when all your friends are married with kids, which is the life you wanted to have by now. It’s frustrating when you can only buy a used car when your neighbors or relatives are driving new ones. Telling your kid that they can’t go on the school band Disney trip this year, even though all their friends are going, feels awful. Or how about telling your kid that you’re having cereal for dinner again because money is tight? On the flip side, maybe you feel like a selfish jerk because you dread going to work every morning, despite having a salary that would cover a year’s worth of 6-course meals for 20? Every life and career is different. I believe that whether in specific moments, or over long stretches of time, both your life and career can be pretty darn close to perfect on a deeply personal level. You will always be challenged to accept and deal with the full range of emotions that make you human, and for that reason, there will always be dips, loops, and calls for unexpected change. In many cases, those are the times that offer opportunities to choose continuous improvement over continuous movement, which is what will bring you closer to long-term perfection.

How would you rate your career, as it stands today? Would you give it a one? Is it a three? What are your standards? If you rate your career as a five without too much thought, this book may not be for you. I’m truly happy for you! However, you may want to stay tuned to ensure that your rating is properly defined. If you think your career is a five but don’t feel like it is, keep reading so that you can find out how to understand this disconnect. On the flip side, if you think your life is a one but aren’t too concerned about it … that’s a disconnect of a different kind. I’m betting that most people land in the 3-star zone, at the crowded top of the bell curve. Who wants to spend their life there? Do you shop for 3-star rated widgets? Are you excited about watching the latest 3-star rated movie this weekend? Why not? Well, because the widget you need, and the movie are products. You’re the customer. In that role, you prefer a particular level of quality given the cost incurred. There’s nothing more valuable than the time you have between the day you’re born and the day you “take the train,” as my Dad likes to say. Every single day of your life, you pay a fee from that time bank. It’s tough to fully grasp or even focus on this when you’re young; that’s natural. Nobody wants to be a morbid 22-year-old. Even at my age, it is not a thrilling topic. Yet, it is a hard truth that I consider the universal motivator.

Your Life Is Not a Process

I don’t want to spend even one unit of the most valuable currency I have on mediocrity, or worse, absolutely nothing. I’m writing this book because I’m passionate about sharing a new, yet proven, approach that can infuse your career with the 5-star quality you want or crave. You’re wired in a beautiful, authentic way yet you’re tasked to live in a world that continually challenges, shifts, questions, and wounds based on a need for common ground. You’re biologically driven to be true to yourself yet compelled by various tugs and twists to satisfy a multitude of individuals who move in and out of your life. You’ve likely been encouraged not to care what people think, to be yourself, yet you’re constantly thrown into situations where others seem to have incredible influence over key aspects of your life and career. You struggle to understand what they want, expect, and deserve from you, even if at a subconscious level. And you weigh all that against your own desires, struggling to make the best choice, or to do the right thing, time after time. It can be exhausting. Sure, some of us feel this more than others, or realize that we feel this. In the end, regardless of how humans first stood on two feet, complex and fascinating biological processes keep you ticking at the center of modern-day constructs. When things get confusing or go wrong, many people coach themselves, thinking, “Oh well, life’s a process.” There’s one problem here; your life is not a process, nor is your career. A transaction is occurring. The life and the career you have at any given moment are products that incur a cost. Don’t waste the valuable time you’re spending every day; you can’t cancel the subscription.

If you want 5-star everything, you damn sure should get a 5-star quality life and career. The life you have, right now, is the result of a process just like the gift Aunt Mabel ended up with resulted from a shopping process. Your career requires a huge chunk of your valuable daily time payment. You may have heard about work-life balance. You may have also heard that your boss and company CEO are not likely to attend your funeral. (They might, depending on the scenario, but you get the point.) Theoretically, it’s not a great idea to sacrifice what’s truly important in life for what is just a job or a career, and especially not for one that just pays the bills, or worse, one you dread showing up for every day. Yet, the work you do eight or more hours a day has a significant impact on your quality of life. How you spend your time and energy, your physical location, who’s standing next to you, what challenges you, gives you joy, a headache, or a sense of accomplishment is your life. It doesn’t matter if it happens during eight hours on the job, five hours on the beach, or three hours in the yard with your kids. Your career is a critical component of how you perceive and define the life you have and how you feel about it. It’s not easy to consider your career as merely an add-on to all the other things that define your life. There’s nothing wrong with expecting high quality in return for the precious hours you give to your career. Despite what your gut may be telling you (in more ways than one), a high salary does not guarantee career satisfaction. Quality is not defined by monetary value. If you’re wondering what can guarantee satisfaction, you’re reading the right book. Applying the science of quality management to your personal development will result in 5-star quality. This has been proven repeatedly in multiple industries across the globe for the last 120-plus years. In every example, success hinges on obtaining an accurate understanding of how the primary customer defines quality. Cue the 5-star rating system. The logic behind it is compelling and makes common sense. In fact, you might be surprised to know that there is an entire science behind it, one large and complex enough to move a nation from desolation to economic power following World War II, provide enough content for numerous PhD programs by the year 2000, and more recently, impact global commerce in lightning speed.

Fortune 500 corporations like Nike, Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway, Johnson & Johnson, Apple, and GE aim to create 5-star rated products and services that delight customers. I’ve spent 30 years working with Fortune 500 companies to implement, evaluate, and improve quality management systems whose purpose is to ensure product quality and customer satisfaction. As I navigated through the challenges, hiccups, successes, and failures that came my way, a connection between the science of quality management and my life took shape. I began to internalize the concepts I was executing in my day-to-day work and found what proved to be the missing link for me, and possibly for you. Applying the science of quality management on a personal level differs from the longstanding, inspirational approaches that urge you to think positive, make good decisions, get an education, work hard, delay gratification, etc. In recent years, many phenomenal authors, psychologists, and educators have provided new insight on how to improve your life and career, including:

• Kelly McGonigal has helped increase our understanding of stress and willpower and how they can both be harnessed for amazing results in her books The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You and How to Get Good at It, and The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.
• Carol Dweck taught us about the extraordinary power of mindset in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
• Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly showed us how a combination of seemingly insignificant elements can build magic in his book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

These experts and others provide fantastic, logical advice that isn’t always easy to implement long term. Dr. Phil, Oprah, and other dynamic motivators continue to provide powerful fuel for success, which is wonderful, for those who have the right engine. You can think positive, get an education, keep yourself informed, strive to make good decisions, and work smart and hard, yet still find yourself in a career that doesn’t feel worth all the time you’ve spent, whether it’s only been a year or 30 years.

During my long struggle to overcome a troubling childhood and become the best version of myself, all while building a technical career, I began incorporating quality management concepts into my personal thought process at home and at work. I found out that the science proven to result in 5-star rated products and services can also result in a 5-star rated life. You may be thinking, “Wait, this book is about my career not my life.” True, but we’ve established that a large chuck of your banked time is spent on the work that you do. It’s all intertwined. It’s nearly impossible to look at ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Give Me 5-Star Everything
• Chapter 2 The Science of Quality Management
• Chapter 3 My Career Is a What?
• Chapter 4 We’re All Manufacturers
• Chapter 5 We’re All Customers
• Chapter 6 Customers Have Problems
• Chapter 7 We All Shop for the Big One
• Chapter 8 Manufacturers Build Trust
• Chapter 9 Data Is King
• Chapter 10 Strategize for Quality
• Chapter 11 Claim Your System
• Chapter 12 Design Your Process
• Chapter 13 Thinking Is an Ongoing Requirement
• Index