Today as we are through the 21st century and the whole world has become a one and only one market where technologies and strong competitions have prevailed and the economical growth of a nation is now based on the quality and capabilities of its internal resources and therefore only quality will survive. Employees today must satisfy and even exceed their customers’ expectations, whether internal customers (employees and management) and/ or external customers (those that we provide them with our products and services). Therefore, the customers’ feedback is essential for continuous improvement process. In other words, real assessment is through customers feedback solicitation process.


So, today, the whole world is moving into this direction, the direction that says:“The Customers Are Always Right”. Ignoring and neglecting such value, can cost individuals as well as organizations a lot. We actually learn from our past and as a matter of fact, The United States of America, the greatest power on the face of the earth had lost one trillion dollars (1,000,000,000,000) a one thousand billion and this a lot of money. Therefore, The USA in 1979 started working very hard to offset its deficit with the realization that no business or services can no longer survive, except by committing to the quality improvement process. Imagine the greatest USA failing and that is because of its failure in marketing (neglecting customers) and from that time, USA had sponsored a very sophisticated system that is called: “Total Quality Management” which is summarized as follows:

“A process that is designed to focus on agreed up on customers’ expectations, preventing problems, building commitment to quality in the workforce, and promoting open decision making”.


Advantages over our competitions are achieved only by fulfilling our commitment toward our customers. It was of course realized that quality improvement is a process which is continuous, not a program that has a beginning and an end. Individuals as well as organizations are all brought to learn and build on what others have taken many years to learn. It was concluded that it takes involvement by all of us in order for quality improvement process to be successfully implemented.

So quality has been defined as:

“Consistent conformance to the agreed upon customers’ expectations”.

In our great Arabic traditional heritage, quality was explicitly mentioned by our great messenger Mohammed peace be up on him in his great hadeeth:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم

"إن الله يحب أنه إذا عمل أحدكم عملاً فليتقنه"

أي التلبية الكاملة لتوقعات العملاء – فلولا العملاء لما كان هناك
تجارة أو صناعة أو خدمات

Also, quality was several times mentioned in our Holy Qura’an. Therefore, quality will only survive and hence the need toward superior job performance not only in one job but in several jobs and roles; such as: 

“We want the employee to do well at work and also to do well when he is behind the steering”. This is a must in order to build good quality culture. 

For organizations to be superior in their products and services, two important elements must exist:

(1) TQM to take care of organizational development

(2) Competencies to take care of individual development. And both must be implemented, otherwise a dilemma will be created.

It is possible today to implement competencies that help individuals to be superior in their products and services and the 19 world’s recognized competencies guarantee this approach, providing the right learning environment is created for the employees


Mastering the 19 competencies requires:

1. Superior up-to-date quality workshops
2. Self Development-Self-Study up-to-date training programs
3. On-The-Job training 

The self study or self development culture when it is mixed with real job experience, constitutes great percentage of the employee development that means: The employee’s supervisor is the one who acts as a mentor and must be very well developed and knowledgeable so the development process can be safely and successfully delivered.

The supervisor will be the one who can identify weaknesses and strengths, so the right development assignments can take place, whether a workshop training, self study-self-development, or an appropriate on-the-job training. To expedite the learning process, the employee may be requested to do all types of developmental assignments. The most important point here I am trying to convey, is that the supervisor of the employee, through face-to-face interaction with a good atmosphere that is conducive to the work environment, both work together to come up with the employee development plan. Implementing such development plan should be very easy for the supervisor, because he knows his employees and he knows their strengths and weaknesses, so the smart supervisor is the one who can positively utilize all skills in his people and create a short cycle of learning (learn and share learning), that is what we call EFFICIENCY, EFFECTIVENESS, and PRODUCTIVITY. This training course will spell out the needed process to create such culture in the organization.

Now, imagine a supervisor who does not know his employees and never assessed them, or a supervisor who does not know how to listen, speak or write, or a supervisor who is not aware of information technology, the Internet, the web, Microsoft technology, etc. As you can see, it will be extremely difficult to these type of supervisors to assess their employees and be able to develop and implement their employees’ development plans.

Management must be qualified in order to utilize the available resources, especially in the self-development culture, where resources can be utilized in the learning process to move their organization forward. Otherwise, having unqualified management, will definitely cause negligence to the available skills and abilities, which will automatically waste energy and this of course contrary to the concept of efficiency and effectiveness. The training course will qualify those personnel to successfully help building the self development culture in their organization.

The main reason behind self-development culture today, is that Training Colleges, Institutions, and Training Departments within organizations are not anymore capable of providing up-to-date training, a training that can match the 21st century. So, the type of training offered today is not anymore valid and the skills of their instructors have not been upgraded. Imagine time management training without information technology, it really does not make sense. Therefore, organizations today must lead the self development process, so learning on the job become essential to the employees.

In speaking of self development culture, where people are learning from each others, highly developed and capable of doing variety of innovative work and posses all needed skills and abilities to deliver high quality products and services and they become good resources to be utilized by their management, this is what will guarantee a great success to any organization.

Energy does not only mean gas and oil, or heat or power. Energy also means, the human energy, the power of human to achieve the best out of the best, helping each others to learn from each others in an environment and culture that promotes the concept of self development. Energy in self development is the motivation that can ease the change and help people adapt to the changing conditions, by understanding their business processes,  expectations and work toward meeting/ exceeding expectations. Self development culture is motivation, incentives, tangible and intangible rewards and it is the main element of survival nowadays. Self development is the strength and the fuels that help us survive peacefully and happily in our personal and professional lives, adapting to all situations and surviving a change. Self development creates a positive energy, which helps and heals. When we have positive energy, innovation is easily created and it becomes contagious so everyone shares and therefore partnership is achieved. Positive energy helps optimism, people perform better with an open mind and they soon feel proud of their products and services and here they reach the stage of reliability.

In looking for superior job performers, first we better prepare the immediate management to:

• Appropriately and objectively utilize those qualified employees who can provide the best service and have initiatives. 
  
  
• Create an on going learning cycle for continuous improvement using objective assessments.
  
  
• Shorten the cycle of learning by letting your employees learn from each others, promoting self development process and to make sure, it is an integral part of your organizational performance.
  
  

Only by doing this, we can say that our organization has far progressed in creating “A Self Development Culture” a culture that aims at creating “A Customer Service Environment” that is good for any business.


Agenda:

• Introduction And Background – Why A Need For Self Development Culture
  
  
• People And Their Great Role In The 3rd Millennium’s Business Processes
  
  
• Understanding The Concept Of Efficiency & Effectiveness
  
  
• Measurements & The 20/ 80 Concept / The Emergence Of Superior Performance
  
  
• The Great Role Of Change And The Dynamic Motivation
  
  
• Superior Performance Through Emotional Intelligence (Case Study – Background, Assessment Sheet, Profile, Data Sheet, Graphic Representations)
  
  
• Utilizing Business Models In The 21st Century Through The Process Of Quantum Physics Approach (Turning Our Organization Into A Vehicle Of Productivity Through The Process Of Self-Development)
  
  
• Are We Ready To Meet These Challenges And Move  To A Higher Level Of Human Accomplishments