We have much more power than we realize.

If we’re clever about it, we can use our words to change how people think. Brains are like that.

So, if our goal is to influence people at work to jump onboard the Quality Culture bus, we should probably learn all we can about this stuff.

You can play around with your words to reframe things.

Think about this: We talk about Quality as this thing …it involves x, y, and z. We can make the frame small if we talk about it in terms of audits and regulations and compliance. But what if we expand the frame of how we talk about quality so that it includes the larger organizational and business goals? And then we can even further expand it to include happy customers in the frame. By expanding the frame like this, we might help people get a better understanding of the larger purpose of what we’re trying to achieve. And their role in it.

We could also change the context. Just as rain is good in a drought and bad in a flood, we can frame a non-conformance as either a sign that something’s broken or a motivator for continuous improvement.

Reframing like this could turn an NC from being bad to being useful. This could lessen some of the fear, heaviness, and stress of audits.

It suddenly feels like: “Hey, we’re not going for perfection (since we all know that’s not even possible); we’re going for continuous improvement”…so then it’s not a sign of failure but a sign of progress and growth.

You can play with this some more: Let’s reframe it for upper management – oh, look…an opportunity to improve profits.

And let’s reframe again, this time for manufacturing – oh, nice..an opportunity to make more, or make better.

And what about reframing it for your sales team or owners or shareholders? – Wow, look…an opportunity to help more people and make the customer even happier.

You get the idea – You can keep changing the context and the content so that you’re constantly reframing things so that everyone gets the specific message that you need them to get.

Clever, right?

One size does not fit all when it comes to delivering your message. Always think about who you’re talking to, how they might feel, what they need to hear, what you’re trying to achieve, and how to frame it to make that most likely to happen.