This task consists of writing an essay in Microsoft Word consisting of 1,000 words, without citations or references. The task involves exploring your own philosophy and understanding of quality.
Detail: Describe and elaborate on your personal philosophy of quality. You may wish to focus on product quality, service quality, or both types. You may wish to address innate quality, quality in use, or both variants. In general, explore quality from the perspective that makes the most sense to you.
Organize your essay as you see fit, but leave out in-text citations, references, and quotations, as the essay should only consist of your own thoughts. Perhaps you see quality in terms of innate characteristics. Maybe you have your own theory. You may conflate it with economic demand or value, see it as the opposite of commoditization, perceive it as an inherently desirable feature of any product or service, or instead consider it an overused notion that detracts from practical matters.
Regardless of your perspective, write from the heart. Then, upon completion, formalize your work (i.e., remove contractions, jargon, colloquialisms, metaphors, and informal phraseology), strengthen the precision of your wording, and proofread carefully, as you must try to write correctly to enable me to give you feedback on your writing (see below, under Purpose). In this first essay, scoring for mechanics and reasoning is only diagnostic in nature and will have no impact on your grade.
Ideas to Consider
Here are some ideas to consider, in case you happen to encounter writer’s block. What are your assumptions regarding how best to create quality? What are the components of quality; that is, how can you rate the quality of a product or service? How do customers select among product or service alternatives in search of superior quality? Have you ever experienced difficulty in trying to detect signs of quality in a product or service that you were considering for purchase? How does the notion of quality apply to institutions, such as schools or workplaces? Is quality a process or an outcome? Does the effort to improve quality end with perfection or instead lead to more excuses for improvement? Is the customer really always right about quality? Who, in an organization, should be mainly responsible for quality? Many perspectives are available through which to approach this essay topic.
Purpose of the Essay
The purpose of the essay is twofold:
First, using the full essay, I want to establish a baseline in your thinking. You may have taken other courses in managerial topics or served for years in positions of decision-making authority, or you may be in an early stage of your experience in the realm of managing quality in some way. Wherever you are in this sense, it is advantageous to the learning process to reflect consciously and lucidly on it and communicate it with as much active thought as possible.
Second, the full essay will also serve as a medium through which to clarify my standards of grading, especially on the matter of mechanics and reasoning. You will receive full credit for the essay if it meets the length criterion and is fully your original writing. I will deduct no points for defects of mechanics or reasoning. I will nevertheless provide summary feedback on your writing. Therefore, please strive to write formally and correctly (even if you must first express your thoughts informally and then post-edit). Proofread your work by reading it again after you have completed it. Show that you care about your writing. Otherwise, my feedback will be of limited use to you.
Why Worry about Writing?
Many of our graduate students in management have ample experience as leaders and managers. Nevertheless, few people conscientiously exercise their talent in writing in their careers, so their competence usually erodes over time. A significant part of leadership effectiveness is credibility, which leaders establish in large measure by how they communicate. Readers of your email messages, for example, routinely make positive or negative judgments about you based on how you write. Moreover, how we manage our writing informs how we manage our enterprises.
Aside from the practical matter of meeting graduate school guidelines, I therefore take the task of writing quite seriously. The way we write guides the way we think. The mental challenges that we regularly exercise in our writing strengthen our verbal self-expression homologously, so the right challenges help form us into leaders of greater impact. Conversely, if we pay scant attention to the correctness of our style or form, such as by filling our writing with loose metaphors and neglecting to proofread, we will tend to manage similarly, with a loose sense of vision and neglectful oversights in our decision making. The goal in this program is to refine our leadership acumen rather than merely to validate it. Self-expression in writing is one of the central vehicles through which to achieve this goal.
Criteria
This is a straight essay of 1,000 words, with a title at the top, followed by paragraphs. The essay should have no in-text citations, no references at the end, and no quoted material. It should have no title page or abstract. Just write correctly, originally, and sufficiently, and be sure to proofread your work afterward. Use Times New Roman 12pt font and standard double-spacing throughout, with no extra space after paragraphs. Aside from these considerations, the exercise in reflecting on the nature of quality sets the perfect tone for this course.
Review my writing standards, in the Start Here module, for further insight into achieving high levels of proficiency in writing. Grading of your main discussion board commentaries (i.e., excluding replies and participation tasks) will regularly include the mechanics of writing, adherence to rules of formatting (in-text citations and the reference list), and various facets of reasoning.
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