QUACRAP - a new business acronym

Discovered by Leon the Huguenot

The level 3 and I had an extraordinary conversation the other day; extraordinary in that, unlike most of my conversations with the level 3, it did not send me into that altered state of consciousness called coma.  I am in his good books at present since I came up with an entirely new set of core values for the Department which were debated and accepted at a three day residential seminar in Hong Kong (the CEO always likes to have these things done away from the workplace).

The values I put forward were:

• Quality
• Understanding
• Accountability
• Consistency
• Responsiveness
• Predictability

Just to show you we are not too inward looking, I studied the core values of a few other organisations: the former State Bank of South Australia, HIH and One.Tel to name just a few. 

My assumption, proven correct, was that none of the executive had been near a dictionary since primary school.  They gushed about each of the values; how they fitted in so well with our mission (pardon me, I feel unaccountably nauseous), and how they made them feel good to be part of the organisation.  Just getting the values into the right order of priority or, in the jargon, to prioritise them (further waves of nausea), took another couple of days in Honkers but it was time well spent.  I saw parts of China I had not previously seen, not even at our staff development field days.

A big plus was that the values were then rapidly endorsed by our quality consultants.  They are erudite people who have encountered a dictionary since primary school at least once; not necessarily an English dictionary though. 

Just as background I should tell you I introduced, a year or so ago, a unique quality accreditation process for our Department.  I shall briefly diverge to explain it.

People are sometimes anxious about who accredits their quality accreditors; those people who come through their organisations drinking phenomenal numbers of cups of tea and coffee, nabbing any screen savers they like the look of, and having long lunches.  I ameliorate that anxiety by having the accreditors accredited within and by our Department; in fact, by our section.  So naturally our quality accreditors loved the core values and the additional screen savers I sent their way.  It’s called synergy or, perhaps more correctly, symbiosis just as one parasite lives successfully with another parasite in nature by generating the other’s needs.

Our new core values have the valuable effect of justifying a “steady as she goes” approach and sticking it up the Change Manager. 

• Quality: notice I do not qualify the quality.  We can be good or bad or anything in between.  There is inherent flexibility to allow us to be very bad indeed.
• Accountability: this word is used so often it is quite meaningless but, paradoxically, preserves an authoritative ring for the ignorant.  In our system it means we can account for why we are good or bad or, for that matter, egregious (please don’t tell the CEO egregious is not a synonym for excellent).
• Understanding: we understand what our core values mean.
• Consistency: means we will be consistently good or bad, not merely just as the mood takes us (a bit of a concession on my part; I like to be spontaneous).
• Responsiveness: we do respond; just don’t tie us down to a bloody time-frame.
• Predictability: we are predictably good or bad.  It doesn’t say any more than consistency but we had to justify an extra day in Hong Kong.

We have now put these up all around our organisation and sent them out to our clients; perhaps I should say “key” clients.  We have had a consistent and predictable quality of response from them I might say.  Some even responded with printed rolls of their own mission statements and core values, on handy absorbent paper in attractive colours.

Oh, I almost forgot.  There was one that was thrown in at the airport cocktail lounge on our way back: “Adding value.”  We did not think this would upset things much.  A value can be negative so one can add value and end up with no net difference.

Some genius, on the domestic jet back to Canberra, created an easily memorable acronym to help us recall our core values: QUACRAP.  Some wag said it sounded like the call of a bilious duck or some monstrous duck-frog mosaic.  He was quickly reduced to tears by a few withering looks and quacraps.

Anyway, sorry to go off at a tangent like that.  I was talking about the conversation I had had with the level 3.  He probably dropped his guard a little.  He was talking about our Department-wide monthly performance self-assessments that had been instituted by the CEO after he returned from his last fact-finding tour to Acapulco (it was the only thing I recall resulting from that tour.  He was otherwise tight-lipped about it; probably to retain all the medication he was on.). 

“You know,” said the Level 3, “ Sometimes I think even the Devil himself would score well on our performance self-assessments.  After all, in his own lights, he achieves his aims no matter how appalling they are.”

For a moment I almost let my guard down too.  You do that when your superior indicates that he might be almost human.  I started to say: “Where do you think I got the core values?”  but then thought better of it. 

The level 3 pulled himself erect, his face twitching a little – just the left side, around the corner of the mouth - and headed off mumbling and drooling down the corridor, looking somehow older, and less like a level 3.  Thus ended a meaningful human exchange which will remain in my memory, at least until after my next promotion.

Ah well, back to work.  I’m reworking the mission statement.  Nobody understands it, not even the idiot who thought it up.  They will after I have finished with it…

Curator of Core Values (level 2) DIAPA