[Joho the Blog]: Standard dissatisfaction
For those of you laboring in the vineyards of ISO 14001 EMS development, here’s a bright note to muse on:
The ISO organization – the global purveyor of standards – has issued a new standard:
A new ISO standard offers a solution for organizations on those occasions
when the customer is dissatisfied with a product or service – guidelines
for handling complaints in a manner that gives optimal results for both
the organization and unhappy customer…
Next on ISO’s agenda is Standard 10003: How to smile like you mean it.
Point being: standards, as valuable as they are for at least ensuring baseline consistency of practice, and sometimes ensuring that often forgotten issues at least get systematically considered, are no substitute for other important virtues (for example, in this instance, thoughtfulness, respect, and the like; or in the EMS case, such things as innovation, significant performance imporvement, impact on business value ).