Product details

An internal guarantee is a commitment by one part of an organization to another to deliver its product or service to the complete satisfaction of the internal customer. If it fails to do so, it will incur a meaningful penalty, monetary or otherwise. Moreover, it is the employees involved-- not management--who devise the commitment. The result? A spirit of partnership develops between different parts of the organization, and an environment of blameless error takes hold in which employees are rewarded, not punished, for identifying problems instead of sweeping them under the rug. In developing a guarantee, a department must first identify its mission in the organization. This leads to the second step: the ability to state exactly who its internal customers are. Third, the department should identify what its internal customers need. Fourth, drawing on their input, the department should design a guarantee that reflects those needs. Finally, those involved must decide on a penalty that is meaningful to the internal customer as well as to the supplier.