If the quality problems that you are encountering deal only with your team’s work; quality problems that you are having towards internal customers, you can probably make the necessary changes to deal with those problems on your own authority. However, when we are talking about decisions that affect your company’s quality commitment to external customers, you will probably need to involve other managers, and even upper management in the decision making process. Decisions that affect how you deal with outside customers are always touchy subjects and therefore are often taken to the highest levels of management. The city transit bus manufacturing plant I worked for was part of a large conglomerate, as many corporations are today. One of the major divisions of that conglomerate dealt with the manufacturing of personal hygiene products. The decision for pricing a 50 cent bar of soap was made by the Chairman of the Board, after serious consultation with the Board of Directors. You would think that such a decision would be too trivial to bother anyone at that level of management; but in fact, it was a major decision that affected our company’s sales and customer relations. Therefore, it ended up at the highest levels of the company. In reality, any decision that affects how your company deals with customers is a major decision and needs to be treated as such. Unless you are part of upper management, your place in this process probably isn’t to make the decision by yourself, but to become part of that decision making process by: