I’d like to start with a quote from Oliver Cromwell:

“No one ever travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.”

If I asked you what Quality is, how would you define it?

Maybe a very strait hinge on a felling cut. A rig that doesn’t shake the climber off a spar. A sharp chain. Sharp pruners. 65 points in the Work Climb. A twenty second footlock. The perfect angle of a collar cut. A well-spliced tight eye. The smooth distribution of a foliar spray. A successful transplant. A taught cable. A strong brace rod. A hard sell. A great hire.

I’m sure everyone can agree that you know quality when you see it, right? Of course!

The funny thing is that Quality is a funny thing, especially in arboriculture.

For quality to make sense, you need to define it, or rather, you need a scale, best known as a standard, to hold and compare all other similar things against. We have many standards in arboriculture, from the ANZI Standards and Best Management Practices, to the many scoresheets and systems in tree climbing competitions. So then, in the case of arboriculture, it’s extremely easy to define a Quality Arborist with the many sets of standards we have.

Let’s get playful, and put it in a historical context. We don’t need to go very far into the creative lobe to realize that standards change all the time.  Research changes our outlook on things, and by way of that we change our accepted practices. Standards have changed with safety, with chemical application and with general work practices. Tools have changed. Machines have changed. Companies have changed. Again, I think arboriculture is a good representation of this ever changing scale of quality.

But the whole time, we are certain that we know what quality is.

Which leaves us with this modified perception of Quality when we put it in a historical context. A Quality Arborist in 1953 may not be a Quality Arborist in 2017. The things they did back then. Oh, the horror. Which means we really don’t have any idea where we’re going.

I think what Cromwell was getting at is the idea of Quality being a mode of dissatisfaction, rather than satisfaction, persistence in the unknown, hand on the throttle, wind in the face (minding the speed limit).

Not a bad thing at all.