August 27, 2014

Entering Dr Juran’s mind…

Open your eyes
In India, quota raj ended two decades ago. Internationalism has substantially replaced isolationism. Customers now have choices in a wide range of sectors: automobiles, garments, electronic goods, processed foods, computers, software, TV channels, hotels, hospitals, schools, and many more…

During an interview in 1994, quality guru Dr J M Juran was asked: “Dr Juran, how would you rate corporate India’s commitment to the theories and practices of total quality management?”

Dr Juran’s response: “Much depends on whether that term is even understood by Indian companies. I think it is a very misunderstood term, not only in India but in various countries throughout the world. All it really means is a collection of all the things that we must do to have quality leadership. But the list has not been standardized… My opinion is that in the US, the best are the criteria in the Baldrige Award.”

Ask
Another question to Dr Juran: “Which of these criteria would you identify as the most important?”

Dr Juran: “First, senior managers must personally take charge of leading change relative to quality. If they try to delegate that they will not get good results. The second important factor is the training of the management hierarchy on how to manage for quality. Then there is the idea of undertaking to improve quality on a revolutionary basis. Firms across the world have developed processes for control of quality, for stabilizing things, preventing adverse change. But none of them has developed processes for creating beneficial change for improvements …. in the sense of reducing costs and improving processes so that we do not take as long to meet customer needs – we have been derelict.“

Yet another question: “Is it likely that the history of not having been forced to compete may have created a mindset in Indian companies that is opposed to embracing quality practices? How significant a hurdle could such a mindset present?”

Answer: “Mindset is a very difficult thing to change. I think the official name is cultural resistance. And that’s a very powerful force. It relates to the way people are brought up as children. In a place like India you have a culture that, in many respects, has sharp differences with the West; to the point where many are absolutely mystified by some of them. They think they are superstitions. But they don’t realize that some of the things that they do look like superstitions to people from India. And, in some ways, the superstitions of the West are greater than the superstitions of the East. That applies fully to trying to introduce change in a company where you have numerous cultures. Product development engineers have a culture different from that of the finance people and the like. Each of them has been subjected to brainwashing, if you want to call it that. Each of them develops what anthropologists call a pattern of culture: a selection of beliefs and habits and practices, things they must do – the rituals – and the things they must not do – the taboos.”

And you shall receive…
Around the same time, in 1994, Qimpro Consultants partnered with the Juran Institute to conduct Baldrige self-assessment exercises for Tata Steel and Tata Motors at Jamshedpur. The senior managements of each of the two organizations proved ruthlessly transparent. On a scale of 1000, Tata Motors rated itself 210; and Tata Steel 180.

The rest is history.

In 1994, the JRD Quality Values Award was founded by the Chairman of the Tata Group, Ratan Tata, based on the Baldrige criteria. Over the past two decades, the JRDQV process has become a global benchmark for implementing performance excellence.

P.S – It was me asking the questions.

This blog is an excerpt from the article ‘Such a long journey…’ by Suresh Lulla for the TATA REVIEW JULY 2014.

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