Like his guru, Joseph Juran, he talks about Big Q. Or quality that embraces every dimension of business. For Albert Blanton Godfrey, the 57-year-old CEO of the Wilton (Connecticut)-based consultancy, Juran Institute, Total Quality Management, once a technical activity, is now the only competitive weapon for the future. For Indian companies whose ISO-9000 efforts are not yielding the quality results they had hoped for, he had a simple message: stop thinking about small q. In an exclusive interview with BT's R. Sukumar, Godfrey, who was in the country recently to formalise a tie-up between the Juran Institute and the Delhi-based Institute of Quality, captures the Q change in TQM:

Welcome to India. Mr Godfrey. Most of us are familiar with quality at the conceptual level. But there is quality at the implementation level too, involving tools and practices. How do you define quality?

I don't believe in quality at the philosophical level. Years ago, Joseph Juran defined quality in very simple terms: fitness for use. Since then, he has expanded on that definition, making it easier to comprehend. Quality has two real parts. One, product saleability--comprising product features. Why do you buy a Sony micro-cassette recorder? When you really get down to it, there are many dimensions to your decision. You buy the recorder partially because of the company's reputation, how you feel it suits your needs, and the extended availability of the standard micro-tape. You could almost help Sony define the features that make you buy the recorder. The other important thing is not having features that you don't want. Manufacturers may have products that have more features, and cost more. But you may choose not to buy them simply because they have features that you do not need. So, it is essential to offer a range of products that suit individual requirements rather than stick to a single offering. Another interesting aspect of quality is freedom from deficiencies. It doesn't matter what features a product has if it doesn't work; if it is hard to repair; or, if, having failed during production, it has to be reworked. It adds to the cost of the product. Hence, it is important for manufacturers to get the product right the first time. This is the perfection aspect of quality.

Often, we spend the first hour with our clients trying to define quality. Most companies fail to define quality; they attempt to do it with a slogan at the philosophical level. That doesn't mean anything. Not only do they have to define it at the product- or the service-levels, they also have to define it for each and every job. Which is difficult for companies since most of them haven't spent the time, and effort, necessary to break quality into practical components. The best companies, of course, have. It makes a big difference in quality management.

But organisations tend to be insular, looking at quality as an absolute...

We provide training, courses, seminars, and books to help people understand what goods and services they offer--and how they compare with competition. Companies have to realise that quality is not an absolute. It is relative; it depends on the choices that the consumer has. Even if a manufacturer meets all his standards and specifications, he may still not be able to prevent a consumer from buying something else. Somebody else has, obviously, defined things a little better; things more relevant to that particular consumer. What is important in business is beating the standards of your competitors--not merely meeting your own standards. Unfortunately, many companies are so inward-looking that they forget that the real issue is bettering competition. It only shows you that benchmarking is crucial to managing quality.

Your definition of quality includes several issues that I would not associate with the traditional quality function. For instance, there is an emphasis on knowing what the customer wants, which gives the definition a distinct marketing tinge...

Juran coined the term Little Q for a company's perception of quality. Or product quality at the manufacturing level. And he declared: "Let's talk about Big Q." It applies to every aspect of business: the quality of manufacturing, sales proposals, the billing process, training, recruiting, career development, service. Most companies begin with production, but, eventually, they start questioning the goals of the finance, the research, and the sales departments. They start measuring the quality of their jobs. And soon, quality embraces every aspect of their business.

Quality has everything to do with measuring. You can't, obviously, improve something that you can't measure. But what do you do with processes or products that cannot be measured?

You borrow measures from companies that have evolved them. You steal them, or you develop your own measures. It is not easy to invent a measure, but it can be done. If you happen to be Taco Bell, the one thing that customers look for in your food is how hot it is. Customers in different parts of the US define hot differently. In Maine (New England)--where I come from--if you put salt in the food, people call it hot. But in California or New Mexico, people like their food really hot, really spicy. So, Taco Bell actually invested a lot in developing a measure for hotness, and a way to calibrate that measure. Now, the company's outlets in different parts of the country actually know how hot their products are.

The tenderometer is another example. Fruit-growers and buyers could never decide on the price of peaches. The more growers delay picking the fruit, the heavier it becomes. Unfortunately, it also becomes unpalatable. But how do you decide whether a peach is tender or not? One bright buyer came up with the tenderometer: an instrument that exerts a mild pressure on fruit chosen randomly from a lot. Depending on the tenderness, a measuring needle moves along a scale calibrated in dollars. It's as simple as that. Having a measure is critical to the quality process.

Isn't quality essentially an integrative tool, which links manufacturing, administration, and marketing? After all, doesn't it allow a company to produce more at a lower cost with fewer people--just like lean production?

I read a book that said lean production evolved from what (Edward) Deming and (Joseph) Juran taught in Japan in the 1950s. I agree with that. Essentially, we are practising what they have been teaching: taking the waste out of manufacturing, and making it possible to produce with less and less. Quality management emphasises all that

That would imply that quality has come a long way from the initial Statistical Quality Control (SQC) days...

It's hard to even see a family resemblance. SQC is still a good tool, but it's just one tool in the box.

The new quality paradigm, probably, requires different kind of quality professionals. Could you describe what the next generation of quality professionals will look like?

Last year, the European Organisation of Quality asked me to deliver a speech on the changing role of the Quality Officer. The job has three major components. One, the Quality Officer has to understand the technical aspects: statistics, maths, and the tools of quality management. Second, he needs people management skills that can help him organise teams and deal with any resistance to change. He needs to be able to get people to work together across functions. Third, he requires business skills: an understanding of business planning, strategic planning, and performance parameters. So, if you had all the time and money in the world to create the New Quality Officers, you would ensure that they have degrees in statistics, engineering, business administration, and psychology--and at least 10 years of experience on the shopfloor.

If you can't find someone with all these qualifications, you need to create a department that has such skills, and can develop such people. It could have three people, each having specialised in a particular aspect of quality. Collectively, the department must have all the skills crucial to creating a quality organisation. But, ultimately, the department head must be fairly good at everything that quality encompasses. Do organisations have well-qualified people? We looked at the quality directors of 72 companies. Just half the people were adequately qualified in technical skills. But less than half were competent in people-management skills. And, in business skills, none were good enough; they just weren't clued into the business operations of the organisation.

What is the profile of the Quality Director? He is the person who is going to be the CEO in five years. There are companies that pick their quality directors with this objective in mind. For instance, in one company, all the nominations for the post of quality director were people with the potential to become the managing director in five years. Gradually, managers are looking at quality management as a stepping-stone to senior management--not as a departmental job.

And what, according to you, should the CQO focus on?

Revenues and costs. He should focus mainly on increasing revenues and decreasing costs. And I suggest that he should think long term

But how does he tackle nettlesome organisational issues? Marketers are likely to treat quality lightly. After all, the concept is still associated with operations...

You can easily get around this by giving marketers examples of what their counterparts in other organisations have done. Even better, start asking questions: what percentage of your marketing proposals create value? Is poor performance the result of your inability to benchmark against competition? Such questions are bound to make people uncomfortable. They get very curious, and go back and make comparisons (with their competitors). It is not really hard to wake people up once you get started.

Are there particular kinds of companies you like to work with? Alternatively, are there any organisations you prefer not to touch?

There are companies that we would, definitely, not like to work with. After all, our success, in the long run, is dependent on the success of our customers. Nobody cares how much money we make; they care how much money our customers make. The big question: have we helped them do better? So, if we come across a company which, we feel, is not going to usher in change because of its organisational structure or market position, we just don't offer our services. We politely decline. Or we say we are too busy. Alternatively, there are companies that we would love to work with. They are the ones facing serious challenges. They can become market leaders if they change, but will disappear if they don't. There are others that have got into real bad trouble, but could become front-page news with a little effort. We have no hesitation in helping such organisations.

You have been associated with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the US. Do quality awards impact business success?

The Malcolm Baldrige Award has had more impact on the success of American business than anything else. First, it is a de facto quality standard: everyone uses the same language. Second, it is a description of what total quality is; it has created a remarkable process of selecting outstanding companies. Third, it creates an incredible number of benchmark visits. This is, perhaps, the most interesting, and important, aspect of this quality award. Xerox, for instance, had 10,000 visitors in the 12 months after it bagged the award. The learning curve has become incredibly steep. I have had CEO after CEO come back from benchmark visits, and say: "God, I didn't even know what quality was! I didn't have an idea anybody could do that." Milliken has 68 ideas implemented per person per year. Companies, suddenly, realise that they don't even know how many ideas they have, much less how many they have implemented. We have this incredible ground-swell of knowledge because people are studying the people that ought to be studied.

You spent last week meeting Indian CEOs. What is your impression about the quality movement in India?

I do not doubt the sincerity of the CEOs or the managers I have met here. They know that their organisations have to change--and fast. That is absolutely clear. But there is a lack of understanding of what managers have to do. There is still too much fascination for ISO certification. Many companies need to broaden their horizons, and many companies underestimate how hard it is going to be. Even though they seem to be worried about competition, people will get serious only after some very public deaths. Some of the managers I have met are caught in a trap. They believe that they are doing everything (to bolster quality) instead of realising that there are a lot of things that they haven't really thought about doing.

Corporate India is dominated by diversified companies. Very often, they do not know where to initiate a quality transformation. Does it make sense to enforce change in one division? Or is it vital to change things across the company or group?

The point of transformation is extremely important, particularly for Indian companies. You must always work at the divisional level. You may even have to focus on a product-line. It is very hard to change things in general. You must begin at the top, but you must take every slice or cross-section as you move down. Never even try to do everything at once. Companies aren't like Russians in a May Day parade, where they march in beautiful long lines, everybody walking together. In companies, things happen in a single file: somebody starts, somebody follows. The real world doesn't march in step. You pick one part of the organisation, and you focus on it all the way down--until you get results. Then, you touch another part. And another

Thank you, Mr Godfrey.

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