Like all dads, my dad used to take me along with him whenever he traveled to the nearest town. One of my favorite among such visits was to my dad’s friend Diwakar Patwardhan’s house. Mr Diwakar was an unassumingly skillful artist. It was a delight to watch his pieces of art in water color, oil, clay, stone, cane, paper and metal. At every instance, we could find something amazing, something attractive. Something strange happened during one of the visits.
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| Dr Hrishikesh Damle |
Mr Diwakar was making a Krishna’s statue in clay. The tenderness of Krishna was present on all over its face, even on the wet clay. I can even remember those adorable realistic fingers over the flute. His response to the appreciation of the work was not very positive. To our surprise he brought a big knife and showed us how a small portion of the flute had chipped out with a small crack. Fuming with anger on himself, he butchered the statute into pieces owing to its defect. His argument was, the sculpture will not have perfection even when the fracture is fixed. He had always stood by quality, whatever he did as a profession or passion. True quality is a mindset rather than following prescribed steps.
For some quality comes naturally in their work. I think from point of view of brain’s networks, genetically, quality should follow two traits. Commitment and immunity to monotony. Adhering to quality as a part of discipline in a workplace is commonplace but asserting quality in doing personal thing is a characteristic. One needs loads of commitment to not succumb to casualness leading to inadequacy in outcome.
It is true in production as well as service. If you start recalling every action of yours since this morning, inclusive of sundry personal activities like drying your clothes, you will realize that there was scope for improvement in every action. We compromise on several aspects like a small wrinkle on our shirt, the dust mark on the steering wheel or the way we keep the newspaper back on shelf. A total commitment and adherence to quality when our conscience is aware about the shortcoming is a rare commodity. Boredom to do repetitive tasks with equal dedication is another aspect wherein we tend to compromise on quality. If you have ever numbered the notebooks from first page to last, you will know what I am trying to say. Every consecutive signature of yours after the tenth is unlikely to be honored by the bank. You loan application for the bank will depict the story.
As we age we start gaining better control on our patience and commitment. A teenager is very unlikely to be quality conscious compared to an army officer who is about to retire. A tidy room of a teenager boy is a place yet to be discovered. This basically means that, innate character, environmental compulsion and pre-occupancies and interests in the work would determine the quality. There are couple of interesting mental disorders which can confirm role of cerebral network in determining the character of quality.
Have you heard of “neat freaks”? So-called “neat freaks” or “clean freaks” are people who spend a significant amount of time cleaning and ordering. But the desire for neatness, according to experts, “runs along a spectrum.” The desire for neatness may be a stand alone character or a shadow of bigger syndrome called obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), prevailing in the individual. While OCD patients cannot carry on daily activity and function as normal social animals, neat freaks can get along well with the society. According to experts, usually neat freaks live under tremendous stress and spend a significant amount of time, sometimes several hours a day, trying to maintain immaculate neatness, precise order and faultless arrangement of their immediate environment. During the visit to their relatives, do not be surprised at a neat freak trying to clean the sink, which is not clean enough by his standards. The following characteristic of these individuals can tell us how invaluable could they be in a QA - QC department of a firm. They believe in excessive need for perfectionism and control. They do not mind parting their effort towards such activity. Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order in the organization is a common practice. This could be a nightmare for the colleagues, let alone their spouses. Excessive devotion to work can make them workaholics and boss favorites. They could be quite impassionate and rigid with respect to matters of morals, ethics or values. They may always advocate the belief that cleanliness is next to godliness.
The point here is, the attitude towards indulging in quality has lot to do with how an individual is wired. Our genetic make up is partially to blame for our attitude towards quality. But a positive approach towards quality can be inculcated by practice. The best example could be the near perfect endeavors or the military discipline which can be seen across all cadres of individuals who wear the uniform. Careful monitoring and fear of punishment and rewards for maintenance of quality can change the attitude of individuals towards quality.
Exposure to quality work, manufacturing practices or hospitality services make a big difference among people. Constant exposure to high quality standards and practices convert them into habits. The individuals, who grow up in such environments assume them as norms and practices without any deviations. However, it is nice to see organizations approaching quality as a separate discipline. Several standard practices have been developed and implemented with substantial vigor. A mathematical and statistical angle added to these practices has lead to further improvement in their applications. These are the corporate tricks to control the employees, who otherwise can go haywire and result in bad experiences to the customers and great loss for the firm’s reputation. The best remedy to counter boredom is force and vigilance. The discipline in doing homework without errors is possible only by making the child subversive. It is difficult to make a stronger and older college student to submit his assignments when he is not willing to do so.
True commitment for quality is unlikely to be expressed in fullness, in the absence of passion for the work performed. Though the implementation of systems like ISO, Six sigma can bring in considerable improvement in quality, there could be no substitute for passion for the work. The attitude towards quality becomes primary in services which are more subjective as in hospitality industry.
If every individual company analyses its best performance, it would undoubtedly be in the product or service which has been approached with greater drive. In the competitive world of free market economy, a product or service substandard or inferior quality can not survive long. While it is a challenge to maintain high quality standards when one has diverse products in their portfolio, thanks to seriousness in understanding the subject in detail, we have various documentation processes and tools available which can be plugged with the help of experts for most of the needs of the industry. In few hundred years from now, natural selection will probably favour a life which carries a gene 0f higher quality standards. If not, market economy will punish those who lack quality.
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Dr Hrishikesh Damle is a first generation entrepreneur. He is CEO of Atrimed, a pharmaceutical company.To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Dr. Hrishikesh Damle'. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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