Question 11

You have served as the advisor to Confederation of Indian Industry, worked with the Tata Industrial Group, a premier group in India, and been an Advisor to the Government of New Zealand.  What was your role and involvement, and could you share with us some of the experiences that you have had?

Most of my involvement with the organizations has been somewhat related to Baldrige or the Baldrige Award. My first association with the organizations was a result of their benchmarking business for IBM or IBM Rochester, and it has kind of evolved over time. It is more of a professional courtesy or professional relationship, in me giving back to those that have helped me; in my career over time, it’s the network of colleagues that I’ve gotten. Any organization that is eager to embrace quality, quality concepts, (I guess it could be Six Sigma or Baldrige) to help make [itself] better, has a positive impact on the rest of society, the rest of the economy. It makes everyone better. So I call this really my professional courtesy to give back to organizations that have a desire to get better, and helped me in my career over time. In most cases it is a non-paid advisory role, and I am privileged that they allow me to take a look at different things that they are doing and learn from them as well. It’s interesting when I do this stuff, [I] often get thanked for the help that [I] give different organizations, but I always learn at least twice as much from an organization I help than [the] organization actually learns from me. So you have to use every experience as a learning opportunity, and also give back to those that have helped you as well.