Question: Can you share some of the insights, observations, and best practices from your extensive international experience in the area of quality?   

Townsend:

First thing that comes to mind is that there are more similarities then differences no matter where you are at both the positive end and at the negative end. I heard a CEO in Pittsburgh actually say once, “Customers are easier to deal with then employees. You can hang up on customers”.

With in a few months of that encounter we were immense in what was then Belarussia and now it’s Belarus and I had a series of overheads for the presentation and one of the bureaucrats was looking through my overheads in advance. He got to one and it said customer; anyone whom you provide service, product, or information. He looked at it and said, “Oh, we don’t do that here,” laughs, and put it aside. At that end and at the positive end! Let me just throw out an idea that has been reinforced for me over the years and that is the connection between leadership, quality, and democracy. Any one or two of these notions, fair is far better in the company of one or two. You see in all three; leadership, quality, democracy; the assumption is made that the individual is capable of and deserves the chance to contribute. That is quiet simply why you will never see any innovations in quality procedures or any interesting ideas about leadership come from societies in which individuals are not free. It’s not going to happen. So, to me as the world becomes freer expect quality in both service and manufacturing to become better.