D&D News Autumn 2005 - EFQM Forum
Greetings from Cardiff - Cyfarchion o Gaerdydd
If it's autumn, it must be EFQM Forum time, and this year both Dave and Derek headed to Cardiff, this year's host city. We didn't even have to add our passports to the list of things to pack. The picture right is of the City hall, grabbed in a few moments of spare time!
The overall theme of the conference was 'Where next for European Business?' and we heard from some good and varied speakers, and caught up with some old and new friends. We clearly cannot do justice to a two day conference in a few lines, but here are just a few comments that stay in our minds. And that might be of interest to you as well.
Some speakers
Professor Richard Scase outlined a vision of the future, and spoke of 'corporate elephants and entrepreneurial fleas': smaller agile organisations being able to do good business with larger companies. And in leveraging high performance, the key thing is that we will need 21st century leaders, not 20th century managers. Leaders who can support and encourage innovation and creativity - compared with much current business culture which encourages conformity and adherence to procedures.
In an excellent illustration of how an organisation works as a whole, he told of a global pharmaceutical company who believes that the morale of the chef in their staff restaurant is central to their success. If the chef has good morale, there is good food, and the scientists use the restaurant. They talk with others there, discuss projects, get new ideas from all that interaction. If the chef's morale is low, the food may well be bad, scientists bring in their own lunches, do not mix and talk in the restaurant . and how many new ideas are never even found? They see their staff catering as a vital investment in staff - not just as an overhead cost.
We were told in the earlier introduction to the event that quality in the future will be about competitiveness - competing on the world stage with countries such as China and India. Quality is no longer about measurements and charts (apparently seen as a sort of old fashioned quality). Luckily there were several reminders that you need to get the basic quality right- or you won't have a chance of competing with anyone. And - as if to ram that home - K Vaman Kamath, CEO of ICICI bank Ltd in India reported that nine Indian companies had won Deming Prizes since 2001, compared with none at all before.
Sir Ken Robinson (left) had the audience laughing with tales of life in Los Angeles compared with Stratford upon Avon where he used to live. But he gave us some very serious food for thought about creativity. It should be a fundamental part of business strategy - it should be done systematically. But there is a problem in that generally adults are not good at encouraging creativity - most are only good at stopping it.
He positioned creativity as 'applied imagination'. Children have great confidence in their imaginations, most adults don't. We worry about being wrong - but "if you fear being wrong you will never be right". Organisations need to look for and encourage creative capabilities, through systematic training, systematic diversity and creating dynamic organisations. Truly creative companies are creative across the board, not just in one part of the business.
Jonathan Porritt gave some strong messages about sustainable development in the final session of the Forum, and they clearly had some of us on the edge of our seats. But he spoke of future 'radical discontinuities', and that these would create opportunities as well as threats. He believes that "quality without embedded sustainability is a liability". He spoke of the very strong body of evidence showing the correlation between financial performance and leadership on sustainability issues (but admitted that it was not a demonstrable cause and effect relationship). "If this is not part of your agenda today, you're not an excellent company."
As well as the plenary speakers, we went to parallel sessions about the future of the EFQM and Excellence, nanotechnology and environmental issues, so we had quite a varied time in our 'learning mode'!
Next year's EFQM Forum is in Budapest, Hungary, from 6-8 November 2006. Watch out for details.
The less formal Forum proceedings
The opening evening's Welcome Reception was held in the marvellous surroundings of the Cardiff's City Hall. The Award dinner itself was at the famous Millennium Stadium - actually on a covering over the coveted pitch! We had a great time in good company, so many thanks to Petra, Vladimir, Vince, Dolors, Amir and Ansgar (whose wife had coincidentally once worked for NatWest in Germany) for contributing to the success of Table 67. Our picture, below, shows Dave being customer-focused and waiting table - although Petra seems a little concerned! Oh, and thanks to John Whalley for entertaining us during the whole conference.
