Dr Juran and a call to action: the summit

Citation

Hensler, D. (2002), "Dr Juran and a call to action: the summit", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2002.26706caa.001

Dr Juran and a call to action: the summit

Dr Juran and a call to action: the summit

On 25-27 June 2002 an important meeting took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the USA. Named "The summit with Joseph M. Juran", the purpose was to create "The critical forum for leading executives and researchers to examine problems related to permanent transformation to quality systems thinking".

An invitation only event, this gathering brought together corporate executives and other practitioners, academics, and members of the medical, education and government professions to discuss and seek ways of getting the USA back on the quality track. While this forum was US-centric, the discussions and debates are applicable throughout the world where governments, industries, and people seek improvement in providing goods and services. The meetings were hosted by the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality at the Carlson School of Management of the University of Minnesota with the sponsorship of the Juran Institute and the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M Company).

Believing that corporations, healthcare providers, government and education face leadership challenges in advancing quality principles and thinking, Robert Galvin, former CEO of Motorola and a board member of the Juran Center, was one who called for the summit with the following challenges:

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  Very few boards of directors and senior executives understand quality leadership deeply enough to demand its integration into executive succession, therefore, allowing previous quality-leading companies to lose their hard-won quality advantage.

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  The intellectual foundation necessary to grow and sustain our quality efforts across all societal sectors has not been built. We need clarity, coherence and cooperation between and among America's leading universities in order to advance.

Seeking to examine pervasive problems that exist across many fields of study including leadership, strategy, quality, operations, marketing, human resources, and healthcare, the summit brought together leaders and academics to gather, interact and instruct each other. The first two days were devoted to this purpose. The third day was devoted to meetings among attending academics to set out a research agenda that responds to the call to action.

During the summit Paul O'Neill, US Secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of Alcoa Corporation, and Jim McNerney, CEO of the 3M Company and former General Electric executive, profoundly contributed through their presentations. Mr O'Neill spoke of setting preconditions for the organization rather than setting priorities. These preconditions built strong forces at Alcoa and now at the US Treasury, leading to improvements in a number of areas. For example, Alcoa's safety record is now the best in the USA having surpassed that of DuPont, which perennially held the number one position. Mr McNerney spoke about the drive to imbed Six Sigma into the entire corporation at 3M, a $16 billion company known for innovation. His remarks addressed the dual nature of this drive incorporating the tools and the cultural changes required for successful Six Sigma implementation.

The highlight of the summit was Dr Joseph M. Juran's address at the end of the second day. Now 97 years old, this titan of the quality movement continues to offer succinct, on-point, clear and forceful recommendations to the community that seeks to improve quality and achieve excellence. Remarkably, at nearly 98 years old, Dr Juran still does not require eyeglasses. While the years have brought about some predictable physical aging, Dr Juran's mind remains very sharp and a true gem among those of executives and academics alike. His profound insights, his clear articulation of those insights and his sense of humor brought high inspiration to the attendees at the summit.

In this issue we feature the speech that Dr Juran delivered at the summit, "A call to action: creating a century of quality". We hope that you find it useful in your endeavors toward achieving your quality and excellence goals.

Doug Hensler