Qimpro quality awards ceremony

The Qimpro Award 2009 ceremony honoured six leaders for their commitment to quality in their leadership work and vision at the 20th awards function hosted by the Qimpro Foundation, held in Mumbai last week.

Qimpro, a two decade-old organisation founded by Suresh Lulla, has been at the forefront of the quality and business excellence movement in India.

Winners of the Qimpro Awards, 2009 (l-r): Bhaskar Bhat; Prof YK Bhushan; Shri Gian Parkash Chopra; Dr Sultan Pradhan; Shiv Dutt Gupta; and RN Mukhija, who accepted on behalf of AM Naik

''Transformation is not a function of technique and technology only,'' Lulla said at the awards function. ''Transformation with speed requires a high dose of trust, organisation-wide...Start by trusting yourself to succeed against the odds - the habit is infectious.''

Two levels of awards were given: gold awards for leaders, and platinum awards for statesmen, in each of three categories - business, education, and healthcare.

Platinum awards
A M Naik, chairman and managing director of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), was recognised with the platinum award for business, which was received on his behalf by R N Mukhija, president (electrical and electronics) and wmember of the L&T board.

In an address on behalf of Naik, Makhija said the company's business vision has been aligned with the larger goals of nation-building. This alignment of aims has apparently been recognised, as L&T has been called India's only national sector company.

Gian Parkash Chopra, president of the DAV College managing committee (DAV CMC), New Delhi, received the platinum award for education.

His NGO manages over 700 schools and colleges across India. He related the story of a 12th-standard student from one of the DAV schools who had been chosen to be trained as a junior scientist at NASA for two years because of his outstanding scholastic achievement; he spoke of the female student who had earned 99 per cent aggregate marks.

Chopra also related the story of his talk with Dr Manmohan Singh, in which the prime minister told Chopra that, when there's a disaster, many organisations come forward offering aid, but eventually forget about the victims, while only DAV CMC starts schools and continues to help.

Dr Sultan Pradhan, chairman of Aga Khan Health Services, accepted the platinum award for healthcare.

Dr Pradhan is an expert in voice conservation techniques relating to laryngeal cancer surgery. He has helped to popularise head and neck surgery in India after realising that cancer in that area is the most common type among Indian men.

He spoke of his recognition, in his leadership role, that a hospital needs two things to provide high-quality care. One is tertiary care service within and among specialities (as opposed to tertiary care only for stand-alone specialities). The second necessity is a good post-graduate medical education programme that results in good resident doctors working at the hospital.

The reality is that the specialists aren't always available, and life-threatening comorbidities (diseases in addition to the primary one) are present a good portion of the time. Multispeciality tertiary care and capable non-specialist physicians are necessary if these eventualities are to be handled optimally.

Gold awards
Bhaskar Bhat, managing director of Titan Industries, was presented the gold award for business. Under his leadership, the range of Titan watches in the market has grown from 500 to 700 in the last five years, and jewellery designs under Titan's Tanishq brand have increased from 6,000 to 16,000. He credited his family for instilling in him an ethical code where moral integrity and social respect stand above achievement and accolades.

Some of the aspects of his company's practices that he said he was proud of were the decision to resist hiring people with domain knowledge, in order to inspire innovation; to go to less-developed areas of the country and teach people the skills necessary to make Titan watches; and to provide higher, fairer salaries to jewellery salespeople. He thanked the thousands of Titanians who helped achieve these goals.

Professor Y K Bhushan, vice chancellor of ICFAI University, Meghalaya, and chairman of universities launched by ICFAI, accepted the gold award for education.

He admitted this was far from his only award, but he made a point to emphasise how special he felt the Qimpro award was, and how excited he was to have received it.

He stated his opinion on what leadership is - preparing the ground so that people can excel. He said he hoped he was far from done in his current position, saying he still feels he has a chance to make a difference in the lives of the youngsters who come to his schools.

One of the most rewarding aspects of his job, he said, is seeing the expressions of the boys who come from poorer circumstances who are able to obtain good jobs through the joint effort of the students and the schools.

Shiv Dutt Gupta, director of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research, received the gold award for healthcare.

He said that, when the institute's committee was searching for a leader, he was unaware he possessed leadership qualities. He had what he called a ''hard-core medical profile,'' and was surprised when he was chosen; he agreed to the position with the understanding he'd attend some leadership training. Six months later, when he asked if a leadership programme had been found, he was told there wouldn't be any - that it was unnecessary, because he could think differently, had innovative ideas, and had the guts to implement them and take people along with him in that pursuit.

Each of the three categories of awards was chosen by a panel of judges drawn from that industry. The business panel was chaired by Krishnan Khanna, chairman of i2K Solutions; Dr Adi Dastur, obstetrician and gynaecologist, chaired the healthcare panel; and K K Nohria, former chairperson of Crompton Greaves, current trustee of the Qimpro Foundation, and Qimpro Medal recipient in 1998, chaired the business panel.

Previous winners
Previous award winners include the winner of the 2001 Padma Sri and 2008 Padma Bhushan national awards, technocrat E Sreedharan, who received the award in 2007.

The recipients last year were Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director; Amitabh Mattoo, former vice chancellor of University of Jammu and currently a member of the National Knowledge Commission; Beroz Vacha, founder member and honorary director of the Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf & Deafblind; Aditya Puri, managing director, HDFC Bank; and Devi Prasad Shetty, noted cardiac surgeon