A Story on Importance of Processes: From Subroto Bagchi

Subroto Bagchi’s book “The High Performance Entrepreneur” has shaped up my entrepreneurial thinking to a very large extent. This is one book that helped me understand the business of doing business. This book journals growth of MindTree from idea to IPO. It offers very interesting insights on some of the most important aspects of building great organizations.

In one of the chapters “Building a Process-Focused Organization”, Subroto Bagchi shares a wonderful story that only underlines the importance of process. Here it goes –

Fuji Xerox was a joint venture between Fuji and Xerox. Fuji Xerox won the legendary Deming Prize for Total Quality Management even before Xerox, the parent company, got the Malcolm Baldridge Award for quality in the US. The gentleman was explaining why process orientation is the key to building competitive success.. Someone asked him vainly, “But Michelangelo followed no process?”

Unflustered, the expert replied, “First, be Michelangelo.”

Everybody else, he said, must follow process.

Recently, someone argued with me stating that just because they are into a creative field, they don’t need process. My take is that even in creative areas, a process is important. Artists, writers and other creative people are still professionals who have to repeat their success. They invariably follow a process (and this is more of a personal process that may not always be visible to everybody). Process is a tool that only makes us more effective as creative professionals.

Subroto Bagchi further argues by saying:

All creative people at that level actually have a strong process orientation, only their version of process is not apparent to the untrained eye. So, if you are looking at building anything memorable, you have to understand and respect process.

That is a million dollar advice for anyone who is building teams and organizations. Here is a #QUALITYtweet from my book that also emphasizes on this very important point:

“Everything we do is a process that can always be improved.”