What Today’s Indian Drug manufacturing companies can learn from Antiquity: Lessons from Indian History on “Culture of Quality”

Various places, various platforms, various teams… one discussion, Culture of Quality, or Quality Culture, or was it culture of compliance, or compliance culture, or wait was it good old cGMP…. I am thoroughly confused.

If one searches for “organizational culture” on Wikipedia, this is what appears on the top of the article, “organizational culture encompasses values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization." According to Needle (2004), organizational culture represents the collective values, beliefs and principles of organizational members and is a product of such factors as history, product, market, technology, and strategy, type of employees, management style, and national culture.”

Quality is one of the fundamental premises on which today’s pharmaceutical industry is operating and excellence is measured with continuous improvement in quality of therapeutic products, supply chain management, testing methods, manufacturing operations etc. Therefore it is pertinent for the pharmaceutical organizations to continuously pursue “culture of quality”. Some of the indicators, which can be utilized for evaluation of organizational culture of quality, are as listed below:

And finally, how does all of this get documented! And how is culture of quality pursued in this documentation?

                                                                                                                       Contributed By

                                                                                                                          Vishal Sharma

TRUST : A NEW AGE BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

When asked whether he trusts his wife, Adarsh replied with a shrug of indifference, “It depends”. But intent on getting a definitive answer, Som persisted by telling him that it has to be a ‘yes or no’.  To which Adarsh said, “Trust cannot be absolute”.  When asked further as to what he meant, Adarsh elaborated that there are areas where he would trust her and areas where he won’t.   Seeing the perplexed look on Som’s face, Adarsh pre-empted any further queries by hastily adding, “I would trust her as a cook but not as a driver.  So you see, Som, it is not absolute, it’s contextual.  Let’s be practical”

Coming closer to workplace, isn’t that what we need to consider for building trust? Increasing mobility, faster job rotations and increasing competitiveness are redefining our interpretation of trust now.  Culture building has taken a back seat while value-for-money in human asset takes precedence in our haste to meet business objectives.  Under these circumstances, it is common to hear leaders harping on lack of trust, need to build trust and how to build trust.  It is another thing that even Socrates lamented more than 2000 years back that the youth could not be trusted as they are given to vices.  Still, ‘building trust’ is emerging as one of the topmost people’s development needs nowadays.    And, there are a dozen training solutions providers who are offering to help organizations build trust.  But, fundamentally aren’t they missing few key points in a fast paced world that's redefining values: trust is ‘contextual’; not ‘absolute’, trust needs ‘worthiness’; not ‘conferment’,  and trust must be ‘offered’; not ‘demanded’?

Businesses may do well by understanding the nuances of trust building as more and more employees come under pressure to deliver and chase ways to find work-life balance. With employees joining from all walks of life & varied backgrounds and with pressures on containing the attrition rates, how can business leaders go about building an environment of trust which is very ‘business centric’ and effective?  Gone are those days when someone was expected to be trustworthy at all times in all areas.  Today technology has enabled us to ‘police’ people, irrespective of their background, in areas of vigilance and compliance.  So, how do we adapt to the change.  Let’s then focus on the morphed dimensions of trust as they exist today:

Trust is not absolute; treat it skill based:  Trusting people for the skills which matter most for business impact & objectives.  Let’s say, trusting a security supervisor for securing our workplace.
Build expertise to build trust:  Trusting employees for the expertise that they exhibit through their behaviours.  Say, a security supervisor primed to deal with emerging threats better than the criminals inspires trust.

Consistency builds trust:  Integrity & transparency in respective areas of work would work wonders for building trust.   Say, a security supervisor who refuses to accept favours from visitors at all times will build trust in his work domain & elsewhere.

Dependability builds trust:  Acknowledging an experience of dependability with an employee (for the job that he performs) can help build trust.  Say, a security supervisor successfully foiling an intrusion attempt each and every time it happens would help build trust.
                                                                                       Contributed By Mahesh Sharma