ENCOUNTER: Quality: For life, business, nation
Kathmandu, November 20:
John Jay Bonstingl, respected internationally as an advisor in quality management, lays the greatest stress on achieving and maintaining a high quality not only in work but life as well.
Even a brief conversation with Bonstingl, who is here in Nepal on an invitation from Himalayan Whi-te House Int’l College, leav-es an impression of his wi-der perspective on various issues, even as he underli-nes the importance of qu-ality, built on relationships and entrepreneurial spirit.
When he talks about quality, he takes it beyond the mere confines of school or workplace, marrying it with home and the very life itself. For him, relationship is the bedrock, both within an organisation and outside it, on which quality and success can be attained and maintained. And the spirit of entrepreneurship is intrinsic to the pursuit of quality, even at the school level.
Having lectured at leading universities around the world, including Harvard, Princeton, Waseda (Tokyo) and Charles (Prague), just to name a few, Bonstingl should know his subject.
On his second visit to Nepal, Bonstingl is holding workshops in Kathmandu and Pokhara for corporate honchos as well as teachers and principals from schools and educational institutions.
He is greatly enthused by the new opportunities raising their heads across Nepal with the recent, welcome developments. “There is a new opportunity for building a new Nepal now. But to seize the moment, organisations and schools must reinvent themselves with an
emphasis on quality and entrepreneurship,” says Bonstingl.
For internal strength, says Bonstingl, oranisations can ensure quality first by picking ‘the right people for the right seat’. Once the bus is well populated, an on-going programme of training and development, presaged by the right kind of orientation, can ensure quality. The importance of a convivial and inclusive relationship can hardly be overemphasised.
When building a place for oneself in the market place, states Bonstingl, the importance of relationship is simply paramount. The effort and money spent on building receptive ties with clientele is by far repaid by long-term relationships.
These are some of the issues that Bonstingl is going to place in much greater detail in front of the participants at the forthcoming workshops.
When he starts talking about young students and what can be done for them, the teacher in him takes a delighted peak from behind the corporate guru who has advised and lectured even the US government on business affairs.
Talking to The Himalayan Times, he unveils his desire to work with young students in Nepal, both in rural as well urban areas to see how entrepreneurial spirit can be inculcated in them. In fact, he already has some such plans in association with Himalayan White House Int’l College, scheduled for the near future.
The conviction, experience and enthusiasm of Bonstingl are infectious. It is more than likely that some corporate players and fortunate students in Nepal too will pick a few leaves out of his book for their own benefit.