Prominent businessman established concept of best practices
Carla O’Dell can still remember standing in Antarctica with her husband Jack Grayson by her side. At 80 years old, Grayson, with tears rolling down his eyes, had accomplished his goal of traveling to all seven continents.
“Jack was driven by his love and desire of freedom,” O’Dell said over the phone Friday. “He thought people should be free to do whatever they could in life. I learned early on in our relationship, you do not say no to Jack Grayson. He loved the impossible. The harder it was the more he relished it.”
Grayson’s love for adventure and his passion for business are reflected in the mark he left in Houston, by co-founding the historic Houstonian hotel and founding the American Productivity & Quality Center. The ambitious businessman died Thursday at his Houston home, according to a statement released by the firm. He was 93.
“APQC has lost a tireless champion, a visionary genius, and an inspiring mentor,” said Lisa Higgins, agency president and chief operating officer. “Jack’s early and sustained efforts to help companies in business, government, and education improve productivity and quality have enhanced the competitiveness of countless organizations for almost five decades. We’ll especially miss his passion, wit, and enthusiasm for both work and life.”
Grayson’s life was dedicated to improving the quality of people’s lives, whether in the workforce or personally. His desire for adventure led to him to sky dive at age 75 and 90 and work various jobs including FBI special agent and a newspaper reporter in New Orleans.
C. Jackson “Jack” Grayson was born on Oct. 8, 1923 in Fort Necessity, La. O’Dell said Grayson was raised on a farm and grew up in a close-knit community, which ultimately created his love
for people.
His passion for education also showed in his choice in upper echelon schools, first earning a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University, an MBA from Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually a doctorate in business from the Harvard Business School.
Grayson would go on to teach at many elite schools, including Harvard and Stanford and served as dean for the business schools at Tulane and Southern Methodist University. He also taught internationally at business schools in France and Switzerland.
He became nationally known in 1971 after serving as chairman of the U.S. Price Commission under President Richard Nixon. During his role as chairman, he began to understand that productivity growth in America was failing.
To cure this, he founded in 1977 the American Productivity & Quality Center, a Houston based benchmarking and best practices research firm, where the first White House press conference on productivity was conducted. This also led him to help co-found in 1979 the Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa.
“Jack Grayson will always be in the heart of The Houstonian,” wrote Steve Fronterhouse, general manager of The Houstonian Hotel, in an emailed statement. “His legacy is recognized here as a visionary with understanding of how business and wellness needed to coexist long before others. In the late 70’s, his ideas of balancing personal and professional growth in a lifestyle-centric property were new, but they led to the success we still enjoy today.”
At APQC, Grayson was dedicated to improving the productivity in businesses, not only locally but across the world. He did this through the concept of benchmarking and also having businesses share their best practices with other companies.
“He taught organizations that not everything that happened inside of them needed to be kept a secret,” Higgins said. “Organizations could benefit by sharing non-competitive information on things they did well. The concept of benchmarking and best practices was born.”
In 1991, he and his staff established the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse which would ultimately help organizations identify and learn from best business practices. He also created the Process Classification Framework in 1993, which allows for organizations to convey and define work processes through one common language.
Higgins said Grayson even helped try to improve hospital admittance processes. He brought hospital employees together in the early 90s with those working in hotel, airline and rental car industries. The other industries shared with the hospitals how they quickly admitted people.
“He believed everything in life was a process,” Higgins said. “He thought how we executed those processes determined the rate they were performed. If you could get those processes performing at the ultimate levels, the rest could be redirected to other areas of higher need.”
But at his core, Grayson was a strong motivator of people, who wanted to help them perform at their best ability.
“His generosity was boundless towards other people, both in his time and affection,” O’Dell said. “He’s going to be a real hard act to follow.”
A celebration of his life will be held at 11 a.m. on May 12 at Chapelwood United Methodist Church. Besides his wife, he is survived by three sons.