As summer winds down and many of us are helping our kids buckle down for another year of learning, why not consider jump starting or renewing your knowledge of Baldrige by attending one of our Baldrige Regional conferences in September?  It’s one of the seven ways to learn more about Baldrige cited by my colleague Christine Schaefer in her August 6th blog. Learning about the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence can help you and your organization improve in many ways.   If you are new to Baldrige, the Vice President for Learning and Organizational Effectiveness from 2010 Award winner Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Pattie Skriba, will present a preconference workshop the afternoon prior to the Chicago conference.  2010 Award recipient Freese and Nichols’ Chief Financial Officer, Cindy Milrany, will lead this three-hour workshop in Dallas.  These are both remarkable opportunities to be introduced to Baldrige by professionals who have been there throughout a Baldrige journey. And if you only have one day, we’ve planned a great one for you.  We will have twelve current and former Baldrige recipient organizations from all sectors of the U.S. economy sharing some of their best practices at both Chicago and Dallas.  These organizations have all used the Baldrige framework, improved their performance, innovated, and achieved world-class results. No other conference can offer so many Baldrige winners in one day!  Our format allows time for questions and networking with the recipients and other attendees- and who knows? Maybe you can form your own "study-group" moving forward. We even have a version of the traditional back-to-school sale, with discounts on conference registration and hotel accommodations. Register by August 21st for Chicago and by September 3rd for Dallas, and save on your registration fees.  If you are traveling to these hub cities, we have great conference rates at the Wyndham Lisle-Chicago Hotel and Executive Meeting Center until August 21st and at the Crowne Plaza Dallas Galleria-Addison through September 5th. We’ll be delighted to welcome you Back-to-Baldrige at one of these events!

In 2003, Stoner, Inc. from Quarryville, PA won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the small business category.  A leader in manufacturing of bulk release agents for plastics, lubricants, and electronics cleaning, more and more household consumers are becoming familiar with their Invisible Glass product available in many major chain stores. President Robert Ecklin, Jr. is the grandson of founder Paul Stoner and has led the company since the 1980s. During a recent visit to Watkins Glen International raceway for a Continental Tire Sport Car Challenge series race, I noticed Invisible Glass signs posted around the track and found a Stoner booth with products for immediate sale directly to race fans.  Staffing the booth was Stoner President Rob Ecklin, Jr. and two of his daughters.  Curious to learn the Baldrige "how" this came about, I requested an interview and Rob graciously accepted. Combining Racing and the Main Branding Effort Rob says it was a bit of a process; he started with hobby racing with Skip Barber [Driving School]; then began to figure out how to combine the main branding effort (the Invisible Glass product) with road racing.  In 2009 he met a gentleman who was building BMW race engines for Turner Motorsports and then had to decide which road racing series to join:  ALMS (American LeMans), Grand-Am, or World Challenge?  He got background on each series and picked Grand-Am because of the national television exposure, the Grand-Am series is financially stable, and the high percentage of female viewers which is the target market segment. Starting a race team involves acquiring and maintaining many different pieces:  the cars and all of their parts and replacement parts, trailers, pit crews, insurance, etc. so it seemed a better strategy to sponsor a team that already existed.  So Rob asked if there was a team that needed sponsorship, found Automatic Racing and a team was formed. Co-drivers Rob Ecklin, Jr. and Steve Phillips in front of their race car (credit: Wes Duenkel Motorsport Photography) You Want to Do What? Leadership and Communication As a leader, how did you communicate the auto racing initiative to employees (team members), the Board of Directors and stakeholders? Racing is not well-received in general except by those who understand racing, Rob explains.  Racing is about cars but really as much if not more about marketing.  He first proposed the idea to leadership Stoner then to team Stoner and it received mixed reviews.  Of course racing has its well-documented dangers.  Stoner has a succession plan should anything happen while he is racing but he does not want to implement it because of what some might term "frivolous" racing.  At first he didn’t plan to drive the race car but when the opportunity was presented this year at Daytona he went for it and is now a Continental Tire series driver. Racing at Laguna Seca Raceway (credit: Wes Duenkel Motorsport Photography) How do you balance running the company and running the race team, both of which have time, administrative, and travel obligations? It is difficult to keep the balance but if not managed properly the racing effort can lead to time management issues. There are always requests to do more; get a Twitter feed, do radio and newspaper interviews, have free ticket giveaways, and various other meetings and promotions in the race track’s local area before a race. What were the specifics around choosing the auto racing segment to directly market Stoner products? The goal is putting some energy around the brand vs. the competition.  Having an understanding and a passion for the brand has differentiated Stoner from others racing in the Continental Tire series.  Stoner was one of the first to do a national consumer product on the side of the car.   Sponsors on other cars do not have products that race fans would recognize as a product they could purchase. "The number one challenge is brand awareness; once people try Invisible Glass they return to purchase", Rob says. Marketing at the Track There is a phased plan for expansion of marketing products at the track.  Currently the two cars racing have the Invisible Glass name on them; next will be for one of the cars to promote the Invisible Glass with Rain Repellant which has a similar but slightly different color scheme. Of course nothing works as well for promotion as the car with your brand on it winning the race. With Rob’s team, their immediate goal is to achieve top ten, then aim for the best TV coverage which is when the car runs in the top five for much of the race. Putting cars on the track was first, Rob says, with selling product directly at the track second; eventually they will have a semi-trailer going from track to track selling branded clothing, hats and products. Stoner, Inc. products on display at the track (credit: Wes Duenkel Motorsport Photography) The other marketing piece is having branded billboards at the strategic points around the track as they had at Watkins Glen, as this will get your brand TV coverage no matter how your cars are doing during the race.  Rob says they are also considering sponsoring inside car cameras which ensures TV coverage and multiple sportscaster mentions, but each of these takes money so the budget has to be considered. Workforce (Race Team) Engagement Teamwork is obviously a key component in racing preparation and success; can you give examples? For engineering the race car setup, Rob defers to team owner Dave Russell. Rob is driver/sponsor so he is constantly working with engineer on car setup while at the track; working with pit crew on pit stops; and working with data acquisitions personnel to get lap times down. Each team member performance can lift the spirits of the rest of the team; for example, if the driver can deliver a competitive lap time it lifts the crew and if the car is turning well throughout the course it lifts the driver. While driving he will constantly be asked by the crew "What can we do to make the car faster?" Racing is about constant feedback and a constant cycle of improvement; each team member is involved with figuring out how to make the car better and boost the team’s performance. As an example of teamwork, Rob talks about when at Daytona this year he hit a tire wall and caused damage to the car. To repair it they needed parts they didn’t have so the team went up and down pit road and purchased parts from other teams, exhaustively worked on the car to get into the race, and ended up finishing 18th the next day. One of the Baldrige core values is management by fact. How do you measure the results of your marketing and racing efforts and determine if it is a success? While direct measures are difficult, there are some methods available. Rob can find out how many fans visited the booth and received samples by looking at the number of email addresses obtained. Rob receives Joyce Julius Reports that gives TV impressions (number of times your car / brand is shown) related into dollars. This indicates that for Stoner’s investment of X it is getting back in advertising dollars. Voice of the Customer You are obviously a "hands-on" executive, working the booth and driving the race car.  How do you take what you learn from these experiences and integrate it into decision-making in the organization? "It’s amazing what you can learn from meeting your customers", Rob says. By working at the booth, he can answer questions about the product and find out what they are thinking.   Because of this he always insists that booth staff to be knowledgeable about the products. The Fan Walk before a race is another way to meet customers and potential customers, as race fans have an opportunity to ask questions about the car, the drivers, or the sponsors. "The Baldrige discipline teaches you about process, checking and adjusting, systems, teamwork, measurements (you cannot hide the data), and what he learns at the track you can bring back in the workplace", Rob states. Blogrige readers, what are some new and innovative marketing methods you have developed using Baldrige?

 Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey A capstone is defined as a "crowning achievement, point, element, or event." But what does a capstone have to do with the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program? Capstone projects are completed by Baldrige Executive Fellows to improve their own organizations using learning and executive mentoring based on the Criteria for Performance Excellence. After a year of in-depth learning, face-to-face meetings with Baldrige Award recipient executives and their employees to see role-model performance in action, and peer-to-peer discussions with other senior leaders, each Fellow completes a capstone project to achieve an improvement or innovation of great impact to his or her own organization. The improvement or innovation should lead to strategic results with significant systemic impact in the organization. The Fellows even have access to an "executive-in-residence" who has led a Baldrige Award recipient organization and now lends his advice to program participants. They also have a sponsor within the organization to guide the "crowning achievement." Fellows’ capstone projects integrate Baldrige concepts and the best practices of Baldrige Award recipients learned through the program. In collaboration with his or her sponsor, the Fellow identifies and defines a problem or issue within his or her own organization, develops an approach that taps the learning and leadership skills gained from the Baldrige Executive Fellows Program, and produces actionable results. The capstone project is intended to fit the Fellows’ interests and leadership challenges along with their organizations’ distinctive needs, with measurable goals along the way. Because the capstone projects are strategically important to the organization, they remain proprietary, but here are some general examples: Technology: Your company is operating on two legacy software/hardware systems stemming from a previous merger. They are becoming difficult to maintain and are hampering full integration of the merged company. Your project is the development and smooth rollout of a new cloud-based system as a driver of the next stage of organizational integration. Customer engagement: In light of the increasing reliance on the use of social media to gather customer perceptions and interact with customers, your project is to redesign your company’s total customer engagement strategy. Other examples of potential capstone projects: To create and deploy a balanced scorecard to translate your mission, vision, and strategic plan into specific, quantifiable goals To use innovation and technology to drive improvements across a complex supply chain To create a more integrated knowledge management system to better understand customer segments and your effectiveness in serving them To implement a business-to-business enterprise strategy To implement a performance management control and information system What would your capstone project be if you were a Baldrige Executive Fellow?

by Jacqueline Calhoun In good writing, quotes help convey a message to the reader and emphasize the important points. Used effectively, quotes can even enlighten the author’s perspective on a topic. Some of the best thoughts and statements of our time have come packaged as a quote. Whether quotes are funny, serious, inspirational, or full of wisdom, they are meant to convey some special message. I will limit the use of quotes in this blog, but I need this to be an effective message. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.—John F. Kennedy As I look back at the 25th Annual Quest for Excellence Conference®, actually, "thank you" does not seem to contain enough words to express the gratitude of the Baldrige Program for its sponsors. They made the conference successful for the Baldrige Program and community, and they made connections with organizations from all sectors of the economy who have or are interested in adopting the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and in learning and improving. At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.    —Albert Schweitzer We are now getting ready to kick off the 2014 sponsorship program that will help to support the 26th Annual Quest for Excellence Conference, which will be held April 7-9, 2014, at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. For 2014, sponsorship packages also will help provide support for Baldrige examiner training and outreach.  Individuals or organizations can take advantage of sponsorship opportunities because they are designed to fit a complete range of budgets. Sponsorship packages offer many benefits, including prominent recognition and acknowledgement at the Quest conference; recognition on the Baldrige Web site; and, depending on the sponsorship level, exclusive post-attendee e-mail lists, complimentary Quest conference registrations, and the opportunity to send employees to a four-day Baldrige Examiner Experience Training. We want to thank our 2014 supporters in advance for their generosity. . . . We definitely cannot do it without you! No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude. —Alfred North Whitehead The 2014 sponsorship program is underway. Please visit our Web site for the full details. We hope you become a sponsor!      

Posted by Christine Schaefer Let’s say your organization has already begun using a Baldrige-based approach to self-assessment. For example, your senior leaders have completed the Organizational Profile, reviewed the guidelines that make up the Scoring System of the Criteria for Performance Excellence, and developed responses to all seven Criteria categories. Your organization is probably ready now to conduct a full Baldrige self-assessment. Below are seven steps toward developing responses to the individual questions in all seven categories of the Criteria for Performance Excellence (Leadership; Strategic Planning; Customer Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management; Workforce Focus; Operations Focus; and Results): 1.       Identify the scope of the assessment: will it cover the entire organization, a subunit, a division, or a department? 2.      Select seven champions, one for each Criteria category, to lead a team in preparing responses to the questions in the category. Have the champions write your Organizational Profile. 3.      Form category teams. Have the members collect data and information to answer the questions in their respective categories, referring to the notes after each item and the Category and Item Commentary as guides. 4.      Have the teams share their answers to the Criteria questions and identify common themes and missing linkages. 5.      Have each category team create and communicate an action plan for improvement based on their answers. Consider using the Self-Analysis Worksheet, a Word file that may be downloaded for free from our Web site. 6.      Have the seven champions and other senior leaders build an overall action plan based on overall organizational priorities. 7.      Evaluate the self-assessment process, and identify possible improvements. Involve senior leaders, champions, and teams. The teams will need to collaborate to address questions that link the categories to each other. Organizations of any size and sector (business/nonprofit, health care, or education) can conduct a full Baldrige self-assessment in order to improve performance and achieve excellence. If you’re a manufacturer, service business, small business, or nonprofit organization (outside health care and education—that is, you don’t call your customers "patients" or "students"), you’ll use the Criteria for Performance Excellence booklet (see our Web site for ordering information). If your organization is in health care or education, you’ll use the Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence or the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence booklets, respectively. Related blog posts: "Baldrige Criteria: Seven Ways to Learn More" and "Baldrige Self-Assessment: Seven Ways to Get Started"

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program has always been proud to call the programs of the Alliance for Performance Excellence part of the Baldrige family. The programs that cover nearly every state in the union and include sector-specific areas base their work on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. To follow the great work being done in the states and the national breadth and depth of Baldrige, check out the Baldrige Impacts, State by State. Here are some overall highlights of Baldrige in the United States: 590 organizations have applied for the Baldrige Award since 2005. 2010-2012 applicants represent 450,468 U.S. jobs, 2,213 work sites, more than $74 million in revenues/budgets, and about 417 million customers served. 478 national Baldrige examiners volunteered roughly $7.3 million in services in 2012. In 2012, more than 30 independently funded and managed regional, state, and local Baldrige-based award programs evaluated 288 organizations using 1,930 volunteer examiners. Organizations from all sectors and of all sizes use the Baldrige Criteria for improvement. The Baldrige Program and its Criteria are made in America, and the impacts of Baldrige can be found across the United States. Have you learned/shared/gotten involved with your state Baldrige-based program yet?

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey A recent article in The Washington Post-"Company Town’s Decline Reflects New Mantra: Shareholders First"-got me thinking. The article begins with a look at Endicott, NY, where, in the 1980s, 10,000 IBM workers kept the upstate town thriving. Today, after years of layoffs and jobs shipped overseas, about 700 employees are left. On the other hand, investors in IBM’s shares have seen increasing gains. Jia Lynn Yang writes, "It used to be a given that the interests of corporations and communities such as Endicott were closely aligned. But no more. Across the United States, as companies continue posting record profits, workers face high unemployment and stagnant wages." She goes on to say that a few decades ago, corporate America developed a belief that a company’s primary purpose is to maximize shareholder value. "Together with new competition overseas, the pressure to respond to the short-term demands of Wall Street has paved the way for an economy in which companies are increasingly disconnected from the state of the nation." In contrast, in 1963, IBM’s president and CEO, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., wrote that balancing profits between the well-being of employees and the nation’s interest is a necessary duty for companies. "We acknowledge our obligation as a business institution to help improve the quality of the society we are part of," wrote Watson in IBM’s corporate values. Obviously, the business world and global economy have changed since Watson’s time, and so has IBM stock performance, from a stock price of $17.16 in 1980 to $185.42 in 2013. So what’s the lesson here? As I was pondering that question, I was reminded of the less-than-desirable trend of fewer manufacturers applying for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a competition that assesses much more than shareholder value. The award is based on how an organization answers the requirements in the Criteria for Performance Excellence, which measure product and process results, customer-focused results, workforce-focused results, leadership and governance results, and, finally, financial and market performance. The Criteria address shareholders in regards to ethical interactions, their corporate stewardship responsibilities, and corporate leadership’s required accountability to them. This article was in line with an answer I’ve heard and probably repeated regarding why more manufacturers may not be applying for the Baldrige Award; many such companies are more focused on short-term gains for shareholders than on the long-term investment in a management system that is designed for gains in all of the Criteria category 7 results. If corporations today are focused primarily on shareholder value alone (item 7.5 in the Criteria), do the other types of results even matter anymore? Given the recent financial crisis and the lack of a long-term focus in regards to sustainability, I strongly believe the answer is yes, and The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein recently agreed. In "How the Cult of Shareholder Value Wrecked American Business," he writes, "You could argue that much of what Americans perceive to be wrong with the economy these days—the slow growth and rising inequality; the recurring scandals; the wild swings from boom to bust; the inadequate investment in R&D, worker training and public goods—has its roots in this ideology." What do you think are the dangers of shareholder value being the primary measuring stick for a U.S. company?

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon For those who have read my Blogrige posts in the past, I am glad to be back. I am enjoying my retirement, including the opportunity to continue supporting the Baldrige Program, while my colleague, Bob Fangmeyer, has the privilege of leading and guiding the program. But this blog post is not about leading the Baldrige Program or retirement, it is about the process of retiring. In hindsight, I wish retiring was a repeatable, "error-resistant" process. That is what I anticipated. But in reality, in government as elsewhere, it is a complex process, with multiple process hand-offs and many places for potential process failure. Let me give a few examples from my own experience. To start, I completed the necessary forms and then handed them in to a department that re-keys the information into an automated system. After re-keying, my address and salary were incorrect and an incorrect box was checked on the life insurance form. This caused some rework for the errors that were detected in the information I saw, but there were others that persisted. Some were detected  later in the process, requiring more time-consuming and expensive rework. Other errors? I don’t know yet. But I do know there were errors in other parts of the process, that had nothing to do with the forms. In subsequent processes other errors occured. Let me give a few additional examples.  A check for the full value of my Thrift Savings Plan [401(k)], administered for the government by a major financial institution, was sent to an incorrect address for my new plan trustee. And yes, it was a check in the mail not an electronic funds transfer. Because of various regulations/policies the money was "lost’ for over a month. My retirement savings, gone! I received my first net pension payment right on schedule and went to the payment website to see what the gross pay and deductions were, since this was an interim payment until my final pension is determined. The statement was already available on the web site for the next month, but there was none for the current month and the amounts did not agree. I sent a request for information and was informed it would take about thirty days for a reply. Let me quote from the eventual reply, "You may not be able to see this payment on line because this was an adjustment payment; however you should still be able to view it online." Huh? I use these examples (and there are quite a few more) because I know I am not unique, because I know my organization is not unique, and because the examples illustrate so many management system failures that great organizations using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence avoid. Let me illustrate with just a few questions from the Criteria: How do you enable customers to seek information and support? How do you manage customer complaints? How do you…ensure the effective use of voice-of-the-customer and market data and information (including aggregated data on complaints) to build a more customer-focused culture and to support operational and strategic decision making? How do you make needed data and information available…to your workforce, suppliers…and customers? How do you design your…work processes to meet all key requirements? How does your day-to-day operation of work processes ensure that they meet key process requirements? I will not go further with Baldrige Criteria questions seeking the results you achieve, trends over time, or how you compare to other organizations. You get the idea I am communicating. In my mind, the considerations addressed in the questions above are obvious. Yet how many organizations and how many business processes do not address these basic questions? I am sure everyone has their own examples. So please recommend the Baldrige Criteria to your stakeholders. And maybe next year will be the year for process leaning and improvement!

Posted by Christine Schaefer We are always pleased to see how former Baldrige Award winners continue to blaze trails as exemplars of excellence. As a recent example, Premier Inc., the 2006 Baldrige Award-winning health care alliance, has earned national recognition as one of the "2013 Best Places to Work in Healthcare." In early August, Modern Healthcare named the service organization to its 2013 list of 100 companies or organizations in the health care field to be honored this coming October for demonstrating workforce-focused excellence. When Premier received the Baldrige Award, we highlighted its outstanding practices and results in relation to workforce focus, category 5 of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. As described in the 2006 profile (PDF) on our Web site, "Premier’s core value of focus on people embodies the company’s commitment to providing a safe, positive work environment and opportunities for development and career growth." The Baldrige Award winner’s focus on people includes several initiatives to foster employee development, including individual performance and development plans and an annual program for the development of high-potential employees. In addition, Premier offers many different employee-wellness initiatives focusing on health, fitness, and stress reduction. Premier’s ongoing culture and diversity program and the company’s annual Values Conference and volunteering activities also foster its focus on people.  Other honors for Premier this year include being named among the top 100 of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute, among top technology innovators by InformationWeek, and among the Healthiest Employers of Greater Charlotte by the Charlotte Business Journal. Kudos to Premier’s leadership and every workforce member for continuing to make your organization a great place to work!

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey "Some of the best ideas for improving health care come from outside our field," writes Dr. Peter Pronovost in his blog, "What Health Care Can Learn From Corn Milling." "A recent experience reminded me of the value of seeking ideas and inspiration from elsewhere. . . . I was among 15 executives from various fields who toured Cargill through a fellowship run by the [Baldrige Performance Excellence Program]. On a visit to Cargill Corn Milling, among the largest of the gigantic company’s 75 business units, I heard a story with unexpected parallels to health care." The fellowship for which he is referring is the Baldrige Executive Fellows Program, now in its third year and receiving rave reviews. Through visits to Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients and in-depth meetings with other senior leaders, the Fellows embark on a one-year, nationally ranked leadership development experience that is designed to provide a safe, peer-learning environment to inspire them and help them hone their leadership skills. Through the category 1 leadership lens of the Criteria for Performance Excellence, the Fellows look at their own organizational challenges to determine what innovations can be brought home. In his blog, Dr. Pronovost describes the story of how Cargill Corn Milling reorganized its nine plants by what they provided to customers in order to eliminate inefficient self-competition that didn’t meet customers’ needs. "As I listened to the presentation, my pulse quickened. I leaned forward anxiously feeling as if I took a double espresso to pull an all-night study session. The parallels between corn milling and health care were haunting," Dr. Pronovost writes. "Change ‘plant’ to ‘hospital’ and you have the same situation as the Cargill officials described. Hospitals that are part of the same corporate or nonprofit system compete with one another in such fields as neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, cancer care and cardiac care." In "Company Churns out Burritos, French Toast — and Inspiration for Health Care," Dr. Pronovost writes of more lessons learned as a Baldrige Fellow while touring the plant at Cargill Kitchen Solutions, talking to employees and reflecting on their customer focus, their humility, and the intense accountability on results-all lessons that can be applied to other industries. In the first three years of the program, Baldrige Fellows have also had the pleasure-and discovered new insights-from touring the Ritz-Carlton (where they went on a back-of-the-house tour showcasing The Ritz Mystique), Premier, Sharp Healthcare, and Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, among other Baldrige Award recipients. They’ve also met with Sister Mary Jean Ryan, former chair and CEO, SSM Health Care; Steven Sessions, director, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Supplier Quality; Rulon Stacey, president and CEO, University of Colorado Health; Paul Worstell, past president, PRO-TEC Coating Company; E. David Spong, retired president, Boeing Aerospace Support for Integrated Defense; Horst Schulze, president and CEO, Capella Hotel Group; Rose Almon-Martin, vice president of performance excellence, MEDRAD; and Steve Begnan, vice president, human resources, Nestle-Purina, Inc., among many other Baldrige Award-winning senior executives. The best way to wrap up this blog? Perhaps it’s to show you the learnings noted from some of the other Baldrige Fellows themselves. Note: Applications are now being accepted for the next cohort of Baldrige Executive Fellows. Please visit the Web site for more information.