Note: As the third in a three-part series, this blog continues the examples of how small businesses are benefiting from using the Baldrige Criteria. See part I and part II. Prioritization of Improvements The small number of paid staff members at the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter in Louisiana have used the Baldrige Criteria to literally save lives. Shelter director Robin Beaulieu, who was introduced to the Baldrige Criteria by a local MBA class, worked with students to improve the process of selecting homeless dogs for euthanasia, a project the shelter prioritized by using the Criteria to focus on its purpose, mission, vision, and values. According to Beaulieu, "the Baldrige Criteria have provided a foundation to build a sense of purpose and method of questioning ourselves and reflecting on how to improve our performance and save lives," she said. "As a municipal shelter, we are challenged and are a reflection of the community. We are never satisfied with our performance, but we are systematically improving, and the numbers have shown how much we have improved." From 2010 to 2013, the shelter’s two key measures—euthanasia and adoption rates—have significantly improved: euthanasia reduced by 67% and adoptions increased by 75%. "I urge other small businesses to learn the value of using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence," said Milrany. "Freese and Nichols uses the framework to better understand where to focus our continued efforts to improve our services for the benefit of clients." Milrany said that many of Freese and Nichols’ clients are municipalities interested in Baldrige. She tells them, "It isn’t the award . . . the journey is what’s important." She advises organizations to identify the areas of their operations that need improvement using Baldrige self-assessments such as Are We Making Progress? and easyInsight: Take a First Step toward a Baldrige Self-Assessment. She suggests "work on those a little at a time so that Baldrige is not a big daunting thing. Use the self-assessments to see where your gaps are. That’s a good indicator of where to start." For Shapiro, the Are We Making Progress? survey proved the easiest way to begin and quickly identify areas to improve. She gave the survey to her staff members to learn how they thought the organization was doing. "Using the results from that questionnaire gave us guidance on what we needed to do to make things better," she said. "It was very clear once we got results that the animal hospitals [within the practice] had different problem areas to focus on." Writing an Organizational Profile also proved an obvious place to begin for the veterinarian. "When I started writing the Organizational Profile, it started to make things much easier. . . . [It] helped me identify who I am. I never really verbalized it. When I know what we want, it makes it really easy to figure out solutions to problems." Added Shapiro, "Everything we’ve done [with the Baldrige Criteria] has made our organization a happier place to work. We’ve identified what’s really important to us," added Shapiro. "The little bit I have done has given me so much clarity. . . . [Baldrige] has already helped us so much. . . .  I’m inspired by it." Measurement of Data The Synergy Organization uses the Baldrige Criteria to help it better understand those things that matter most to its business success and know what to do about them, in a nonprescriptive way, said Cohen. Using measurements, as outlined in Criteria category 7, "helps me to know how we’re making progress on the things that make the most sense. And helps me to connect the dots and to understand how these seemingly disconnected elements are interdependent, helping us to do the right things right the first time," he added. Freese and Nichols uses the Criteria to help it sustain a balanced approach for customers, stakeholders, and employees. According to Milrany, balanced scorecards are used to measure financial sustainability, the commitment to clients, the commitment to technical excellence, and the commitment to employees. "A sustainable organization can’t just focus on one of these," she said. In her former local county government position, Douglas said, "The Baldrige Criteria sustained us through some tough times. Data collection is big, and if you’re not collecting data quickly and analyzing and making needed changes, then you are dead in the water. I am a believer [in the Baldrige Criteria. They] help through thin times and fat times as well." When people get into the Criteria, she added, they start thinking not just about individual projects, but also about how to grow revenue. Development of Leadership Skills An unintended consequence for small businesses being mentored in Virginia was a change in leaders’ mindsets, said Garfield. One small business president said "a key learning for him was that he’d been managing his business instead of leading it." Garfield said the leader realized he wanted to align the business with his vision "in a way he might not have done if he didn’t participate [in learning the Criteria]. He learned that creating an environment for lifelong personal and organizational learning was part of his goal." Dr. Shapiro added, "Even though I am very early in [learning the Criteria] process, I have found it to be very inspirational. It has already created positive change in my organization, changed my leadership style and skills, and has even changed how I communicate with pet owners—I’m sharing with them who we are, what sets us apart, what our culture is about, and how this positively effects care. For the first time since owning a business, I feel confident in making decisions."

After reading a press release announcing the latest Weber Award winners, and noting that the Weber is modeled after the Baldrige Award, I reached out to Peter Horvath (president and CEO) and Chuck Yarris (director of quality and food safety) of Quality Chekd to find out more. What is the Weber Award? It is named after Irving B. Weber, a founding member of the Quality Chekd Board of Directors, who had the vision of producing the best dairy products in the country. The award originated in the late ‘80s and was originally a marketing opportunity for securing the trademark. But it has since become an all-encompassing award, based not just on the level of product compliance (through third-party testing) but also including leadership, customer, and employee components. Dairy Plant photo courtesy of Quality Chekd Dairies, Inc. A difference from the Baldrige Award that Horvath sees is that Weber applicants themselves are very similar, without a lot of variables in organizational products and services. However, the Baldrige Criteria has provided an example in not solely using product quality as the basis for the award. According to Horvath, no other award besides the Weber Award is recognized in the dairy industry; even companies outside of the dairy industry know of it.  It has "become a quality driver within organizations," he says, because it does translate into how well they are run. In dairy plants, "Think Weber" signs can be seen on the walls. Being modeled on the Baldrige Award helps Quality Chekd introduce the Weber Award, Horvath says: "Because you are such a high-profile award, we tell them it is like the Baldrige Award, and they understand." What are the steps of the Weber Award process? To qualify for the Weber Award, a plant has to be in the top monthly ranking for product testing; take third-party audits/certification, and add those results; add employee safety results data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); and then take the top three applicants, and administer a leadership survey. Next, Yarris and Horvath spend a day with top managers of award applicants to have them explain what the senior leaders are doing in terms of their organization’s mission, vision, and values and how they communicate those to employees. They are also asked to explain what their strategic planning is and how they know it is effective; quality improvements they are undertaking; employee orientation/absenteeism; communication to the night shift, the reward process, seniority, special recognition, and succession planning the safety program benchmarks being used After the leadership interviews, Horvath and Yarris  go to employees and find out if they are "walking it"; they sit down and talk with a certain percentage of employees and ask questions such as, How do you get engaged in your work? What are your company’s mission, vision, and values? The employee interview has approximately 30 questions across a broad range of topics. Next, a customer satisfaction survey is administered through a third party for consumers who have purchased the applicant company’s products. Such consumers are surveyed on the following: overall impression of the company impression of the personnel overall impression of product/service If selected, Weber Award recipients receive a trophy and a highly prized grandfather’s clock (often placed in a prominent location). Winning companies often give employees a memento and a day off or equivalent benefit. Similar to Baldrige, another of the Quality Chekd membership advantages (besides the Weber Award) is ongoing training offered through regional workshops and some onsite training for specific companies based on their need. Chuck Yarris (director of quality and safety) says a challenge for his organization is keeping interest in the Weber Award high. For example, he asks, even though these companies are doing a great job, what other criteria can raise the bar even higher? He wants Quality Chekd members to be the best (well above competitors), to be profitable, and to have a positive impact on the industry. Milk Gallons courtesy of Quality Chekd Dairies, Inc. Looking Toward the Future According to Horvath, the dairy industry is under severe pressure because the market has seen a 2-4 % decline in consumption, and input costs are high. In the squeeze, another challenge is how to avoid taking shortcuts—and not just in terms of disregarding quality. Horvath hopes to expand the Weber Award beyond the Quality Chekd community because other industry awards are just not as rigorously defined and are based more on public relations efforts. So what is the best thing about working in the dairy industry, and Quality Chekd / the Weber Award in particular? While you might guess ice cream tastings, Yarris has unique expertise in tasting buttermilk, so he always gets to try it in a production plant. In particular, he enjoys the variety of getting into the plants to do some analysis, troubleshooting, training, and meeting the night shift crew, he says. For Horvath, the best part of his 14 years with Quality Chekd is that he works with wonderful people, he says. If you would like to be a Baldrige Examiner during the next Baldrige Award process, find out more at Become an Examiner. The application for 2015 opens November 25, 2014 and closes January 8, 2015.  

Posted by Dawn Bailey In 1987, when the development of a national quality award was assigned to scientists at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), first Baldrige Program director Curt Reimann had a dilemma. How do you recruit quality experts from a broad spectrum of industries and ask them to contribute volunteer hours and expertise? And then how do you keep these volunteer experts engaged and willing to share with peers? In the late 1980s, for a technical organization like NBS, such cross-sector teamwork was new-scientists in different disciplines rarely worked across fields with other scientists. However, the cross-sector sharing was a success. Driven by patriotism and a spirit of continuous improvement and innovation, individual members of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners have worked together, sharing insights, expertise, and best practices from all sectors of the U.S. economy and abroad for more than 26 years. This elite group of professionals excelling at performance excellence and continuous improvement recently shared the benefits they have derived by serving as a Baldrige examiner; for example, "Best post-grad-education and professional development" Understanding of an organization at both the big-picture and detail levels Knowledge of the core values at the foundation of all high-performing organizations Skills to build consensus, balancing varied viewpoints Knowledge of when to use ELMO (Enough, Let’s Move On) Application of a systematic framework to processes that are often driven by the "seat-of-the-pants" Best practices across industries and sectors/benchmarking opportunities Evaluation of processes using approach-deployment-learning-integration "Continuous refining clarity and focus about performance" An extensive network of other examiners for mentoring and sharing Resources to create an organizational strategic plan Knowledge of ways to improve measurements and deployment This list continues and continues. Just ask a Baldrige examiner what he or she has personal gained as a professional development and what his or her organization has gained from having a Baldrige examiner among its ranks. What could you gain as a Baldrige examiner? Interested in finding out? The 2015 Baldrige Examiner Application opens on November 25, 2014. Special thanks to Rebecca Anderson and all of the Baldrige Examiners who participated in the LinkedIn discussion "The Benefits of Baldrige Program Examiner Participation." And thanks to all who have ever served as an examiner; your contributions continue to help U.S. organizations and the economy, as well as your peers, your companies, the Baldrige Program, and hopefully yourselves.

Posted by Christine Schaefer In late October, longtime Baldrige examiner Miriam Kmetzo traveled to Suzhou, China, to attend and speak at the 6th Quality Forum for Academics and Innovation. Kmetzo gave a presentation at a session that featured four quality award programs in the international arena: the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Deming Prize, the EFQM (formerly called the European Foundation for Quality Management) Excellence Award, and the China Quality Award (CQA). The latter, according to Kmetzo, is fashioned after the Baldrige Award and administered by the China Association for Quality. I recently caught up with Kmetzo to learn about her experience at the forum. Following is the interview. 1. What information did you share, and what did you learn from others, during the session where you presented? I spoke on impacts of the Baldrige [Performance Excellence] Program and how the program has helped our nation’s award recipients improve their performance and the U.S. economy as a whole. Miriam Kmetzo, speaking at 6th Quality Forum in Suzhou, China, October 2014 I also spoke about eligibility rules for the Baldrige Award, the role of Baldrige examiners and judges, as well as the timeline and other details of the award process. [Audience members] were interested in the steps and how long the process takes. What they do [in the Chinese award program] is slightly different. All the examiners finish the Independent Review and Consensus Review phases of their award process in two weeks. They’re all housed in a hotel to do the work. For the site visit stage, they don’t use the same team of examiners. Instead, they use a team that is specifically trained to do a site visit. So that team gets the report that the Consensus Review team has prepared and takes it from there. 2. Did you learn anything that surprised you about use of the Baldrige-based excellence framework or related quality initiatives in China today? To have this type of forum with a focus on quality shows there is a lot of interest in quality in China. I was pleasantly surprised. They used to only hold the forum every two years, but starting next year they will have it every year. And they want to tailor it to be more like the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence® Conference [where award recipients share best practices]. The forum was geared for both those involved in academics (largely engineering universities) and business (specifically manufacturing). Awards were handed out for best papers written on quality in academics, and companies were being awarded for their quality performance and innovation. In addition, there was a team competition focused on the use of quality tools such as Six Sigma and Lean. So the forum was both academic and business-oriented. I thought it was good that there was this interface between businesses and universities from around the country. 3. What questions did forum attendees ask you about the Baldrige Award and program? After my session, I was asked the question—two or three times—about the President of the United States traditionally presenting the Baldrige Award. I believe they were impressed by this and how much more prestigious this made the award. I was also asked about how Baldrige examiners are selected and what is the typical size of the board of Baldrige examiners [the answer: traditionally about 400-500 members strong]. I explained that every year whether you are a new or returning examiner, you have to submit an application to be a Baldrige examiner. And the Baldrige Program uses criteria for examiner selection to ensure that there is a balance of sectors and experience represented. And I was asked about judging for the Baldrige Award; some [audience members at the forum] wondered whether the Baldrige examiners themselves recommend the award recipients. So I explained the role of the panel of judges and how they base site visit decisions on scores [from the Consensus Review phase]. 4. Do you have other insights to share? I know there’s been this push to move away from the word quality, for example, when the name of the program changed [from the Baldrige National Quality Program to the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program]. But a focus on quality is what’s current in China now. Many of their organizations are now using the Total Quality Management model or the European quality model. And they are now open to what we’re doing in terms of a focus on quality not just in the product, but in how the organization is run. Also, the commonalities of the different excellence frameworks really jumped out at me. After my presentation, I was asked which of the four international programs described at the session I would recommend for China; I said that I couldn’t choose from the programs, that what is important is the commonalities, namely, the focus on leadership, customers and human resources, process management, and results. With any quality or performance excellence program, leadership is key; buy-in begins with the organization’s leaders. But you can’t achieve any of your objectives without a focus on customers and human resources. The process management focus is key because making sure that processes are efficient will lead to good results. So, while the criteria of the different international excellence programs are different, I found that the key elements of excellence are the same in any language.

Posted by Mark Shapiro As many of you know, I will be retiring in January 2015, after 40 years of federal service. In reflecting on these years, it is clear to me that the 15 years I’ve spent with the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program are, by far, the years that I look back on most fondly and the work I feel most proud of. Working for the Baldrige Program has truly been the highlight of my federal career. It has been a real pleasure, in fact an honor, to support everyone associated with the Baldrige community. This includes the examiners, applicants, recipients, Panels of Judges, the Foundation, the Boards of Overseers, the Alliance members, and, of course, my wonderful colleagues here at NIST. The integrity and high standards that the Baldrige community exhibits are truly inspirational for me personally. The Baldrige Program is an example of how a federal program can have a powerful impact on so many different parts of our community. By promoting performance excellence and providing global leadership in the learning and sharing of successful strategies and performance practices, principles, and methodologies, the Baldrige Program is a customer-focused federal change agent. All of us contribute to this! Some of Mark’s work involved managing evaluation teams for the Baldrige Award process. Our country can learn so much from how the Baldrige community interacts-always cognizant of the mission and acting with the highest degree of integrity, selflessness, and grace. With a culture of openness and a willingness to share our knowledge and best practices, we all contribute to enhancing and improving each other’s organizations, which in turn improves our local communities, our states, and ultimately our country. Our work at and with Baldrige has a major impact on the lives of all Americans, whether they are customers, employees, suppliers, partners, or other stakeholders. What you do, what we do, is powerful. As far as what the future holds, as an ex-military guy, I’d like to do some gratis work for the VA, continue to help my sister and brother-in-law with their Baldrige journey, work-out a lot, and maybe even transition to being an examiner (if selected).  I also might work part-time as a life guard and/or in a bicycle store, paint a few rooms, make my wife’s life easier as she approaches her own retirement, visit the city at least once every two weeks, and spend more time with my parents and family on the Eastern shore. I’d like to thank each of you for being the best colleagues, mentors, and friends, and for allowing me to serve you as you work tirelessly to help improve our country. You’ve made this humble public servant proud of his federal service and for that I thank each of you.

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey In the 1980s, Dr. Joseph Juran, one of the Baldrige Program’s first overseers, coined the term "Big Q" to serve as a quality "umbrella": little q would encompass goods and those processes directly related to the manufacture of goods, while Big Q would encompass all of an organization’s products, goods, and services, as well as all of its processes. In alignment with Juran’s notion of encompassing all of the organization with quality practices, the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence today take a systems perspective; in other words, the Criteria provide a guide to managing all the components of an organization as a unified whole-Big Q. (In the early days of the Criteria, the focus was much more that of little q-focused on process and quality tools.) A recent IndustryWeek article that quotes ASQ’s Laurel Nelson-Rowe traces the evolution of quality from compliance, to control, to a broader definition that includes the customers’ perspectives on quality. "ASQ research promotes the idea that deeper integration with the customer is a driver of improved quality," writes the IndustryWeek author Jill Jusko. "And by deeper engagement, the quality association means throughout the life cycle of the product or service." Again, the Baldrige Criteria are in alignment, weaving customers and their satisfaction, dissatisfaction, engagement, and voice into all organizational operations. The Criteria also call out the core value "customer-focused excellence" as a behavior embedded in all high-performing organizations. The Criteria even include both a current and future focus on customers: "understanding today’s customer desires and anticipating future customer desires and marketplace potential." Today’s Baldrige approach to quality is relevant to all workforce members who are interested in continuous improvement but in particular to leaders; without senior leadership’s commitment to quality, an organization can easily lose its overall focus. In his last interview with IndustryWeek in 1994, Dr. W. Edwards Deming shared his insights on quality, focusing on management’s role: "Quality is the responsibility of the top people. Its origin is in the boardroom. . . . Management today does not know what its job is. In other words, [managers] don’t understand their responsibilities. They don’t know the potential of their positions." This thinking is in line with the Baldrige Criteria, which contains the core value "visionary leadership"; one focus of the upcoming 2015-2016 Criteria (available December 2014) is on "validated leadership and performance practices." Senior leaders should set a vision for the organization, create a customer focus, demonstrate clear and visible organizational values and ethics, and set high expectations for the workforce. Of course, in addition to customers and leadership, the Big Q of quality continues to evolve. Every few years, ASQ conducts a Future of Quality study; the last one being in 2011. The study identified and prioritized eight forces of change. Then Baldrige Director Dr. Harry Hertz wrote about those concepts in an Insights column "The Future of Organizational Quality," adding three overarching factors that he felt impacted quality: complexity, agility, and ethics/social responsibility. A more recent 2013 Insights column "For Everything There Is a Season, and a Time for Every Purpose," also by Hertz, looked at the Conference Board’s Quality Outlooks from 1994 and 2009. The reports listed critical issues for quality, including commitment by senior leadership, systems thinking, partnering, and continuous improvement. Challenges to quality included customer and employee satisfaction, accountability for results, and performance management. And now as the Baldrige Program prepares to release the next version of the Baldrige Criteria, some additional key themes have evolved based on feedback, the literature, and the competitive and strategic pressures on organizations today; the three themes woven into the next Criteria:  (1) change management, (2) big data, and (3) climate change. The quality evolution continues and the Baldrige Criteria seek to continue the Big Q, staying on the leading edge of validated practices. What do you think are the critical issues and challenges for the Big Q?

Posted by Christine Schaefer We recently shared 16 tips based on the success stories of a health care organization, a small business, and a manufacturing company featured in our 2011 book Baldrige 20/20. The advice from senior leaders of those organizations is still valuable for those of any size and sector that aim to improve their performance using the Baldrige framework for excellence. Following are two more sets of do’s and don’ts from senior leaders of Baldrige Award recipients profiled in the book—this time from a public school district as well as a small business. Tips from Terry Holliday, (former) superintendent of Iredell-Statesville Schools (PDF profile), 2008 Baldrige Award winner (education): Don’t call it Baldrige (at least at the beginning of your journey). If you are dealing with a community that mistrusts change and innovation based on its experiences, convey the favorable results rather than labeling the improvement methodology. Don’t allow school staff members to give up on children, and don’t let students continue to fail until they become dropouts. Do focus on relationships and building trust among teachers and other school stakeholders. Listen and learn. Then address negative beliefs about and blame for student learning by modeling the change you want to see: model a learning-centered approach and showcase the results it can achieve. Do create a passion for learning, reigniting this passion among adults. As a school leader, continue to fight the fight. Tips from Dale Crownover, CEO of Texas Nameplate Company, Inc. (PDF profile), 2004 and 1998 Baldrige Award winner (small business): Don’t retreat into a silo when facing resistance from employees about a Baldrige improvement plan. Rather, recognize your role as change agent within your organization. Don’t assume all organizations must strive for the same "success." Instead, determine what level of performance your organization wishes to achieve and what type of evidence you need to collect to prove to yourselves and others that you’ve achieved it. Don’t let distrust among coworkers deter organizational decision making. Patiently wait for insights and fearlessly address oversights. Do keep your responses to the Baldrige Criteria’s Organizational Profile, which asks questions about your organization and its situation, current and readily accessible in good and bad times. Do envision where you want to go and, at the least, begin questioning what you really want by going there. Do make the decision to apply for the Baldrige Award—and recognize that your decision will provide many opportunities to benefit. Do study the pros and cons of major changes (e.g., in technology), and avoid the cons as much as possible. Do stay committed to pushing forward with change. Do reach out to receive training and coaching from Baldrige practitioners. Do link the collection of organizational performance data with strategic planning. Do trust your coworkers as much as you trust yourself in preparing a Baldrige Award application. Do be ready to pursue a new improvement journey even after you receive a Baldrige Award—taking your success to the next level. We hope you have enjoyed old wine in a new bottle with this series of tips reprinted from Baldrige 20/20. If you too have learned what to do—or what not to do—in order to use the Baldrige framework to better manage your organization, please share your tips by commenting below.

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey According to a recent IndustryWeek article, the 2015 edition of ISO 9001, the standard on quality management systems, is nearing completion with three focus areas: The process approach will strongly emphasize that the quality management system has to be woven into and fully aligned with an organization’s strategic direction. Superimposed on the system of processes is the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) methodology, which will apply both to individual processes, as well as the quality management system as a whole. An overall focus on risk-based thinking aims at "preventing undesirable outcomes," such as nonconforming products and services. At the Baldrige Program, we’ve interviewed several experts on the complementary usage of ISO and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, including Luis Calingo ("Better Than ISO? How Baldrige Benefits Manufacturers") and Ron Schulingkamp ("Baldrige and ISO QMS: A Complementary Relationship"). To me, the 2015 ISO focus concepts are reminiscent of the Baldrige Criteria. For example, The Baldrige Criteria guide an organization to align work systems and learning initiatives, as well as core competencies, with its strategic directions as part of planning. In fact, the Criteria build alignment across the organization by making connections and reinforcing measures derived from processes and strategy. In the Criteria, PDCA is called out as a common process improvement approach within category 6. A key element of this category is improving processes to achieve better performance—better quality from customers’ perspectives and better financial and operational performance. In fact, the learning that comes from PDCA is key to how the Criteria are used to evaluate processes. The Criteria encourage organizations to choose the tools (e.g., ISO, PDCA) that are most suitable and effective for an organization in making improvements. Measuring product performance (e.g., defect levels, service errors) is part of Criteria item 7.1. Such product and operational performance results demonstrate product and service quality and value that lead to customer satisfaction and engagement. The Criteria also cover risk-based thinking—intelligent risks, a concept introduced in the 2013-2014 Criteria. "Identifying strategic opportunities and intelligent risks is part of strategy, and pursuing the intelligent risks must be embedded in managing organizational operations." Innovation can result from such pursuit; the Criteria encourage organizations to use creative, adaptive, and flexible approaches to foster incremental and breakthrough improvement through innovation. In what ways do you think that the 2015 ISO 9001 edition and the Baldrige Criteria will be complementary? Note: The 2015-2016 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence will be available December 16.

Posted by Bob Fangmeyer This week, we officially released the 2015-2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework: A Systems Approach to Improving Your Organization’s Performance. This is the first time in the 27-year history of the Baldrige Program that the booklet containing the Criteria for Performance Excellence has been retitled to make clear that the framework is not just for organizations that plan to apply for the Baldrige Award. In the earliest versions, the booklets even included the award application forms. Eventually, the Application Forms and Award Criteria were split into two separate booklets, the Application Forms and Instructions and the Award Criteria. Around 1996, the Criteria booklet became the Criteria for Performance Excellence and maintained that title for the next 18 years. The new title change is more than just a change in name: It is an acknowledgment that the booklet, and Baldrige framework itself, contain far more than criteria for the national award. It also says that the Baldrige framework is something any organization can benefit from using. (For those purists who fear something precious has been lost, never fear! The criteria component is still called the "Criteria for Performance Excellence"). We also significantly streamlined the criteria and improved readability in this version. In addition, for the first time we have released a mid-level assessment tool for organizations seeking to improve their performance: Baldrige Excellence Builder. This new, freely available resource was intentionally designed to be useful for organizations that might not be ready to dive into the full criteria-which are, after all, the national standard of performance excellence, a very high bar indeed! The Baldrige Excellence Builder is simple, clear, and short and can help many organizations begin to apply a systems perspective to improving their processes and results. Because we expect very broad appeal and use, we also designed it to be useful for education and outreach. If you haven’t taken the time to read through it, I sincerely hope you will. Finally, in 2015, we will release a beginner’s guide of sorts, targeting organizations that need help just getting started with core concepts embedded within the Baldrige Excellence Framework. So much has gone into the new releases: months and months of development, design, and production; establishing the distribution and sales infrastructure; preparation for customer service support; marketing and communication efforts; partner distribution policies and systems. With so many things needing to be organized, aligned, and integrated to release two new products at the same time (and the Healthcare and Education booklets not far behind), I want to express my great appreciation for every member of the small but high-performing Baldrige staff involved in making this happen. This accomplishment once again demonstrates the power of teamwork and an engaged workforce that knows what needs to happen and takes responsibility and ownership to get it done. I cannot thank my staff enough for all that they do every day. I truly believe that we are on the cusp of dramatically expanding our brand and our reach. Although thousands of organizations have benefited from Baldrige, there is the potential for many more to do so. With the new resources and the help of the larger Baldrige community, including the network of Baldrige-based programs across the country, we hope to reach all those organizations that previously might have said, "Oh, Baldrige… we’re not good enough for that. We just want to get better." Please help us spread the news that Baldrige is about both improvement and excellence, no matter your organization’s size, sector, or current level of performance.

The Blogrige team and all of us at the Baldrige Program thank you for another great year. Blogrige will return January 6, 2015. 2014_Baldrige_Holiday_Card pdf

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey In a recent online video, Dr. Bill Neff, interim CEO and CMO at University of Colorado Health, for which 2008 Baldrige Award recipient Poudre Valley Health System (PVHS) is now part, shared PVHS’s journey to excellence. In 1997, it was a single hospital with a 24% annual employee turnover rate and five CEOs in four years; by 2008, it was a Baldrige Award winner. What happened? The Journey Dr. Neff, who was CMO at the time of the Baldrige Award, said that PVHS engaged over a 10-12-year period with the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence in an effort to "get everybody running in the same direction." In 1997, PVHS was in the midst of a changing health care market, but the largest challenge, said Neff, was the need for integration with very independent physicians. PVHS’s fifth CEO in four years had been working with several organizations using the Baldrige Health Care Criteria, and the hospital decided to give the Baldrige process a try. "If you participate in the process," Neff said, "one of the first thing you have to decide is who the heck are you and what do you want to do. . . . The [Baldrige] Organizational Profile really makes you do an internal assessment of what you are trying to do, and if you are good, what would that look like. You need to measure, analyze, deploy best practices. Everybody has to be in close alignment." Between 1996 and 2000, Neff said the hospital had really become pretty impressive, even being an early adopter of Magnet in the United States. Applying for a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, PVHS thought, "was a slam dunk." But the feedback written by Baldrige examiners from PVHS’s first and second award applications let the hospital know that it might not be as good as it thought it was, he said. From 2004 to 2008, Neff said that PVHS embarked heavily in the Baldrige process, trying to figure out how to get better. This included submitting applications to the Baldrige-based state award Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence (a member of the Alliance for Performance Excellence) and receiving feedback reports. "In essence, we had to make [the Baldrige Criteria] the way we were doing our day-to-day work. It couldn’t be an application that we filled in at the end of the year. It couldn’t be about the award. It was about looking at all of those elements of the Criteria and talking about how are we really trying to be what we say we want to be and how do we ensure that is completely deployed across the entire organization," Neff said. He added that it was especially important for Baldrige as a business model to be put into context for physicians; for example, PVHS conducted a Lean event that made patient processes more efficient and thus saved physicians time. The hospital had to translate the value of Baldrige into something that was real for the physicians. "Before [Baldrige], there was a tendency to go to where it’s easiest [to improve] and look right past or right over the areas where you’re weakest and need to improve the most," he said. "The [Baldrige] process forced us to look in the mirror in those areas. Slowly, we started getting better." One improvement started the day the PVHS board decided that the hospital would start measuring itself against top deciles, not just averages. "On that day, all of our scorecards went red," Neff said. Between 2004 and 2008, PVHS received four Baldrige site visits—its applications scored high enough to send a team of Baldrige examiners to PVHS to take a closer look. During this site visit week, Neff said, "folks who really, really know performance excellence are there to look at you really hard and say this is who you say you are but this is who you look like to us. You spend a week with [Baldrige examiners] who are really sharp, pointing out where you are doing well but then asking why aren’t you doing it there, too." Neff said the examiners "look under every hood." In 2008, PVHS received the Baldrige Award, the nation’s highest honor for organizational performance excellence. "By the time we finally got to that point," Neff said, "everybody thought that was really cool but what they really wanted was the feedback report. Because you kind of become addicted to that level of interaction with folks who are trying to help you get better." Lessons Learned Treat physicians as partners, not competitors or customers. PVHS recognized that physicians needed to have input into strategic initiatives, the strategic plan,  interdisciplinary teams, etc., but attendance at meetings needed to be as needed not mandatory. Physicians were also integrated into administrative leadership teams and given leadership development opportunities. "The biggest thing about physician engagement from the administrative side of the house," Neff said, "they kept looking at physician engagement as how do we get them to see things our way, the trick is that at least 50% of the time it’s how do we get to see things their way." For physicians, build a culture of engagement one step at a time, he said; show them the results, do what you said you would do, and follow up to show you did it. Encourage engaged physician leaders to engage other physicians. Constantly evaluate; performance excellence is not an instant fix. "We have a tendency to think that if we fix just one, two, three things then we’ll be close to perfect, and then we can move on to a different project. That was not our experience with performance excellence," Neff said. "With performance excellence, it becomes your culture and . . . you are going to slowly get better. It might not be at lightning speed on some elements, but you’re better today that you were yesterday, and you’re going to be better tomorrow. You’ll get there. . . . Once you’ve hardwired your systems, you just continue to get better." Look for partnerships. Once PVHS received the Baldrige Award, Neff said that finding partners was much easier, as Baldrige winners are proven to be high performing. In 2012, a joint operating agreement was signed between PVHS and the University of Colorado Hospital. "This is a testament to what you can accomplish with performance excellence," Neff said. "Remember we were that single, little bitty hospital up in Ft. Collins. To be able to come to the table with an academic system and be able to talk about an equal partnership was something that we would not have imagined in the mid-1990s." Other hospitals also have been added into the system under management agreements. Neff advises starting small and building trust with these new partners. Next Steps Neff said the next steps at University of Colorado Health are to build the whole system by integrating each category of the Criteria—implementing the performance improvement program across the entire system. He said this implementation is being done incrementally; for example, first excel at customer focus, then workforce focus, then a focus on quality metrics, etc. Neff said, "when [staff] tell me, I don’t know if we can do Baldrige, I can say, actually you’ve been doing it for a couple of years." The 2015-2016 Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence will be available in January 2o15.

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey In January 2015, the 2015-2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework (Health Care)—which contains the Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, core values and concepts, and scoring guidelines—will be released. The Baldrige Program is grateful that there has already been much written about the value of using this Criteria for improvement. "Baldrige hospitals are . . .  more likely to be cited for marked performance improvement over a five-year span," writes Deborah Bowen, president and CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives and Baldrige Fellow. In "Using Baldrige Criteria as a Tool for Hospitals’ Performance Improvement," Bowen writes that thousands of hospitals, clinics, and health care systems have turned to the Health Care Criteria "with its established framework for improvement and innovation that builds on core values and concepts, including: patient-focused excellence; organizational and personal learning; agility; and focus on results and creating value. . . . It is clear the Baldrige framework can be useful in enhancing systemic performance and achieving better results. . . . A key component is the importance of sharing best practices and learning from those who have achieved systematic results." Bowen adds, "Boards also can encourage their organizations to learn from others and adopt performance improvement processes using such resources as the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, because there is still much work to be done to improve the outcomes of health care for patients, families, and our communities." In "What About Lousy Hospitals?," John Griffith, professor emeritus, Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, The University of Michigan, writes, "Hospitals seeking excellence are pursuing various paths, but the best documented and most comprehensive is the ‘Baldrige journey.’ . . . Baldrige recipients and Magnet hospitals claim that they are ‘great places to get care’ because they are ‘great places to give care.’ Both document low workforce turnover and vacancy rates. . . . Hospitals such as AtlantiCare in Atlantic City, Henry Ford in Detroit, Sharp in San Diego, and North Mississippi in Tupelo all work in challenging economic environments. They are all Baldrige winners. Maybe the ‘lousy’ hospitals should study the public responses and start the Baldrige journey? It takes as little as three years to move from lousy to respectable or better." In "Correlation Between Baldrige Award Recipients and 100 Top Hospitals Winners," Truven Health’s Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president, Performance Improvement and 100 Top Hospitals, writes, "Once again, the selection of St. David’s HealthCare and Hill Country Memorial as 2014 Malcolm Baldrige Award winners and performance on the 100 Top Hospitals® National Balanced Scorecard overlap . . . a significant statistical association between use of Baldrige best management practices and highly balanced performance excellence. . . .  This is all very good news for measurement of the impact of leadership in hard data." As for any organization, its best testimonials come from its customers. Thankfully, the two 2014 Baldrige Award winners in health care have embraced the Baldrige spirit of improvement and sharing. In "Baldrige Awards are Just the Icing on the Cake for 2014 Winners," both Hill Country Memorial and St. David’s HealthCare write that participating in the Baldrige Award process brought them improvement: "We never got on this journey to win—though that’s amazing and we’re super-excited—it was to improve," says Debbye Dooley, executive director of business intelligence for Hill Country Memorial. C. David Huffstutler, president and CEO for St. David’s HealthCare, adds, "Obviously, our organization, our employees, our physicians are delighted. It’s something we’ve been working toward for a long time. . . . Though we have said from the beginning, while it would be nice to win the award, it really has been about the Baldrige process, and using it as a performance improvement tool."

Posted by Christine Schaefer Leaders of Baldrige Award-winning organizations have credited their use of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence with enabling them to achieve exceptional results. They represent a range of organizations: from large to small businesses, from large health care systems to single schools. Consider the following testimonials about the value of the Baldrige framework to a high-performing hospital, a large manufacturer, a small business, and a school district, respectively: "The Criteria really focused us . … To stay on track and get results for our patients—both quality and safety—you have to have an engaged workforce. … When everyone’s engaged, we have very consistent results." (Janet Wagner, CEO, Sutter Davis Hospital, 2013 Baldrige Award recipient) "Baldrige sustains and maintains a succession of learning—a model to stay out front of constant change. It helps an organization to reset if its processes are not as efficient as they should be." (James E. Berry, President, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, 2012 Baldrige Award recipient) "Before starting our Baldrige journey, we were working our butts off. We didn’t know Results and Impacts of Using Baldrige in K&N Restaurants how we were doing, probably above average. … Efforts were in different directions. … Baldrige brought us alignment. It is a tool to channel your efforts. … We all started rowing in the same direction. … Baldrige is the key to winning results and world-class excellence." (Ken Schiller, President, Co-Owner, and Founder, K&N Management, 2010 Baldrige Award recipient) "We’ve seen student achievement go up in ways that we never thought imaginable. We’ve become more efficient and more effective. And these successes aren’t just figures and statistics; they do change lives. And in the process, we’ve become an innovative force in education. We’re transforming how we deliver learning for our students, and that’s creating life chances, and that’s opening the door to each child’s future. For those pondering whether or not to pursue this Baldrige process, I say boldly, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’" (JoAnn Sternke, Superintendent, Pewaukee School District, 2013 Baldrige Award recipient) You can read more about the improvements and successes achieved by these and other Baldrige Award recipients in the online profiles of national role-model organizations in every sector. And you can follow these leaders by embracing the Baldrige systems approach to boosting performance excellence throughout your organization. All three sector-specific versions (business/nonprofit, education, and health care) of the 2015-2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework booklets are now available, with the release today of the education and health care editions. To paraphrase Sternke’s question, why wouldn’t you want to improve and excel, too? Editor’s Note: Listen and learn from the latest Baldrige Award-winning organizations—2014 award recipients PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice, McLean, VA; Hill Country Memorial, Fredericksburg, TX; St. David’s HealthCare, Austin, TX; and Elevations Credit Union, Boulder, CO—at the 27th Annual Quest for Excellence® Conference in Baltimore on April 12-15, 2015.  

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey A recent study conducted by a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business unveils "a framework for organizations to rediscover their potential and charge ahead using the levers of business excellence and innovation." Sunil Mithas, professor of information systems, said the framework is used by the Indian conglomerate, the Tata Group, whose revenues have multiplied tenfold since 2002. What is that framework? It’s the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, licensed and adapted by Tata into its Tata Business Excellence Model. From right to left, Sunil Mithas; Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry; and Sunil Sinha, resident director for Tata Sons, Middle East and North African Region, at the Business Excellence Convention in Chennai, India. The Tata group—whose many well-known brands include Jaguar Land Rover, Taj Hotels, Tetley, and Eight O’Clock Coffee—transformed itself from a $4 billion domestic company in 1991 to a $103 billion global enterprise by 2014, with an untiring focus on business excellence—a transformation derived from the Baldrige Criteria. According to Mithas, the "Baldrige Criteria’s power" helped the Indian holding company transform itself. One key factor was Tata’s "relentless focus on tracking and improving every measurable attribute of corporate excellence, from customer satisfaction to employee morale to strategy development and implementation. As it happens, Tata’s corporate leaders were greatly influenced by the principles behind the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. . . . Because of its broad holdings and massive scale, the Tata Group is sometimes called ‘the GE of India.’ But in terms of growth, if not sheer size, Tata outsmarts its American cousin. GE had revenues of $146 billion in 2013, up from $54 billion in 1991. Tata lags GE at $103 billion today, but that’s up from a mere $5.8 billion in 1992." Mithas recently discussed his Tata-based study in a podcast: "Innovation Engine." According to the episode description, the podcast discusses what companies can learn from the Tata Group’s "ascension to becoming one of the world’s most well-known—and profitable—businesses in the world, . . . [discussing] the Malcolm Baldridge framework for measuring innovation, why it’s important to have a long-term vision for innovation, and a number of different innovation competitions that Tata has set up to encourage innovation within its companies."

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon For those very careful readers of the Baldrige Excellence Framework, you will notice a subtle change in 2015-2016. We no longer refer to the framework as representing the leading edge of validated management practice. Are you now thinking we have abandoned our guiding principle for revision of the Criteria? Are you wondering what guides us now? Read on! Our definition of management has always been in the context of organizational performance management which begins with the role of senior leaders. Over the course of time the word "management" has taken on a meaning in many organizational environments as the work of front-line and mid-level supervisors and decision makers, in contrast to leadership who set the strategy and inspire the organization to achieve. The first few sentences in the definition of management in the Business Dictionary illustrate this point, "The organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives. Management is often included as a factor of production along with‚ machines, materials, and money." While that is clearly not the context in which our guiding principle is viewed, it is the reality of many organizations today and we must be clear in our intent. Baldrige starts with the role and actions of senior leaders and encompasses the strategic and operational aspects of organizational success. That posture is reflected, more clearly we believe, in our new guiding mantra contained in the 2015-2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework. The Baldrige Framework represents the leading edge of validated leadership and performance practice. Baldrige starts with the key roles of leadership: setting vision and values, exhibiting high ethical conduct, communicating, and guiding performance to achieve the mission. And it is an a-to-z guide that ends with measuring all key dimensions of organizational performance: product, process, customer, workforce, leadership and governance, and financial and market. It is also an organizational maturity model that unites the leadership with performance in an integration dimension that links results to the responsibilities of leaders and their role in creating change. Baldrige represents the leading edge of validated leadership and performance practice. We have not abandoned our guiding principle, we have made it more explicit. Is your organization on this journey?

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey On Sundays at 7 pm MT (9 pm ET), you can listen from anywhere in the world to hear best practices on performance improvement, results from using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, and, yes, maybe even a cowboy song or two. The radio show "Performance Excellence USA" is hosted by Julia Galbadon, president/CEO of Quality New Mexico, a Baldrige-based state program that is a member of the Alliance for Performance Excellence; Galbadon also currently serves on the ASQ board of directors. It airs on 770KKOB; on the Internet, the show can be found at http://www.770kkob.com/ and www.iheartradio.com. Using an interview format, Galbadon welcomes guests from all over the country, including members of the Baldrige community—award recipients, her colleagues at other Baldrige-based Alliance programs, the Baldrige director, ASQ leaders, and Baldrige examiners—as well as other esteemed performance improvement and management experts who share their expertise and experience. "The whole purpose," she said, "is learning best practices. . . . My guests are proud to share their stories; they believe in continual learning and sharing, so we can all learn and get better." This spring, Galbadon will host a radio show with author Jim Collins, whose books include Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall. Collins, who has spoken at a Quality New Mexico conference, will talk about leadership, management, strategy, and the concepts in his books. Galbadon said she’ll also ask him to elaborate on his quote, "I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results." Her radio shows have also included an interview with Mark Blazey, president of Quantum Performance Group, who often trains examiners on the Baldrige Criteria. They spoke about what senior leaders need to know about performance improvement and the value of using the Criteria for Performance Excellence. Blazey also talked about ways to get started with the Criteria and resources available to organizations. Galbadon has also hosted Baldrige Award and NM Performance Excellence Award winners and the Baldrige family, including Malcolm Baldrige’s daughter Megan and sister Letitia. (Gabaldon first met Midge, Malcolm’s widow, at a 1995 Quality NM conference during a special "Salute to Malcolm Baldrige.") Gabaldon visited often with Letitia and Midge at Quest for Excellence© conferences and felt an instant connection with the women. In fact, Letitia was the first guest when the radio show changed its name to "Performance Excellence USA." Galbadon said her most proud accomplishments from the radio show have come from facilitating connections. "I love connecting people; I’m a connector. . . . I’ve had the opportunity to showcase leaders from across the nation who are passionate about performance excellence and about making a difference in our communities, states, and nation." And these connections, she feels, have been a major accomplishment, especially with the world-wide audience available on the radio. On the show, she often has separate guests in studio and on the phone who discover networking opportunities and connect after the show, learning from each other and sharing. "Baldrige Award recipients have been so gracious in sharing everything and their time. . . . They are incredible leaders," she said. "I’m very, very proud that I know all of these people and am able to connect with them and invite them to speak in New Mexico." For example, Baldrige Award-winning CEOs Bob Pence of Freese and Nichols, Terry May of MESA, and Janet Wager of Sutter David Hospital have been recent radio guests. Galbadon said when Wagner spoke recently, her local guest Megan Baldrige’s eyes lit up, hearing about Sutter Davis’s results with patient safety and satisfaction. Megan went on to write an article for the Albuquerque Journal about what she heard. It’s a "very positive environment of performance excellence," said Galbadon. "After a while, this whole experience of being a Baldrige examiner, serving on the Baldrige Board of Overseers and Alliance Board, and being involved in this journey, it becomes a patriotic thing. . . . On a personal note, that’s how I feel these days. . . . It’s a very, very positive environment of people working together to help each other improve." Galbadon added, "Those connections to me are just so invaluable. As a teacher at heart, I find it so rewarding to be a conduit to help make these connections happen." One of her favorite radio shows, Galbadon  said, was when she featured Baldrige-Award winning Director Dr. Mike Sather of the VA Cooperative Studies Program Clinical Research Pharmacy Coordinating Center with cowboy singer Syd Masters. Sather, who is known for his presentations on the "Code of the West," especially enjoyed the in-studio songs by Masters, including the official New Mexico cowboy song "Under New Mexico Skies." Galbadon has hosted more than 700 radio and several TV shows in New Mexico since 1977. In 1999, in an effort to promote the value of Quality New Mexico, Galbadon said she approached a local radio station and the then-named "Quality New Mexico Radio Show" was born. Want to share your success stories on the radio? Contact Julia at julia@quality-newmexico.org.

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon The Baldrige Executive Fellows just completed another successful meeting. I am always amazed at how much I learn at these meetings from the Baldrige Award recipients’ senior leaders who give presentations, as well as from the Baldrige Fellows. The most recent session was hosted by Ritz-Carlton; they were joined by K&N Management as the second Baldrige Award recipient organization. This session was focused on customer and workforce excellence. There were many great insights, but I would like to focus on a particularly important one discussed by Ken Schiller, co-owner of K&N. He shared an important attribute of successful leaders, caring. He used a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, "Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." Both K&N and Ritz-Carlton clearly demonstrate a caring environment for all employees. Ritz-Carlton starts with a written Employee Promise and a Motto that is practiced every day. The Motto states, "We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen." Ritz-Carlton’s Employee Promise states that their Ladies and Gentlemen are their most important resource and promises to foster "a work environment where diversity is valued, quality of life is enhanced, and individual aspirations are fulfilled." K&N makes a Team Member Promise, "By applying the fundamentals of trust, respect, honesty, and leadership we promise to create an environment that preserves our core values, encourages personal growth, and inspires professional excellence." Leadership’s job is to delight Team Members through "training and coaching, feedback, communication, and providing a fun, safe work environment." At K&N Management, 70% of the managers started as hourly employees. In a Forbes blog post last year, John Hall stated that employees who feel valued and appreciated by leaders are much more likely to go above and beyond expectations of them. He discusses ways to show how leaders care for employees. Included in his recommendations are: look for ways to help with personal issues (K&N has a Team Member care team that is available to all Team Members), back them up with clients (Ritz-Carlton will help guests to stay elsewhere if they mistreat their Ladies and Gentlemen), and be real and transparent with employees. You can read all eleven recommendations in Hall’s blog post. You can hear from Ritz-Carlton and K&N Management in person at the 27th Annual Quest for Excellence Conference. Both organizations will be presenting and participating in a town hall session on the Workforce of the Future. Two Baldrige Core Values are Valuing People and Ethics and Transparency. They summarize the concepts discussed in this Blogrige post. How does your organization value its people, exhibit high ethics, and act transparently?

Posted by Christine Schaefer Here’s a question for those who have noted the very different settings of the latest two Baldrige Award recipients in health care: Do they bring to mind Donny and Marie Osmond for you, too? That analogy is playfully suggested by the author of a recent article in the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals & Health Networks® magazine featuring Hill Country Memorial and St. David’s HealthCare. "One’s a little bit country, and the other’s a little bit rock and roll," writes Paul Barr, contrasting the pastoral setting of Hill Country Memorial in Fredericksburg, Texas, with St. David’s HealthCare’s basis in Austin, Texas, a city renowned for live music. Barr describes the different ways the two organizations have used the Baldrige framework to improve their performance and the similar length of their quests for excellence. He also highlights impressive results each organization has achieved—in the top decile of health care organizations nationwide. Here are some examples of such results, which can be found in the organizational profiles of award recipients on the Baldrige website (linked above): The composite performance of St. David’s HealthCare for the past five years on core measures reported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been at or better than the top 10 percent of health care systems nationally for each disease group. David’s HealthCare also has ranked in the American College of Cardiology’s top 10 percent since 2010 for its "door-to-balloon" time in treating the most severe form of heart attack, in which the coronary artery is completely blocked off by a clot. (The "door-to-balloon time" refers to the amount of time between a heart attack patient’s arrival at the hospital and the point when intervention such as a balloon angioplasty is received.) Hill Country Memorial has consistently scored in the top 10 percent nationally (in data maintained by Healthgrades) for patient safety, general surgery, gastrointestinal care, and joint replacement. Hill Country Memorial also has consistently ranked in the top 10 percent nationally on CMS clinical process measures, health care outcomes and patient experience measures. In 2013, CMS ranked Hill Country Memorial higher than the top 10 percent nationally for patient experience measures such as "overall rating of hospital," "communication about medications," "pain management" and "responsiveness of hospital staff." You can learn more about and from these two role-model health care organizations at the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence® Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 12-15. The annual best-practice-sharing conference will feature leadership panels and Criteria category-specific sessions led by representatives of all four 2014 Baldrige Award recipients, including PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice and Elevations Credit Union. To be clear, Donny and Marie aren’t scheduled to perform at the 2015 Quest conference. But the newest Baldrige Award winners are sure to be hits with those of you who wish to learn about performance improvement from the best in your industry.  

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey In 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice (PwC PSP) became the first large service organization to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 15 years. But according to Scott McIntyre, managing partner and leader of PwC PSP, the nation’s highest award for organizational excellence is just one milestone in the group’s ongoing quality story. In an interview on Federal News Radio, McIntyre said, "When you embark on a journey of quality like this, it doesn’t end with the award. It’s a great milestone, a terrific reprieve, and something we’re proud of, but it is certainly just a milestone along the journey of continuous quality." And PwC PSP, a consulting and auditing firm for federal, state, and local governments, already has much to show for its journey: one of the fastest growing consulting firms serving the federal government for the period 2011-2014, scores rating it as "exceptional" or "very good" increasing from 50 percent in fiscal year 2008 to levels at or near 100 percent for fiscal years 2010 through 2014, revenue results from $41 million in fiscal year 2005 to $265 million in fiscal year 2014, and  staff certifications increasing 424 percent from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2014. McIntyre was asked why the group chose the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as a model for improvement: "We wanted to build a business that served the U.S. federal government in a distinctive way, and one of the things that we thought would help us achieve that would to be very customer oriented, very agile, and very flexible. Adopting the Baldrige Criteria and building our business and our operations around those criteria has helped enable us to do that." He said that adopting the Criteria really helped the group become more agile. He added, "the Criteria help you link your strategy, your human capital process, your leadership development process, and all of your core operations together and help them focus on what your customers actually want. The discipline forces you first and foremost to really learn and know what your customers, what your clients really value, and it forces you to drive your processes around adding value rather than adding layers of bureaucracy." The radio interview focused on the Baldrige Award process. Said McIntyre, "Candidly, having gone through the process, we’ve learned firsthand how disciplined you have to be to adopt these Criteria and how much of an impact they can have on your business." McIntyre described writing the Baldrige Award application as a "self-audit." It begins with writing the Organizational Profile, a comprehensive description of your industry, core values, organizational strategy, and operating model. The application then dives deeply into each of the seven areas of the Baldrige Criteria that are ultimately evaluated by the Baldrige examiners. The Baldrige application gives you an opportunity to explore linkages among areas of your operations and how each adds value, he said; "You need to articulate in the application how each area is reinforced by and related to the other, how you continuously improve each one." Top-scoring Baldrige applications are selected for site visits, where Baldrige examiners visit a company’s operations. "They put you on the spot. And I think that’s a good thing," he said. "They put you on the spot to defend your business. They make you think hard about the business, and the process helps not only define the application and the claims that you are making in the application but makes you think through all the operating imperatives of the business as well." The radio interview highlighted two elements of PwC PSP’s operations—customer engagement and knowledge management—that were given high scores during the Baldrige Award process. McIntyre defined customer engagement as first knowing what customers/clients want and then segmenting your market. The segmentation helps you know what services you are going to offer to which customers and how those services are going to add value. "For us, customer engagement starts with knowledge of who the customer is, knowing what they want but also defining what we’re going to do for the customer that adds value and constantly measuring and analyzing that and occasionally changing it as we learn what the customers’ needs really are," he said. McIntyre also offered advice regarding metrics: start with and focus on a simple cohort of metrics and don’t over analyze. He said the group is also constantly retraining and educating its people, helping them seek certifications, and ensuring they have a rich learning and development environment to continue their career growth. Added McIntyre, "[Winning the Baldrige Award] is really an accolade to all of our people. It builds their credentials while they work at PwC or if they go on to other things. They are all part of a successful Baldrige application. They were all part of a quality journey, a quality story that is heavily endorsed by receipt of this award. We’re excited for them and what it means for their careers, what it means to their credibility in the market." Learn more best practices from PwC PSP and from the other 2014 Baldrige Award recipients by attending the Baldrige Program’s next Quest for Excellence® Conference in April 2015.

Posted by Christine Schaefer Last year, two financial services organizations earned national recognition as Baldrige Award winners: Elevations Credit Union (ECU), headquartered in Boulder, Colorado; and PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice (PwC PSP), based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. No other organization in the same industry had received the prestigious national award for high performance since New Mexico-based Los Alamos National Bank did so in 2000. We recently highlighted PwC PSP’s accomplishments, so today’s post will focus on ECU. The member-owned, nonprofit credit union serves more than 106,000 people and employs 332 in four Colorado counties. It offers checking and savings accounts, auto loans, student loans, mortgages, home-equity lines of credit, business loans, credit cards, and financial planning services. And it counted assets of over $1.4 billion, gross revenue of $66 million, and net revenue of $9.5 million in 2013, shortly before applying for the Baldrige Award. In a recent interview with a news provider within the credit union industry, ECU Vice President of Business and Community Development Dennis Paul credited his organization’s use of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence with helping it "compete more effectively in the face of stiff competition." Following is an excerpt from the CUToday.info article that describes the dramatic results ECU achieved after it adopted the Baldrige framework in 2008: Prior to [ECU’s] employing the Baldrige framework, membership growth was 1%. From 2009-2013, that number soared to 6%. In those same time periods, credit unions in Elevations’ peer group went from 3% membership growth to 1%. More importantly, the credit union became more profitable, seeing capital growth skyrocket from 1% from 2004-2008, to 13% from 2009-13. In those same periods, peer group capital remained flat at 7% growth. "For us, it’s about excellence, about developing the best possible products and services to improve the lives of our member-owners," said Paul. Here are examples of other gains ECU has made in various performance areas. (More great results are conveyed in the organization’s profile on our website.) ECU’s wealth management rate (assets under management divided by total credit union assets) rose from just over 14 percent in 2011 to 21 percent in 2014. ECU’s mortgage market production volume increased from 1,123 loans in 2011 to 2,307 in 2014 (annualized). Courtesy of Elevations Credit Union ECU’s survey results have recorded favorable trends in employee engagement and satisfaction. The rate of respondents indicating that ECU "has a winning team" increased from 68 percent in 2011 to 85 percent in 2014; the rate who agreed ECU "builds careers" increased from 58 percent to 70 percent; the proportion who agreed ECU "makes me proud to be part of this organization" increased from 82 percent to 90 percent; and the proportion who agreed that ECU "gives me the responsibility and freedom to do my job" increased from 77 percent to 88 percent in the same period. As a result of ECU’s Business Process Management (BPM) methodology to foster improvement and innovation throughout the credit union, BPM has developed innovations such as Branch 2.0, a nontraditional branch concept that "utilizes a consultative approach emphasizing quality member engagement, provides financial solutions in a user friendly environment through a one-on-one advice-giving exchange, and enhances access to mobile, online and advanced-function ATM services." BPM also has enabled ECU to improve its performance on measures of process efficiency. For example, mortgage lending cycle time (days from locked to funded) decreased from 49 days in 2012 to 37 days in 2014, and consumer lending cycle time (receipt of application to time of funding) by product improved since 2013 for second mortgage, personal, auto, and Visa loans and products—even with increasing volumes. In addition, the monthly rate of mortgage loans per closer increased from 90 in 2012 to 100 in 2014, compared to a national benchmark of 72. You can learn more about ECU this spring at the Baldrige Program’s annual Quest for Excellence® Conference. Leaders of all four 2014 Baldrige Award recipients (including PSP, Hill Country Memorial, and St. David’s HealthCare) will share information about their organizations’ practices and learning as they progressed to the highest level of performance excellence.

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey The beauty of the systems approach in the Baldrige Excellence Framework is that it depicts the interwoven connections of an organization. In any business, service, nonprofit, school, or health care organization, decisions impact operations, which impact other decisions and operations elsewhere in the organization; this interconnectedness impacts resource use and strategy, as well as other elements of the organization, ultimately impacting its future success. Within the Baldrige Excellence Framework, the threads of several management and leadership concepts can be followed to see how they impact or are impacted by different areas of an organization; doing this can yield quite a few insights into the importance of alignment. In some places, the Baldrige Excellence Framework is even explicit in how the concept should be used (e.g., in decision making or strategy) or where the concept might be leveraged or capitalized on as an organizational asset. For example, let’s say you wanted to learn more about the concept "core competencies." What are they? In what areas of a management system are they important? How do they impact other operations across the system? Using the index (or the search function of a PDF file) in the Baldrige Excellence Framework as my guide, I can track the role of core competencies in an organization: In P.1, Organizational Description, core competencies are a key organizational characteristic with a direct relationship to an organization’s mission. In fact, a note in this item explains that core competencies, an organization’s areas of greatest expertise, are central to fulfilling that mission. In 1.1, Senior Leadership, core competencies are noted as a key factor in an organization’s sustainability. In 1.2, Governance and Societal Responsibilities, core competencies become one way to determine areas of community support (i.e., leveraging core competencies to ensure the most appropriate use of resources). In 2.1, Strategy Development, core competencies are used to make decisions on outsourcing, including which supplier and partner to choose. With a connection to work systems, core competencies are also considered when thinking about future strategy and challenges, as well as new core competencies that may be needed by the organization down the road. In this item, as elsewhere, the Criteria focus on "capitalizing" and "leveraging" core competencies—a clear indicator of their importance in making strategic decisions and a reminder that what the organization defined as its core competencies back in P.1 should be as accurate and appropriate as possible. (The organization’s leaders might find themselves reconsidering the core competencies as they complete this exercise.) In 5.1, Workforce Environment, core competencies are part of work accomplishment. In 5.2, Workforce Engagement, they are addressed as part of the learning and development system. In 6.1, Work Processes, the enhancement of core competencies is considered in product and process performance. In 7.4, Leadership and Governance Results, results for building and strengthening core competencies are requested. Tracking the concept of core competencies throughout the Criteria really highlights their importance as part of strategy and an area of great focus for an organization. It’s clear that this concept, as well as others, is a key business attribute that impacts the entire organization’s system as a whole—not just one area of operations. This of course is part of the systems perspective of the Criteria: "With a systems perspective, you use your measures, indicators, core competencies, and organizational knowledge to build your key strategies, link these strategies with your work systems and key processes, and align your resources to improve your overall performance and your focus on customers and stakeholders." Other concepts that are woven throughout the Criteria include innovation, use of data and information, and change readiness. What other key concepts might you follow as threads through the Criteria?

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey In 1995, for the first time in its 100-year history, 2010 Baldrige Award recipient Freese and Nichols, Inc. posted a negative profit—-1.7 percent—and its morale was trending in the wrong direction. In 1996, the engineering and architectural firm’s CEO, who sat on the board of a local hospital, learned about how the hospital was using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to improve its performance and thus embracing continuous improvement (CI). In the Baldrige spirit of sharing best practices, the CEO brought the Baldrige Criteria home to his own company, and the firm quickly regained profitability and more. That history is outlined in the recent article "Human Side: Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement" in Municipal Sewer & Water, a monthly magazine for the sanitary and water maintenance industry. "We didn’t start out to win a Baldrige Award," explains Robert Pence, P.E., BCEE, Freese and Nichols’ current President and CEO, who is also on the Baldrige Program Board of Overseers. "We just wanted to implement a continuous improvement management system that would measure the things we do. . . . When we found gaps between our goals and how we really were doing, CI showed us how to do root-cause analysis and take action to fix things, then go back and measure them to make sure they’re fixed." According to the article, results have been impressive: The firm regained profitability in 1996. Bookings in 2014 hit more than $96 million, compared to $20 million in 1995. Employee turnover over the past 10 years has averaged less than half the industry’s national average (6 or 7 percent compared to up to 16 percent). The percentage of new employees who stay for two years stands at around 88 percent. In the last 15 years, client satisfaction increased to 4.73 from 4.4. Overall Client Satisfaction Survey Results 2002-2013 "A review of financial results during the 1970s and 1980s revealed that Freese and Nichols did well when the economy fared well and poor when it was poor," writes the article’s author. "But ever since the company embarked on its CI journey, it performs solidly no matter how the economy performs." And that solid performance and CI culture continues today, leading to a strategic expansion to North Carolina and enhanced customer relationships, especially with municipal clients. According to Mike Wayts, P.E., CFM, North Carolina Division Manager, and Cindy Milrany, Chief Financial Officer, maintaining the firm’s culture—which helped it win a Baldrige Award—during the expansion is very important and part of the firm’s strategy and grass-roots efforts. Strategic planning and ensuring that the workforce always has growth opportunities are important to Freese and Nichols, said Milrany; "You can’t provide everything for your employees if you are not giving them what they need for growth. A new office like North Carolina provided a great opportunity." Wayts added, "If we’re not growing as a whole company then we’re not supplying growth potential." The geographic expansion has helped to offer new opportunities. Freese and Nichols has already begun the process of partnering with universities, including offering monetary support through scholarships and recruiting fairs, and supporting the local community through board support and donations to the YMCA, for example. Wayts said what was particularly important to the firm was bringing its CI culture to North Carolina. "Some of the core things that make the company who we are and helped us win Baldrige, we’re making sure we apply in North Carolina," he said, citing its customer service hedgehog concept, sales system, and focus on employee satisfaction as setting it apart from competitors. Among offices, the processes and technical excellence program are the same, he said, so that new employees and long-time employees experience the same culture and can work together seamlessly across offices. Milrany added, "We do a great job of deploying consistent processes across corporate functions and technical disciplines." In fact, she said Freese and Nichols conducts a culture analysis every three years; "It’s almost scary how consistent our culture is across offices." Municipal clients also continue to be a growth area for the firm, which is offering services in North Carolina related to water and waste-water utilities, water resources, storm water, program management, and construction services. "We really had no idea how [receiving the Baldrige Award] would open a different kind of relationship with some of our clients," said Milrany. "We were very engaged with helping the city of Irving receive the Baldrige Award," as well as other cities on a Baldrige journey of improvement. Milrany said Freese and Nichols uses an integrated sales system with gold sheets for its clients: level 1 of the system means providing commodity services, up to level 5 of the  system that directs the firm to help the client improve its own organization. "Baldrige helps us to have that level-5 relationship with a lot of our clients," she said. "Not all of them would tell you they are on the Baldrige journey, but a lot of them would tell you we believe in CI or performance excellence, and they’ve been able to use the Criteria to enhance that journey that they’re on."

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey A few years ago, Director Emeritus Harry Hertz of the Baldrige Program wrote the short brochure "Baldrige Asks, ‘How do You Know?'" to make the case that the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence can guide an organization in knowing whether it is high-performing and innovative, whether it is achieving world-class performance, and whether it is satisfying its customers and keeping its competitors at bay. But, obviously, to answer the question you have to know what best practices and results are out there, among your competitors and among organizations in other industries. The Criteria define benchmarking as identifying processes and results that represent best practices and performance for similar activities, inside or outside your industry. If you don’t benchmark, how will you know? But how do you make benchmarking an efficient, value-added activity and not just something else to do? At the upcoming Quest for Excellence® conference, we’ll have an opportunity to learn how at "The Power of Benchmarking" with Allyson L. Young, SPHR, HR & Brand Director of Baldrige Award recipient K&N Management, whose vision is "to become world famous by delighting one guest at a time." Her top-three tips on benchmarking: Benchmarking is critical to maintaining a competitive edge. Studying best practices keeps you ahead of the game. Effective benchmarking creates beneficial partnerships and networking opportunities. Internally benchmarking best practices is as effective as externally benchmarking in driving continuous improvement. K&N Management received the Baldrige Award in the service industry, where its Rudy’s Country Stores and Bar-B-Q Mighty Fine Burgers, Fries and Shakes, as fast-casual restaurants in the Austin, TX, area, have significantly outperformed local competitors and national chains. Within the service industry, Young offers three key ways that organizations can benefit from use of the Baldrige framework: The Baldrige Framework promotes innovation, which promotes learning and continuous improvement in every part of the organization. Many small businesses, especially restaurants, are family-owned-and-operated and are simply reactive to the environment. When applying the Baldrige Framework, leaders become more disciplined in terms of long-term thinking, which results in being more proactive in problem solving and continuous improvement. Many business owners are concerned about their future and sustainability. The Baldrige Framework provides the guidelines for operational excellence, which results in long-term profitability and sustainability. What else will you learn if you attend this session on harnessing the power of benchmarking? How to be intentional when benchmarking. Put together a plan and then put it into action How to use strategic planning to determine gaps to benchmark To learn from this and other sessions featuring role-model Baldrige Award recipients sharing best practices, register for the Quest for Excellence, April 12-15, in Baltimore, MD.

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon I have recently read numerous copies of the same short blog post on different web sites. The blog post says there is one simple question to ask that will give your organization a competitive advantage if you act on it quickly. The question is: "What do your customers want more than anything?" While listening to customers and meeting or exceeding their desires is a key consideration in strategy, the 2015-2016 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence provide a systems perspective to organizational performance leadership and strategy that cover all dimensions contributing to ongoing organizational success. So at the risk of complicating what has been put forward as a one question path to success, let me propose five additional questions to consider. 1. What is your organization’s vision? What is your organization’s North Star? Where do your leaders envision the future of your organization will be? What is your organization striving to become? 2. How are you thinking strategically? How are you scanning your environment to understand opportunities and threats? How are you looking for blind spots that could surprise you? How do you remain agile, so you can address technological or economic changes? 3. What are your work systems for the future? How will you efficiently produce your products and services in the future and protect your intellectual property? What work will be done by your employees? What will you do through partnerships, outsourcing, or your supply chain? 4. How are you building organizational knowledge? How are you capturing the knowledge of your employees and sharing it in your organization? How are you helping your employees learn and develop for the future? How are you innovating? 5. How are you assuring the resources to implement your plans? How are you making the finances and people available to make sure you can accomplish your plans? Is your organization set for success? Are you looking at customer desires only or are you addressing all six questions? If you would like to hear from some organizations that are addressing all six questions in role model fashion, join us at Quest for Excellence 27!