How Can We Perform Better?
In the current economic downturn, a lot of organizations are doing more with less. Fewer people. Less money. Same ambitious goals. Businesses have been slow to hire because of the higher productivity of the people they’ve retained.
If you’ve seen your organization’s strategic plan, you have a good idea what its goals are and some ideas about how you can help achieve them. At the same time, you’re probably busy enough not to be looking for more work. So how do you make your job more interesting and your role in the organization more valuable without burning yourself out with the effort?
The answer is to work more efficiently, and the way to do that is through process thinking. A smart question you can ask is, ‘What’s the process?’ The question gets people thinking about flaws in the process rather than blaming people for errors. Inevitably, focusing on the process triggers questions about what can be done to fix it.
If your organization has formal approaches to process management and improvement, you should learn what they are and how you can use them. If your organization doesn’t have formal approaches, or if it has them but reserves them for sanctioned process management/improvement teams, you will benefit from learning and applying some basics of process thinking.
The first is to understand what a process entails, which is captured in this SIPOC …
Joseph A. De Feo | May 20th, 2013 | Continued
Update: Tuesday, September 12, 2012
Over the course of the next week, Baldrige.com will be undergoing some site maintenance and construction. We ask that you please be patient as we make these changes, and apologize for any inconvenience we may cause. We’re working hard to make the site a safer and better-looking version of itself, and can’t wait to show it to you!
Below is a link to a survey relating to the form and function of our site; we need your feedback to improve the value being delivered to you, your organization, and fellow professionals. Thank you taking five minutes to fill out this survey.
Kind regards,
Joe, Tom, & the Baldrige.com team
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GRGPJC8…
Joseph A. De Feo | September 12th, 2012 | Continued
The Birth of Baldrige
The following post is being featured once again, in light of the 25th anniversary of the Baldrige Award. Please enjoy!
(The following excerpt describing how the Baldrige Award came about is taken from Steve George’s first Baldrige book,The Baldrige Quality System, published by Wiley & Sons in 1992)
In the early 1980s, U.S. business and government leaders worried about the nation’s ability to compete. They formed councils to study the problem. They participated in conferences and sat on committees whose sole aim was to figure out how to improve the quality of U.S. products and services on a national level.
Read More…
In 1983, the final report on seven computer networking conferences sponsored by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), in which about 175 corporate executives, business leaders, and academicians participated, recommended the creation of a National Quality Award.
Later that same year, the National Productivity Advisory Committee, a group of corporate executives, academicians, labor leaders, and government officials, recommended creating a national medal for productivity achievement.
In April 1984, a report by the White House Conference on Productivity called for a national medal for productivity. Other groups, both public and private, debated solutions to American competitiveness. Many called for a national award.
In September 1985, corporate quality business leaders formed a Committee to Establish a National Quality Award. Over the next year, the committee developed a …
Steve George | July 11th, 2009 | Continued
About this Site
Joseph A. De Feo
Joseph A. De Feo, MBA, President and CEO of Juran Institute, Inc., is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on transformational change systems and breakthrough management principles. For nearly 25 years, De Feo has worked as a Juran Executive Coach helping business leaders increase sales, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction through the deployment of process improvement programs, including Lean and Six Sigma, strategic planning, and cultural transformation.
His ability to cut through complex issues and apply proven methodologies and solutions has made hima sough-after business partner for industry leaders around the globe such as Anthem, Duracell, Emhart Glass, Lance Foods, Raytheon, Samsung, and Unilever.
Mr. De Feo is co-author of Juran’s Quality Handbook 6th Edition, The Complete Guide to Performance Excellence; the “go to” resource for deployment leaders. De Feo’s belief that a relentless customer focus and integrity drives business results was recently noted by Steve Denning of Forbes.com.
“By re-focusing primary attention on the customer and on exceeding the customer’s expectations, the Juran Quality Handbook has done quality management a great service.”
Michelle Matschke
Michelle Matschke is the Editor at Baldrige.com, in addition to being the Sr. Business Development Associate at Juran Institute. Michelle has worked for Juran in a few different positions over the years, but has settled into this role and truly enjoys promoting performance excellence through Baldrige.com. For …


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