That’s what Iredell-Statesville Schools (ISS) scored in its first Baldrige assessment in 2002.

It’s rare to see the starting point for an organization. I mean, who wants to tell people they scored 83 points out of 1000. Kudos to ISS for making this public and for the dramatic progress they made over the next six years. In 2008, ISS received the Baldrige Award and reported its score at 626 points.

I’ve frequently been asked by senior leaders whose organizations are new to Baldrige how long it can take to win the Award. I tell them three years to never.

Three years is impossibly short unless an organization is process-oriented, has been collecting data on key measures for awhile, and is committed to making major improvements quickly. Never is the more likely result because few leadership teams have the desire or attention span to stay the course.

Based on experience, I think it typically takes five to six years to get from “how do you spell Baldrige” to receiving the Award. It takes that long because an organization needs time to identify opportunities for improvement, design or redesign processes that address them, track results and make refinements, collect data on key measures, and find benchmarks. You have to be good at everything and great at a few things to get a Baldrige Award, and that doesn’t happen overnight.

Of course, the payoff of this five-to-six-year process is a much improved management system that’s generating better results that help you achieve your vision and carry out your mission.

The goal is performance excellence. The Award is gravy.

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