One of the distinguishing characteristics of Baldrige Award winners is the alignment they achieve of processes, individual performance, measurement systems, strategic plans, and results with the mission, vision, and goals of the organization. When everything and everyone is pulling in the same direction, an organization can produce and sustain performance excellence.

According to the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado, organizations that decide to systematically improve their management systems can and should work on alignment right from the start. In a presentation at the twelfth Quest for Excellence this year, Monfort emphasized four dimensions that need to be aligned right away:

• Stakeholder needs and relationships
• Organization structures and systems to address those needs
• Performance measures to track performance and progress
• Strategic goals and objectives

You can view the slides in the presentation by visiting Monfort’s Web site here. The presentation is relevant to any type of organization because the concepts, like the Baldrige model, are applicable to all organizations.

The sixth slide in the PDF presentation shows how Montfort defined a student-centered process framework, identifying key stakeholders and their needs and relationships on one slide. The next two slides overlay Monfort’s management control system to show who is responsible for meeting these needs.

Like many organizations, Monfort uses a color-coded stoplight system to show progress on key performance indicators. Slide 11 places the 20 KPIs and the supporting performance indicators on the process framework to show how performance measures align with the framework, color-coded to also show current performance on each indicator. The next slide lists Monfort’s five strategic objectives and shows how they align with the KPIs and the process framework.

According to the Web site, “the first step is to identify the details for all four components and then identify the gaps and misalignments and then work on filling the gaps and aligning the components. The slides demonstrate how this can be done.

To read more about alignment, click on these articles:

• KEYSTONE: Alignment and Integration
• Effective Strategic Initiatives
• Aligning Individual Performance with Your Mission and Vision
• Backdoor Access to World-Class Performance
• 5 Added Values of the Baldrige Process

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