Baldrige Process
Bottom-Up Baldrige
One of the most common questions I get from managers and employees who believe Baldrige is exactly what their organizations need is: How do I get senior leaders to see the value of this?
Paige Lillard has an answer that worked.
I came across an interview on the Baldrige program’s Web site, link here, with Lillard, VP of business excellence at Turner Broadcasting System. Turner Broadcasting employs more than 9,000 people at such networks as CNN, TBS, and TNT.
Lillard has a small consulting team within Turner Broadcasting that is responsible for helping units within the organization achieve their goals. She does this through the Baldrige model.
Lillard was in the audio department in the early 1990s, an extrovert spending her days alone in an audio studio, and she wasn’t happy. She started learning about total quality management and was intrigued by the concept of leveraging employee engagement and involving them in creating and improving processes. She talked to her manager and asked to discuss it with their VP. She asked him what kept him up at night and he said he wanted to get more out of the staff. Lillard outlined her ideas and he supported them and they started building a performance…
29Sep2011 | Steve George | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Promising Future of Baldrige
On September 14, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science voted to deny funding for the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program for fiscal year 2012. The subcommittee voted to cut the budget for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which the Baldrige program is part of, by about 10%. The bill now goes to the full Senate Appropriations Committee for a vote, after which the Senate will vote on it. The House of Representatives has already voted to eliminate federal funding of the Baldrige program.
The likely end of federal funding does not mean the end of the Baldrige program. Federal funding represents about 19% of the Baldrige program’s $51 million in total annual resources, a figure that includes funds from the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, application fees, and the volunteer services of nearly a thousand examiners.
While there is no doubt that losing $9.6 million will affect the Baldrige program, Baldrige leaders inside and outside the program have been discussing options for sustaining and growing the program post federal funding. This may include greater roles by the American Society for Quality, which currently administers the program, or private companies, but the Baldrige program will endure.
To…
20Sep2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedTwo-Time Baldrige Award Winners Show Impressive Results
Five businesses have earned the Baldrige Award twice: Solectron, MEDRAD, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Texas Nameplate, and Sunny Fresh Foods (which is now Cargill Kitchen Solutions). They represent large and small businesses, manufacturing, and service.
The Baldrige program analyzed the results of these five organizations to determine how much growth in sites, jobs, and revenue they achieved during the six- or seven-year period between their first and second Awards. To protect the proprietary nature of the data, the program focused on median growth, which is a conservative number, as explained by Harry Hertz, head of the Baldrige program, here.
As a group, the five businesses that won two Baldrige Awards grew significantly during the span between Awards:
- 67% growth in number of sites
- 63% growth in jobs
- 93% growth in revenue
It’s important to remember that these five organizations had to demonstrate impressive results to win their first Awards. They did not achieve this growth by resurrecting struggling companies but by building on their success integrating the Baldrige model. They started at the top and then they went even higher.
This is what any organization can expect if it rigorously deploys Baldrige. In my experience, the benefits start to accrue in the first year with new knowledge of…
31Aug2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedBaldrige ROI at Cargill
The Baldrige program’s Web site has a slide that demonstrates the return on investment of integrating the Baldrige model.
Cargill has an internal assessment program similar to what Tata has now and what Honeywell had in the 1990s, which I wrote about here. Two Cargill business units have won Baldrige Awards, one of them twice. According to the Baldrige program, “Cargill color-codes its businesses based upon their degree of deployment of the Baldrige Criteria. Gold represents businesses with a high degree of deployment; Blue represents businesses with partial deployment; and White represents businesses beginning the Baldrige journey.”
The chart clearly shows the benefit of integrating the Baldrige model, reaffirming the results achieved by Tata, Honeywell, and Baldrige Award winners. According to Jerry Rose, who has spearheaded the Baldrige effort at Cargill, “deciding to embrace the Baldrige program in your company is a commitment to a journey. It takes time, it takes dedication, and it takes resources. What I know for sure is that there is a huge return on your investment.”
To read more about integrating Baldrige to get the results you desire, click on these articles:
- Study Confirms: Baldrige Gets Results
- How to Integrate Baldrige
- Tata: World-Class Baldrige Role Model
- Baldrige Gets Results
- 10 Steps to World Class
…
29Aug2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedStudy Confirms: Baldrige Gets Results
Paul Grizzell alerted me to a study by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the British Quality Foundation of the impact of implementing the EFQM Excellence Model on bottom-line business results. The EFQM started four years after the Baldrige program and uses a similar model and assessment process. The following graph shows the percent that award-winning companies outperformed comparison companies five years after receiving their first awards.
The study used public financial information to track the performance of 120 EFQM, Baldrige, and other similar award-winning companies, including 24 U.S. companies, over an 11-year period. It also tracked the performance of a comparison company for each award-winning company that was in the same country, used the same accounting data, and was close in size as measured by total assets. The 11-year period started five years before a company received its first award and ended five years after it received its first award.
The award winners also outperformed the comparison companies in the first year after they received their awards: 3% better in market share, 8% in sales, 12% in assets, and -1.5% in total cost over sales. And they outperformed the comparison companies three years out: 36% in market share, 17%…
25Aug2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedTata: World-Class Baldrige Role Model
If your organization wants to achieve and sustain excellent performance, you need a proven, systematic approach. For the Tata companies, India’s largest business conglomerate, that approach is the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM), which is adapted from the Baldrige model.
It’s an approach Honeywell took in the mid-1990s with measurable results. As the average scores of its internal Baldrige assessments improved, so did its operating profit.
Tata companies has also internalized the Baldrige process, which is managed by Tata Quality Management Services (TQMS). The description of the Tata process from its Web site sounds exactly like the Baldrige application process:
15Aug2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedThrough TBEM, TQMS helps Tata companies gain insights on their strengths and their opportunities for improvement. This is managed through an annual process of applications and assessments. Each company writes an application wherein it describes, in the context of the TBEM matrix, what it does and how it does it. This submission is then gauged by trained assessors who study the application, visit the company and interact with its people. The assessors map out the strengths and improvement opportunities existing in the company before providing their feedback to its leadership team.
TQMS trains and certifies assessors, who are selected from across the group, and…
Baldrige.com Joins Alltop
Baldrige.com has been selected to join the ranks of top leadership sites at Alltop, which lists the headlines for the top sites in a number of categories. Unfortunately, Alltop doesn’t list these sites alphabetically so you have to scroll down to the bottom of the leadership page here to find us.
Take a moment to browse the listings and you will notice that 90% or more of the content of these sites focuses on the personal side of leadership with topics such as “10 No-Brainer Ways to Become a Better Leader,” “6 Tips to Set Goals That Will Get You Where You Want to Go,” and “Job Search and Person-to-Person Networking.”
Baldrige.com is different. The information we provide focuses on how to develop a more effective management system: Information you need to build the organization you want. As Alltop shows, it’s easy to find websites that tell you how to improve your leadership style but harder to find sites that tell you how to improve your leadership system.
Baldrige.com now offers more than 550 articles on all aspects of performance excellence as defined by the Baldrige model. Fundamental information is listed in the second column on this page while most of the articles are organized…
17Jun2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
