In the first article in this series, I described two of the seven characteristics of organizations with sound management systems: (1) they think process and (2) they act on data. By winning the Baldrige Award, organizations demonstrate the effectiveness of their management systems through world-class results, a sampling of which you will find in the links at the end of this article.

Here, then, are the next three characteristics of these role-model organizations:

3. They know where they’re going. Yeah, I know, you’ve got a vision and a mission. Do you measure progress on them? Great companies know that what they’re doing today takes them further along the path to what they wish to become, and they don’t know it intuitively, they know it measurably. Today’s actions meet objectives that support strategies that realize the vision.

This interlinked structure is the product of careful research, thoughtful analyses, and ambitious goals. Dozens of people—sometimes hundreds of people—participate in the process of discovering what their company is, where it must go, how it can get there, and what will obstruct its progress. They repeat this process annually. When they’re done, they know individually and collectively where they are going. Even better, they know what they must do—individually and collectively, today and tomorrow—to get there.

4. They align activities. At most companies, if you strapped every employee into a harness and told them to pull, you wouldn’t get very far. Some would sit down and wait for the moment to pass. Others would set off in their own directions. Still others would give a half-hearted tug hoping that the illusion of support would be good enough. A few would throw their shoulders into the task only to be frustrated when nothing moved.

Companies that can align all of their people and activities with a shared vision, strategies, and objectives and move as one toward them enjoy an almost insurmountable competitive advantage. They get the right things done better and faster. They anticipate. They focus. They tackle challenges like a well-seasoned team conquers a mountain: in synch, working together, all eyes on the goal.

5. They blur boundaries. It’s no surprise that one of the focal points in business in the past decade has been supply chain management, and the focus goes well beyond the quality of goods and services received. For many companies, key suppliers have become partners in the production process, involved in the design of new products and services, strategic planning, quality improvement, and customer service.

Great companies blur the boundaries on the other end of the pipeline as well. They deploy myriad strategies to listen to and learn from their customers and use this knowledge to delight their customers. And delight is what they seek. I’ve worked with Baldrige winners who pay little attention to the percent of “satisfied” customers in surveys, not because they don’t care, but because the percent has been at or near 100 for so long that the data can’t help them improve. Instead, they work to boost the percent of “very satisfied” customers because studies have shown that such customers are six times more loyal than “satisfied” customers. Loyalty breeds repeat business and referrals, the twin engines of sustainable growth.

To check out the results Baldrige Award winners have achieved, click on these articles:

• What Differentiates Baldrige Award Winners (Part 1)
• What Differentiates Baldrige Award Winners (Part 3)
• Baldrige and Quality Results
• Baldrige and Financial Performance
• Baldrige and Customer Results
• Baldrige and Workforce Results

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