Sustaining the Culture

Sustainability has become a major issue for organizations and leaders that want to sustain the positive changes they have made through programs such as Baldrige, lean, and Six Sigma, but the truth of the matter is that they can’t. Such programs often flounder as soon as new leadership takes over or priorities change or new ownership assumes control.

I’ve written about the impact of leadership changes in “Leadership Matters Most,” citing the example of AT&T Universal Card Services, which was launched using the Baldrige model, climbed to second in the U.S. credit card industry in just 30 months, and then changed leadership and dropped to eighth over the next 30 months.

In “Keep Your Eye on Process Improvement” (HBR, August 18, 2010), Brad Power recounts the story of Allied Signal, which used Six Sigma in the 1990s to produce 31 straight quarters of earnings-per-share growth of 13% or more. Leadership changed in 2000 and 18 months later, the Six Sigma culture had essentially disappeared.

Sustainability of the positive changes associated with Baldrige, lean, and Six Sigma is not difficult if leadership and ownership don’t change, but such changes are inevitable. CEOs move on, quit, or retire. Companies merge or are acquired. So the ultimate sustainability question is: How can we keep the transformation going after those who led it are gone?

I see two ways this can happen. The first is to replace the leaders of the transformation with new leaders who fully support it. If the CEO is replaced by the COO who was personally…

Building a Company on Baldrige

Baldrige stories turn up in unlikely places, like the article, “Striving for quality has real payoffs,” on Computerworld (April 20, 2010). Al Kuebler describes his experiences getting hired as the CIO for a start-up business that was organized, built, and operated according to the Baldrige model.

During his job interview, Kuebler learned that efficient IT service delivery would be required, but that the most important measure of IT performance would be ensuring that every business function had the information it needed to make better, faster decisions for the customer.

Kuebler started his work on this issue where he needed to start: with his customers. His IT team met with each business component to establish their business needs. They then “created a diagram of the overall flow of essential information for the entire business and each component within it.” They verified their diagram with each business unit before presenting it to senior management.

This dialogue was enlightening. “I knew precisely, for the first time in my career, how the business made its profit and in what ways the IT function’s performance was a factor in generating client satisfaction, growth, and profitability,” wrote Kuebler.

The company Kuebler helped launch was AT&T Universal Card Services, which won the Baldrige Award in 1992. To my knowledge, it’s the only organization that was built from the start on the Baldrige model and that went on to win the Award. If I remember correctly, it received the Award just three years after the company was formed. A few years later, a…

The Value of Baldrige Consultants

I’ve noticed a certain snobbery among some people about hiring consultants to help with their organization’s Baldrige assessment. They tend to be the same folks who believe that every step forward can be made unassisted. Lean? We can learn how to do that on our own. Six Sigma? No problem. Baldrige? How hard can it be?

The truth is, you can do all of these without outside help. I remember being asked about working with a college on its Baldrige Award application only to get a phone call telling me my services wouldn’t be needed: Someone advising the college told them they could do it without me. Which they did. And they won the Award. To me, that proves the college’s management system was very good and that they had the expertise–and the time–to tell their story well.

Those are the two things Baldrige consultants bring to the table: expertise and the ability to save the organization time. An effective assessment or application requires understanding what the Criteria are asking and what your organization does in response. Neither of these is easy. Unless you have an experienced Baldrige examiner on staff, the learning curve is steep, especially for the first assessment. A Baldrige consultant can provide training, help interpret the Criteria, guide or conduct the research, write or edit the assessment, and provide feedback on strengths and opportunities for improvement.

A good Baldrige consultant will help the people working on the assessment understand how the Criteria work and how to tell their organization’s…