All Posts Tagged With: "Criteria"
Baldrige Model: How do you measure, analyze and improve organization performance?
Item 4.1 in the Baldrige Criteria asks key questions about how you use data and information to improve performance. The following processes, best practices, and problem areas look at critical issues in this part of the Baldrige model.
Your organization needs processes for:
- Selecting, collecting, aligning, integrating, and communicating data and information for tracking daily operations and organizational performance
- Selecting key comparative data and information and voice-of-the-customer data and information and using it to support decision making and innovation
- Ensuring that your performance measurement system can respond to rapid and/or unexpected change
- Reviewing organizational performance and capabilities, including using key performance measures and the analysis of those measures
- Sharing lessons learned and best practices identified during organizational performance reviews across the organization
- Using organizational performance reviews to project future performance and to develop priorities for continuous improvement and innovation
Best practices to consider:
- Develop a performance measurement system, the most common of which is a balanced scorecard, that defines how data and information will be selected and collected, aligns key performance measures with the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic objectives, and communicates performance throughout the organization.
- Role model organizations use comparative data and information for as many key measures as possible to provide context for their performance, helping them understand…
Baldrige Model: How do you govern and fulfill your societal responsibilities?
Item 1.2 in the Baldrige Criteria asks key questions about your organization’s governance system, legal and ethical behavior, and societal responsibilities. The following processes, best practices, and problem areas look at critical issues in this part of the Baldrige model.
Your organization needs processes for:
- Management and fiscal accountability
- Transparency in operations and in the selection and disclosure polices for board members
- Independent internal and external audits
- Protecting stakeholder and stockholder interests, as appropriate
- Evaluating the performance of senior leaders and the board
- Using senior leader and board member reviews to develop and improve performance of these leaders and of the leadership system
- Preparing for and addressing any adverse impacts on society of your products and operations
- Promoting and ensuring ethical behavior in all interactions
- Contributing to the well-being of your environmental, social, and economic systems
- Actively supporting and strengthening your key communities
Best practices to consider:
- Key measures are identified for evaluating the performance and improvement of leaders and of the leadership system.
- Senior leaders and board members use formal processes for reviewing their performance and that of the leadership system and use the results of those reviews, which are typically annual, to improve personal and organizational performance.
- Key processes, measures, and goals for achieving and surpassing regulatory and legal requirements and for promoting…
Outside-the-Box Benchmarking
Procter & Gamble’s feminine-care business unit benchmarked a gecko, flower petals, armadillos, squirrels, and anteaters. That’s way outside the box.
In “Stop Solving Your Problems” (Fast Company, November 2009), Dan and Chip Heath start with an extreme example of solving problems by looking at how others have solved them—i.e., benchmarking—and then move toward a more common example: “For instance, health-care advocates trying to reduce medical errors have learned from total-quality-management experts in the manufacturing world who obsess about ways to reduce product-defect rates.”
The Baldrige model promotes benchmarking in two significant ways:
- The Criteria ask how “you select and ensure the effective use of key comparative data and information to support operational and strategic decision making and innovation.” The Criteria define benchmarking as “identifying processes and results that represent best practices and performance for similar activities inside or outside your organization’s industry.” For P&G, “outside” meant the San Diego Zoo.
- Baldrige Award recipients share their applications online. If you want to improve any part of your management system, one of the inputs should be these applications. Choose a few from the list, read the relevant sections, and figure out if your organization could learn anything from them. If so, you’ll find contact information in the…
25 “Moonshots for Management”
Last year the Management Lab, with support from McKinsey & Company, assembled 35 management experts to discuss what management practices imperiled the long-term success of large organizations and what fundamental changes are needed in management principles, processes, and practices.
Gary Hamel, author of two leading books on business strategy, described three broadly-shared beliefs among the participants in the Harvard Business Review:
- “Management” is one of our most important social technologies.
- The management model of the last 100 years is out of date.
- We must reinvent management to make large organizations more adaptable, innovative, and inspiring places to work.
The Baldrige model can help any organization of any size reinvent its management system by identifying, prioritizing, and acting on the major gaps in that system. I believe Baldrige provides a systems perspective and sound guidance on achieving the 25 “moonshots for management” that the experts proposed:
- Ensure that management’s work serves a higher purpose. The first question in the Baldrige Criteria is: “How do senior leaders set organizational vision and values?” The Criteria then ask how senior leaders deploy them and how their personal actions support them.
- Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. Criteria Item 1.2 asks how the organization fulfills its societal responsibilities and…
Valuing Employees — and HR
There’s an interesting discussion going on at YourHRGuy.com about the relevance and value of Human Resources. The proposition is that HR is fatally flawed because most of its value could be outsourced, the department often has unclear goals and return on investment, and it frequently has no input on business direction.
These points seem to resonate with the people who have left comments, but I believe they are less accurate for Baldrige organizations, and here’s why:
- Valuing workforce members is a Baldrige core value. As the Criteria booklet states, “Valuing the people in your workforce means committing to their engagement, satisfaction, development, and well-being.” Baldrige Award recipients demonstrate how this can be done to the benefit of the organization through the valuable contributions of their HR leaders and departments. One commenter at YourHRGuy.com wrote, “Companies have historically undervalued HR because (and this is the horrible, hateful truth) they don’t value their people.” I think that’s true, which is why the Baldrige model should be a beacon for HR people.
- The Baldrige Criteria’s Organizational Profile asks what key factors motivate employees to engage in accomplishing your mission. You cannot answer that question well if you don’t value your people.
- Item 1.1 asks how senior leaders communicate with…
The Fundamentals of Greatness
It’s a Baldrige message: Greatness is about the fundamentals. As Jon Gordon, author of Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else (Wiley, 2009), said, “the companies that focus on the basics are the ones that survive when times get tough.”
Small Business Digest recently ran a story about the book that included Gordon’s tips for getting back to the basics:
- Be willing to outwork everyone else. As Gordon said, “Talent matters, but perseverance matters more.” He also advises companies to stay the course “long enough to become the best at what they do.” That’s the Baldrige process in a nutshell.
- Get the little things right. According to Gordon, “The best take action every day and do the common tasks…with uncommon focus, dedication, and a commitment to excellence.”
- Don’t lower your standards when no one’s looking. “Being the best is all about forming good habits,” said Gordon.
- Don’t focus on outcomes. Gordon, who has worked with two NFL teams as well as businesses, a hospital, and the FBI, believes organizations should focus on purpose and process to fuel their growth and “stay in the moment.”
- Whatever you do, don’t rest on proverbial laurels. The solution, Gordon said, “is to stay humble and hungry.”
In a world of quick fixes and programs du…
2Sep2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedIntroducing Leaders to Baldrige
For whatever reason (it usually has something to do with a competitor or customer), a senior leader or leadership team suddenly wants to know more about Baldrige. What do you do?
A good place to start is by pointing them to Baldrige.com. We’ve got a number of articles and other resources that explain the basics of Baldrige.
You should also direct them to the Baldrige program’s Web site and encourage them to read the relevant Criteria booklet and look at the profiles and application summaries of Baldrige Award recipients that interest them. A Baldrige booklet, Your Guide to Performance Excellence, also has suggestions on how to get started with Baldrige.
If your organization resides in a state with a quality award program (you can find out if your state has such a program here), find the Web site address for that program and pass that along, too. Your leaders may find executives they know who can share their Baldrige experiences.
If your leaders have no time or desire to read any of this stuff (a pretty typical reaction), you can go to these sites and summarize key points to present to the leadership team or you can have them do a half-hour exercise. I know…
31Aug2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
