Along with Mette Norgaard, Conant has written a book about his leadership philosophy called Touchpoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments. IndustryWeek reviews the book here.

In his book, Conant describes how he turned around Nabisco Food Company, his gig before going to Campbell Soup, “with a philosophy of being tough-minded on the standards and tender-hearted with people.” “Some joked that my approach was a cross between Pollyanna and Don Quixote,” he said, “but I have no apologies. The people were highly engaged and delivering excellent results. We grew earnings at a double-digit rate for five straight years. If that’s a sign of weakness, I’ll take it every time.”

He used the same approach—successfully—at Campbell Soup. The approach focuses on TouchPoints, those moments when two or more people get together to deal with an issue and get something done. As the authors write, “in our experience, these TouchPoints are the real work. They are the moments that bring your strategies and priorities to life, the interactions that translate your ideas into new and better behaviors.”

The book describes how effective leaders use their head to ask questions and listen, their heart to reflect on goals and options, and their hands to practice and get involved. Conant also offers a formula for making the most of a TouchPoint interaction: (1) listen to what is said and not said; (2) frame the issue to determine if it is your issue, someone else’s issue, or both; (3) advance a course of action by deciding what to do about it.

I believe Baldrige would be invaluable for leaders who want to make the most of their TouchPoints. In every interaction, leaders need to be clear about where their organization is going and how it is going to get there. They need a framework that helps them understand all elements of their organization and how they work together to deliver results. Leaders who have integrated Baldrige gain a systems perspective of their organizations that provides context for these interactions and clarity about questions to ask and the direction to take. Within a Baldrige framework, the outcome of every TouchPoint interaction contributes to the short- and longer-term objectives of the organization.

To read more about leadership and Baldrige, click on these articles:

• Baldrige and Superior Execution
• Baldrige Promotes Resilience
• Servant Leadership Boosts Employee Engagement
• How to Integrate Baldrige

In a few areas, the 173 employees and 294 leaders who took the test differed significantly. These disconnects suggest problems with processes, communication, or both:

• Know how to measure work quality: 78% of employees said they know how while 51% of leaders agreed that they do
• Use work quality measures to make improvements: 74% of employees said they did while 43% of leaders agreed
• Customers are satisfied with work performed: 85% of employees agreed compared to 69% of employees
• My boss and organization care about me: 69% of employees agreed compared to 84% of leaders

It’s important to note that the employees and leaders who answered the questionnaire do not, for the most part, work at the same organizations. And the employees in the group are Baldrige examiners: One would expect them to know how to measure work quality and use those measure to make improvements. If the questionnaires were administered to leaders and employees in one organization, the results might be different.

You can test that theory by rolling out the questionnaire in your organization. If you do, you will still find disconnects between what employees believe and what leaders perceive. Those disconnects can trigger dialogue about the reality of the issue and what can be done to close the gap and improve performance.

The results of the questionnaires may also inspire your organization to assess its management system using the Baldrige Criteria. While the questionnaires are a quick and easy introduction to Baldrige, they are no substitute for asking and answering all of the questions in the Baldrige Criteria. Only then will you have a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of your management system and a sound footing on which to prioritize and act on your opportunities for improvement.

You will find “Are We Making Progress?” here and “Are We Making Progress as Leaders?” here.

For complete results of the 2011 Examiners Survey, click here for employee results and here for leader results.

George S. Everly, Jr., PhD is associate professor of psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, executive director of Resiliency Science Institutes, and author of Resilient Leadership: When Failure Is Not an Option. In “Building a Resilient Organizational Culture,” he writes that “just as individuals can learn to develop personal traits of resilience, so too can organizations develop a culture of resilience.” This occurs when key leaders demonstrate four core attributes of optimism, decisiveness, integrity, and open communication. When a few leaders model these behaviors, Everly notes, “we believe they have the ability to change an entire culture of an organization as others replicate the resilient characteristics they have observed.”

The framework for changing the culture addresses four areas:

1. People prosper from success. Create an environment that makes it possible for people to succeed, especially early in their careers, and then increase the difficulty and complexity of tasks.
2. People learn while observing others. Assign new employees to successful work groups so they can experience “vicarious success.”
3. People need encouragement, support, and mentoring. “Research suggests that the single most powerful predictor of human resilience is interpersonal support.”
4. People need basic training in how to manage personal stress. Everly calls this “developing psychological body armor.”

He concludes with examples of resilient organizations including Apple, American Express, and Kimberly-Clark that have invested in their customers, leaders, innovation, and workforce in times of adversity.

From a Baldrige perspective, the Baldrige model promotes resilience through the development of a robust management system that fosters optimism, decisiveness, integrity, and open communication. You can read more about the qualities of Baldrige organizations by clicking on these articles:

• A Pathway to Innovation
• Baldrige: As American as Fast Food
• Know Your Employees
• Is Baldrige Right for Your Organization?

1. Have we set clear and high targets? Will the target cause us to change our behavior?
2. Have we provided education/training to all involved in designing or improving the process? Are we over-communicating the “why” behind the intended behavior or improvement?
3. Has leadership made it clear that the behavior or new/improved process is mandatory, not optional? Studer Group research of over 2000 healthcare leaders indicates that when you use the word MANDATORY, 98% of employees understand that they MUST do the behavior (or follow the process). When you use the word REQUIRED, only 68% recognize that they MUST do it, and when you use the word EXPECTED, only 26% understand that they must do it. So be clear: This is mandatory!
4. Are leaders being role models of the desired behavior? Not modeling it gives employees permission not to follow it either.
5. Have we practiced behavior using role-play?
6. Do we have a good measure of success?
7. Can we report results of the verification of success transparently? Transparency reveals who is succeeding and who needs to improve.
8. Are we giving positive feedback when we see the behavior done correctly? Research shows that recognized behavior gets repeated.
9. Do we correct poor performance quickly and on the spot, if necessary?
10. Are there consequences for noncompliance, up to and including termination? Either you’re on the bus or you’re not. Some people will not change their behavior unless you tell them the consequences of noncompliance and they know you mean it.

To read more about making change happen, click on these articles:

• Is Baldrige Right for Your Organization?
• How to Integrate Baldrige
• Baldrige Model: How do you implement your strategy?
• Go to the Gemba
• Making Change Happen

• Wearing a tie sucks. In an age of business casual, wearing a tie feels like going back to the days of “Mad Men” without the glamour. It doesn’t help to have a “casual Friday,” in part because the employees in this division must “earn” it or the head of the division will take it away. Few things damage morale more than treating people like children.
• The company’s mission and vision inspire innovation and excellence in the services it provides. I saw it in the stellar work of the group I was supporting and in the creative solutions the company has developed.
• But…at the corporate level, the mission and vision are secondary to financial considerations. Faced with choosing sides in a national debate about healthcare, the company chose to protect its bottom line rather than fix a broken system. As a result, it will continue to prosper in a system that remains broken, to the detriment of people who could have had better options.
• The CEO makes more in two hours than probably 90% of his employees make in a year. It’s not hard to understand why he likes the status quo, nor is it hard to understand why all of the people being paid a pittance, by comparison, go along with him. They have jobs in a tough economy. They hear frequent messages about the good things the company is doing. There is little room or time for opposing views, which leads to the assumption that everything the company says or does or supports is right.
• Cube settlements exert enormous pressure to conform. Like any community, a group of people organized in a small, self-contained area behaves according to unspoken rules that have evolved with the group. If you are in HR, you need to consider each group or team in your organization as a unique community within the larger department, division, business unit, or company. What works for one won’t necessarily work for another.

To read more about culture, click on these articles:

• 3 Things Employees Care About Most
• When Values Clash with the Bottom Line
• A Culture That Values Employees
• Baldrige.com on Culture

Your organization needs processes for:

• Determining the key factors that affect employee engagement
• Creating a culture and a performance management system that promotes open communication, high-performance work, and an engaged workforce
• Assessing employee engagement and correlating the findings of these assessments with business results to identify opportunities for improvement
• Developing a learning and development system that serves the needs of the organization and the development needs of all employees
• Managing effective career progression and succession planning

Best practices to consider:

• The organization uses employee data from a number of sources including employee surveys, turnover rates, and exit interviews to determine and prioritize employee requirements and then validates those requirements with employees.
• An effective performance management system supports both individual and organizational performance, aligns individual goals/objectives with the organization’s mission and vision, and addresses individual development.
• Employee satisfaction/engagement surveys are done more frequently than the typical annual survey, often with a statistically-valid sample of employees.
• Every employee has a development plan that supports both personal and organizational improvement.

Common problems areas:

• Organizations tend to assume they know what employees require or they rely on generic employee satisfaction surveys to provide a list, but they fail to validate their assumptions.
• No performance management system has been developed.
• Employee surveys are conducted annually and do not address the key factors that affect employee satisfaction and engagement.
• Annual performance reviews do not include planning or encourage employee development.

To read more about employee engagement, click on these articles:

• The 3 Factors That Motivate Employees
• Employee Engagement Boosts Organizational Performance
• Employee Engagement and Innovation
• Evaluating Training Effectiveness
• Succession Planning at P&G
• Why HR Needs Baldrige