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…

Pay Yourself First

It’s easy to acquire tunnel vision. There are jobs to do, projects to complete, and meetings to attend. Your organization is probably running lean, which means you’re responsible for your job as well as big chunks of work from coworkers who’ve moved or left. It’s hard to find the time to do anything well, much less learn and grow. Like the organization, you are sacrificing long-term considerations for short-term necessities. Focus on what’s in front of you. Get through the day.

Financial planners tell their clients to pay themselves first with every paycheck. Take a small amount from each check and put it in savings. Even when money is tight. Even when you have urgent needs in front of you. Don’t squander your future by being short-sighted. Pay yourself first.

The same concept applies to your work life. Take a few minutes from each day and use it to increase your value. Step back from the tunnel and broaden your understanding of how your entire team, department, and organization work. Identify your customers and what they require and how you can make them more satisfied and loyal. Learn how the processes you are part of function and how you can improve them. Find the data and information you need to evaluate and improve performance. Determine how what you do serves the mission, vision, plans, and goals of the organization and if it doesn’t, realign. Figure out what knowledge and skills you need to advance your career and pursue them.

By taking this “big…

Aligning Individual Performance with Your Mission and Vision

In most organizations, the mission and vision have little to do with what gets done day-to-day. Even if employees know what the mission and vision are—and very few do—they fail to see how their work contributes to achieving them. Instead, departments, teams, and individuals focus on different things, on what the boss tells them is important or the company decides to target that year or the latest problem needing to be fixed. Rather than pulling together toward shared goals, they are pulled apart by shifting priorities and diverging objectives.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Baldrige Award recipients is how well they align people, plans, and processes with the mission and vision of the organization. Every department, team, and individual not only knows what the mission and vision are, but they also understand what they must do to support them. The connection between an employee’s work and the mission and vision of his/her organization is documented and measurable.

Poudre Valley Health System, which won the Baldrige Award in 2008, calls this its “Global Path to Success.” Like other Award recipients, it uses its strategic plan and balanced scorecard to cascade its vision, mission, values, and strategic objectives throughout the organization, as shown in its award application summary:

According to PVHS, the Global Path to Success “provides a leadership system and framework for this culture, incorporating: (1) the performance management system, which links individual goals to organizational goals through each employee’s personal goal card; and (2) the Code of Conduct, Behavior Standards, and Leadership…

What Are Your Critical Success Factors?

The Baldrige Criteria ask: “What are the principal factors that determine your success relative to your competitors?”

With a little thought, most leadership teams can answer the question fairly easily. As with all things Baldrige, however, a quick response misses the underlying process question: How do you determine what those critical success factors (CSFs) are? Just because leaders brainstorm CSF candidates and agree on the final list doesn’t mean it’s the right list, any more than assuming you know what your customers expect is actually what they expect. You need a process for identifying your organization’s critical success factors because so much of what you do—strategic planning, performance measurement, process management—is aligned with those factors.

In “Finding your organization’s critical success factors—the missing link in performance management” (pdf), David Parmenter describes such a process whose goal is to define five to eight relatively specific CSFs. Some organizations, including some Baldrige Award recipients, use broad terms to describe their CSFs. For example, North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC), which won the Award in 2006, has five CSFs: People, Service, Quality, Financial, and Growth. Parmenter argues that a CSF should clarify what is expected of all employees, and he gives a few examples:

• Delivering in full, on time, all the time, to our key customers
• Finding better ways to do the things we do everyday
• Maintaining a safe, happy, and healthy workplace
• Implementing innovative ideas from staff quickly
• Increasing repeat business from key customers
• Attracting quality staff to the organization

NMMC makes its CSFs more specific by defining the strategic challenges for each:

People: Maintain and…