Still Passionate about Baldrige

“There is no question that our adherence to the Baldrige performance criteria has made us a much more efficient university, and helped us weather repeated cuts in state aid without affecting educational quality,” write Charles W. Sorensen and Julie Furst-Bowe, chancellor and provost at the University of Wisconsin-Stout (article here).

UW-Stout earned the Baldrige Award in 2001. Ten years later it remains passionate about the value of integrating Baldrige. According to Sorenson and Furst-Bowe, “The most important change brought about by our Baldrige experience, which is now part of our culture, was the establishment of an inclusive planning process to ensure that, in Baldrige speak, ‘all arrows are pointing in the same direction,’ and not at cross-purposes.”

Having worked with five Baldrige Award winners, I can attest to the value of aligning processes and people with the goals, strategies, and objectives of the organization. Whether you are in business, healthcare, or education, the ability to focus all activities on shared goals dramatically improves performance and is a major reason Baldrige Award winners achieve world-class results.

Sorenson and Furst-Bowe also state that “the Baldrige model…also led to a number of important innovations, including our e-Scholar or student laptop program, our designation as Wisconsin’s polytechnic…

Culture’s Impact on the Bottom Line

In his book, The Culture Cycle, James L. Heskett wrote that effective culture can account for 20-30% of the differential in performance when compared to “culturally unremarkable” competitors.

Culture has a significant impact on the bottom line.

Burson-Marsteller and the Great Place to Work Institute asked senior executives from 20 of the top 25 “best multinational companies” for 2011 about the value of a positive work environment. Deidre Campbell highlighted the findings in this article on the HBR Blog Network:

• They invest more in their employees: 30% are investing more in work-life programs such as flex-time and health benefit while the other 70% are holding steady. None is cutting back.

• They provide stability: 75% of respondents valued most those programs that communicate brand mission and provide career development opportunities, compared to 15% who valued traditional benefits like health insurance and family leave and 5% who valued onsite benefits such as cafeterias and childcare.

• They value culture: “When asked which elements of workplace commitment most benefit daily operations, companies ranked culture at 80% and recruitment/retention at 70%,” writes Campbell. Competitiveness, customer loyalty, innovation, and productivity each garnered less than 20%.

• They share their story: 70% of respondents said customers are the most important external audience for understanding the company’s commitment to…

A Unique Healthcare Delivery System

For the 55,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people it serves, Southcentral Foundation (SCF) has cut costly emergency room and urgent care visits by 50% and reduced specialty care by 65%, primary care visits by 36%, and hospital admissions by 53%. Such impressive results helped SCF win the 2011 Baldrige Award.

Of those SCF serves, 45,000 live in the Anchorage, Alaska, area and 10,000 live in 55 remote villages accessible only by plane. SCF serves them through a unique health care delivery system, the Nuka System of Care, that focuses strategies and processes on wellness. The system is owned, managed, directed, designed, and driven by Alaska Native people, which SCF calls “customer-owners.”

These unique ownership and health care delivery systems are producing impressive results:

• Customer-owners can see their primary care providers on the same day if they call by 4 p.m. and arrive by 4:30. Seventy to 80% of appointment slots are open at the start of each day.
• Alaska Natives and American Indian people experience diabetes at twice the national rate. Since 2009, SCF’s performance levels for diabetes care have exceeded the 90^th percentile of the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information set.
• SFC manages key performance data through DataMall where it is collected, aggregated, trended,…

Creating Value for Society

“It is in the enlightened self-interest of business to forge economic growth models that create larger societal value than shareholder value alone.”

I doubt if there are many on Wall Street who agree with this opinion, which was put forward in this article by S. Sivakumar, group head of the Agri & IT businesses of Indian conglomerate ITC. But then, I’m not sure anyone on Wall Street really cares about shareholder value either. Accumulating personal wealth seems to be their driving force.

The Great Recession being felt worldwide can be laid at the doorstep of corporate—and personal—greed, housed by soulless companies like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and others. By wrecking the economy for the 99%, they spawned Occupy Wall Street, a movement that has become an international voice against the damage being caused by these companies.

Sivakumar’s company is a refreshing alternative to Wall Street gluttony. ITC has been “water positive” for nine years (created twice as much freshwater potential than it has consumed), “carbon positive” for six years (sequesters twice as much carbon as it emits), and “solid-waste-recycling positive” for four years (recycles all wastes from its industrial operations). “In addition, these innovative business models have led to the creation…