All Posts Tagged With: "social responsibility"
Best-in-Class Community Support
The Baldrige Criteria ask what your organization’s key communities are, how you identify them and determine areas for involvement, how you support and strengthen them, and how your workforce, including senior leaders, contribute to improving them.
Typical responses describe an organization’s participation in the United Way, the hours employees spend volunteering, and local support for everything from food shelves to free clinics to Meals on Wheels. All of these are valuable but none is best-in-class.
Best-in-class community support follows a carefully planned, strategic focus. One of the best examples is 2009 Baldrige Award winner Heartland Health. Its Health Pyramid presents a systems perspective to community health, which Heartland Health addresses at three levels: (1) delivering care through its facilities; (2) improving individual health through health insurance and improvement programs and disease management; and, (3) improving community health by addressing the root causes of disease. You can see the Health Pyramid and read more about it by clicking here.
Heartland Health applies its three core competencies to this strategic focus on community health: delivering best and safest care and improving individual and community health, supported by key work systems and work processes. It selects community initiatives as part of its strategic planning process based…
29Dec2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedUndercover and Out of Touch
I haven’t watched much of the new TV show, Undercover Boss, because it sounds manipulative and because any boss who has to go undercover to find out how his company really works is not the kind of role model we should learn from.
Visionary leadership is a Baldrige core value. It emphasizes senior leaders’ personal involvement in communicating, coaching the workforce, developing future leaders, and recognizing employees. Visionary leaders do this every day, not just when a TV camera is turned on, and they do it without a disguise. They interact with their people daily, in every imaginable venue, nurturing an environment in which employees feel valued and engaged.
In “Management Lessons from Undercover Boss” (HBR, March 23, 2010), Michelle Buck, director of leadership initiatives at the Kellogg School of Management, points out that “leadership is a relationship, a partnership, and employee engagement isn’t just a soft and fuzzy topic but has bottom-line implications.” Senior leaders who spend their days holed up in their offices or surrounded by other executives cannot build the relationships or strengthen the partnerships that sustain great companies.
I spent much of last week traveling to sales offices in Europe with the president of a company with a half-billion dollars…
30Mar2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedSocial Responsibility and Global Climate Change
Yesterday I posted an article about the triple bottom line, one focus of which is environmental. Climate Counts has developed a methodology to help measure a company’s commitment to fighting global warming, which is a key part of any organization’s social responsibility. In fact, one Baldrige Criteria question asks specifically about it: “How do you consider the well-being of environmental, social, and economic systems to which your organization does or may contribute?”
Climate Counts uses a 100-point scale and 22 criteria (pdf) to determine if companies have measured their climate footprint, reduced their impact on global warming, supported (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation, and publicly disclosed their climate actions clearly and comprehensively. The scores determine if a company is stuck (0-12 points), starting (13-49 points), or striding (50 points or higher).
Not all sectors are covered, nor are all companies in a sector, but each sector is worth reviewing. For example, in the “Home and Office Furniture” sector, the following companies were ranked with their current scores:
- Steelcase 53
- Herman Miller 46
- Masco 39
- La-Z-Boy 16
- Sealy 16
- Leggett and Platt, Inc. 15
- HNI Corp. 13
- Fortune Brands 4
- Simmons 4
- Tempur-Pedic 1
- Select Comfort 1
- Serta 1
- Furniture Brands International 0
- Spring Air 0
You can download the full scorecard or a pocket guide to…
2Oct2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedSocial Responsibility: It’s a Dirty Job
What is the business case for generosity?
Fast Company is asking that question every day this week in its 30-second MBA video series. On Monday it asked Mike Rowe, star of Dirty Jobs, voice for Deadliest Catch, spokesperson for Ford Trucks, and founder of mikeroweWORKS (which is a very clever name).
His answer to the question, however, is even cleverer. You can watch the short video here.
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