BLOGRIGE

Pride and Joy

Posted by Bob Fangmeyer

Having been born and raised in Dallas, Texas, I don’t think that the late, great blues artist Stevie Ray Vaughan had any affiliation with Puerto Rico, but after spending several days in Puerto Rico with a number of people who are very passionate about their homeland, Stevie’s anthem to his wife keeps playing in my head.

BLUES: You see, like much of the United States, Puerto Rico has been hit pretty hard by the current recession. Stalled construction projects, increased unemployment, decreased job growth, unexpected closing of well known businesses that have been around for generations, and a negative population growth—due in part to people leaving for better opportunities on the mainland—have caused some to feel helpless and start singing the blues.

PRIDE: But not Carmen Marti and her dedicated friends and co-workers. They have seen the troubles facing their beloved Puerto Rico and know that they have the answer. It’s pretty simple really, all they have to do is get their small business community to embrace the Baldrige criteria and concepts and their economy will not only rebound, but achieve levels never seen before.  Wait a minute, don’t scoff so quickly. They are not alone in this belief. Puerto Ricans are proud of their heritage and their island. There are a lot of people, professional associations, and government agencies that want to help. In fact, that is why my co-worker, Millie Glick, and I were there.

 Thursday, January 20th was the kickoff event of the Alianza Competitividad Global (Alliance for Global Competitiveness) which intends to transform Puerto Rico’s economy through the use of the Baldrige criteria for performance excellence. The Alliance consists of 5 diverse professional organizations supported by a number of local and national programs, including the Small Business Administration (SBA), Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC), ASQ (formerly the American Society for Quality), and the Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Commerce. After listening to representatives from many of these groups, as well as the President of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and the Interim Governor and Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, promote embracing the Baldrige criteria and concepts as key to their future economic success, one begins to believe they might just be able to pull this off.

JOY: By the end of the day, a formal alliance was established and signed between the various professional associations dedicated to the advancement of this effort and approximately 250 small business owners and operators were clearly intrigued by the offer before them: participate in an 8 month program that will give them training in the Baldrige criteria and related tools along with advice and consultation from Baldrige Examiners and Award Recipients… for free! Space will be limited to 50 participants and they are committing to a long term relationship which requires, among other things, the tracking and reporting of some key measures which will be used to evaluate this endeavor.

This Alliance and its educational effort are off to great start. This is the fruit of a couple of very passionate Baldrige Examiners who created an idea, spread the word of its potential, and nurtured its growth over a number of years. For all of you out there who think that there is nothing you can do to help solve the challenges of your community, I hope you will look to the example of Carmen Marti, and her Baldrige mentor, Lyani Valle as inspiration for what can be accomplished with passion and commitment. Another great example of a similar vision and impact can be found in the Missouri Baldrige Performance Excellence Groups (BPEGs) started by Larry Potterfield, CEO of MidwayUSA, a 2009 Baldrige Award Recipient.

[Carmen is the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Small Business Technology Development Center. Their organization is funded through the SBA and is a part of the ASBDC. Their primary function is to help fledgling small businesses hit the ground running through loans and consulting services.]

 

The Basic Education Criteria Incognito

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

 

Last night, I attended a parent/teacher conference at my daughter's day care center. I learned that she is showing a lot of interest in picture books and seems to share with the other children, and that her next goal is to learn how to use a spoon to eat rather than just play with food (I should mention that she is 16 months old). But as I was presented with my daughter's abstract art--a nose where the ear should go, and the sky painted green, while the ground is blue--and told about the support and opportunities given to the children to advance their learning, I began thinking about the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence and how closely the center is following the basic item requirements of the Criteria without even knowing it.

I wonder how many organizations have adopted or put to use tenets of the Baldrige Criteria that have simply become synonymous with good business, education, and health care practices. For all the times that I had to explain what the Baldrige Criteria are to people when I tell them where I work, I wonder how many are already familiar with the validated management practices that the Criteria espouse without knowing they come from the Criteria.

Education Award recipients such as the Montgomery County Public Schools and Iredell-Statesville Schools have embedded the Education Criteria into their cultures, increasing their academic rankings and graduation rates. Perhaps the key to the Baldrige Criteria is not calling them out as a quality tool but embedding them in the culture until they are simply the way the system operates.

Richard Maurer, superintendent of another Baldrige Award recipient, Pearl River School District, said, "We felt that the Baldrige process was best to meet our mission statement ... that all students can and will learn. We passionately believe that, and we looked for a model that would get us to that level of achievement. The Baldrige process works for us.”

But back to my daughter's day care center. It struck me that an organization can adopt the Baldrige Criteria simply at a basic level and embed them into its culture and still find success. At a basic level, an organization can tackle simple questions to guide its operations; for example, "How do you obtain information from your students and stakeholders?" "How do you engage students and stakeholders to serve their needs and build relationships?"

Are there other examples where you can find the Baldrige Criteria embedded into cultures, even at a basic level, without the organization calling them out as such? Isn't this another example that the Baldrige Criteria have had a profound and effective impact on U.S. organizations?

Follow the Fellows

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

I returned last week from the second meeting with the first cohort of Baldrige Executive Fellows and I come back cheering and truly energized. What a wonderful group of executives, what a rich learning environment we have collectively created, and what continuing dedication on the part of executives from Baldrige Award recipients who are sharing their strategies and engaging in thoughtful dialogue with the Fellows. This meeting was hosted by Susan DeVore, President and CEO of Premier Inc. We were joined by several of Susan's colleagues, Sister Mary Jean Ryan,  Chair and CEO of SSM Health Care, and Bob Barnett, our Executive-in-Residence. We had a follow-up conversation with Rulon Stacey, President and CEO of Poudre Valley Health System. The topic for this session was Leadership and Strategic Planning, categories 1 and 2 of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. As is the intent of this fellowship, the session focused on the how's and why's of leadership and planning, which bring the use of the Baldrige Criteria to life.

Let me share with you some of the take-aways as shared by our Fellows at the end of the session: 1. Culture trumps strategy - you need to set culture first or strategy accomplishment will be severely hindered. 2. Visionary leaders are passionate and authentic - they walk the talk, they have very different styles, but their sincerity and clarity of purpose is visible. 3. Visionary leaders set aggressive goals - and it's amazing how often committed employees will achieve them. 4. Engage employees - committed employees are the lifeblood of the organization. 5. Focus and discipline are essential - flavors of the month won't succeed, leaders need to be relentless in making their aims clear and their messages consistent. 6. A framework for organizing thoughts and processes is critical - Baldrige can provide that framework.

Is any of this rocket science? No. But how many leaders and organizations put these simple lessons into practice? Does yours? Watch for more and "follow the Fellows" in April, when they will have their next meeting hosted by the Ritz-Carlton (focusing on customer and employee engagement), and then have the opportunity to attend our Quest for Excellence conference.

It's Our Birthday!

Posted by Zara Brunner

Blogrige is turning one year old!  To quote the song Uncle John's Band: "where does the time go?"  One year ago today a group of Baldrige staff--and our fearless leaders--ventured into the unknown, took some intelligent risk, and Blogrige was born.  Of course we went through benchmarking exercises and a pilot blog to test our processes first.  Since then, we've learned a lot.  And it wouldn't have been possible without you.  From the beginning, we started this blog with you, our customers and potential customers, in mind.  We take our mission to help improve organizations and the competitiveness of the US seriously.  The blog seemed to be a great educational tool to support that mission and engage the community--and those new to it--in important conversations around continuous improvement and performance excellence. 

What have we learned since then?  Well for starters, the Cheermudgeon is a hit.  People seem to respond well to Harry's stories.  Of course his insights and lessons are also welcome.  But I think it's the entertainment you're after first and foremost.  Harry seems to serve up both.  We've learned that many of you like to read our posts and that's that; you simply don't feel the need to comment.  That's works for us if it works for you. It's all about you and how you want to learn and engage.  On the flip side, we've learned that some of you do want to share your opinions and chime in from time to time.  We appreciate that feedback and the chance to have these online conversations.  We've learned that it takes a commitment of time and resources to keep a blog going strong, that variety of voices and topics seems to work well (for example, Dawn Bailey is a prolific blogger and has given voice to many health care issues, while Jeff Lucas is our education blogging guru), frequency of posts is key (we've averaged around 2-3 posts per week), that many more people read the posts than comment (we average around 3 comments per post compared to thousands of subscribers), and we've learned that this blog has been a great tool to share information and exchange ideas with you.  And it's been a lot of fun along the way too. 

But enough about us.  Again, this blog's for you.  So tell us what you've liked since the "birth" of Blogrige and where you would like to see things go as it grows and matures.  I was listening to something on Monday where the speakers asked "What would Martin do?" in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Then I came across a "what would Walt Disney have blogged?"  Makes me wonder "what would Malcolm  say?"  Think about where we are with quality and organizational improvement in the US compared to 20+ years ago when Malcolm was an advocate.  What types of things would he be pushing for today on this blog and beyond?  While you're thinking of it, feel free to listen to The Beatles Birthday song just to add to the festivities as we celebrate. 

 

I Am Here for the Customer

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

One of my earliest recollections in the Baldrige Program was our annual Quest for Excellence conference in the spring of 1992, when the CEO of Solectron (a 1991 Award recipient) was speaking at a breakout session and left the stage almost mid-sentence. One of the other Solectron executives picked right up where he left off, but why did Ko Nishimura leave the stage? A key customer wanted to talk to him and Solectron executives were available to their customers 24/7. As a fairly new member of the Baldrige staff, this sent a clear message to me, Solectron is a customer comes first company for sure! I am certain this action and others like it also made it very clear to Solectron employees that customer focus is job number one.

So, why do I raise this story from the past in 2011? Because the last quarter of 2010 showed declines in key sectors for the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Because many of us grumble about our own customer experiences. Because customer focus begins with leadership. Because this topic coincides with one of the changes in the 2011-2012 Criteria for Performance Excellence.

In recent issues of the Criteria we have increased the focus on building a customer culture in the organization. We have asked questions related to how the organization creates a culture that ensures a positive customer experience in Category 3, as part of Customer Focus. In the 2011-2012 Criteria, we have learned from our Award recipients, including Solectron's early example, and moved the customer culture consideration to Category 1, Leadership. If the organization is to have a workforce focus on the customer, it must begin with leadership that focuses on delivering a consistently positive customer experience and leadership that sets an example for engaging customers. In other words, senior leadership must create that customer-focused workforce culture.

So, you might ask am I here for the customer. Very definitely yes. My regular Blogrige postings and the  Insights column on our web site are two new examples using social media to connect to customers and stakeholders. And our Examiners know that I make sure I am here each year for all four weeks of Examiner training so that I can have some "one-on-one" time with this important customer group. But customer engagement is two-way dialogue, so please let me hear from you.

How is a customer-focused culture being set in your organization? Who is leading the effort? Is it obvious to your customers and are they loyal to your organization?

Unlocking the Door to College

Posted by Pamela Wong

At the PromiseNet 2010 conference, a special assistant to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan spoke about the need to get more high school students to graduate and continue on to college.

More and more communities are realizing, said Gregory Darnieder, that having more high school and college graduates positively influences the local economy. They require fewer community services and earn higher incomes. Darnieder said that research in Philadelphia has shown that increasing the rate of college completion by only 1 percent would mean $4.4 billion in increased wages and economic benefits.

In today’s challenging economic environment, those data require attention. What can communities do to increase college attendance?

Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS), the 2010 Baldrige Award recipient in education and the nation’s 16^th largest school district, has taken an innovative approach. The school district “reverse engineered” the education process by looking backward from college and career goals to the knowledge and skills needed to achieve them. The result is the “Seven Keys to College Readiness,” which are significantly more demanding than state requirements. The Seven Keys consist of seven measurable academic goals—from kindergarten through high school—that constitute a college-readiness trajectory.

Here are results for three of MCPS’s keys to college readiness:

• Advanced Reading Proficiency. Beginning in kindergarten, students are assessed on their reading skills. In 2009, more than 73 percent of kindergarten students reached or exceeded the district’s level 6 benchmark, an 8.8 percent increase from 2007, and Hispanic and African American students showed significant gains. These achievements continued for grade 1 and grade 2 students of all racial/ethnic groups, and the data demonstrate positive trends from 2007 through 2009.
• Advanced Placement (AP) exam performance. In 2009, 64 percent of the district’s graduates had taken at least one AP exam, compared with 27 nationally, and 40 percent had scored a “3” or higher, compared to 16 percent nationally. Further, MCPS found that AP participation is related to the college graduation rate. For all students who had not taken an AP exam, 25 percent earned a four-year degree within six years; for all students who had taken the exam and scored below “3,” 61 percent earned a four-year degree within six years; and for all students who scored “3” or higher, 77 percent earned a four-year degree within six years.
• SAT/ACT Performance. MCPS’s total SAT scores from 2007 through 2009 are higher than those of a comparable county, the state, and the nation. For the class of 2010, the average total SAT score was 1,653, which surpasses national and state averages.

I’d like to hear what your schools are doing to increase college attendance. What has worked for you?

 

They're Crowd Sourcing Science, Why Not Excellence?

Posted by Jeff Lucas

On the way to work this morning I was listening to a great podcast from The Economist about how there are a number of initiatives that are using volunteer "citizen scientists" to accelerate the construction of scientific knowledge.  The best known are probably the projects being run by Zooniverse such as Galaxy Zoo where volunteers view images taken by robotic telescopes and classify the galaxies on a number of dimensions.  To maintain quality, the same images are shown to several people. Interestingly, the project has found that the volunteers are just as accurate as professionals at these types of tasks. 

I've been fascinated with the idea of social production by networks ever since I read Yochai Benkler's original paper The Wealth of Networks, which now has become a collaborative learning and research platform through the ongoing wiki.  Listening to the podcast, I began to think again about how this concept might be applied to the mission of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program.  We have had discussions on several occasions about how we could better leverage our talented and committed community to engage in tasks such as contributing to the development of The Criteria for Performance Excellence (new 2011-2012 version just released here). A wiki seems like a logical way to accomplish this, and, beyond the Criteria, could encompass examples and tools that would translate theory into practice.  All of this would then be vetted by the community and those things that deserved to remain would stay, and those that didn't would go.  

Are there other ways that people out there are using the wisdom of crowds to move towards Performance Excellence in a Baldrige sense?

Health Care Criteria Offer Pathway to Prepare for Reform

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

U.S. health care organizations—from multihospital systems to rural community health centers—are gearing up for the challenge of their times: the impact of health care reform on how they care for patients and how they run their operations. Future health care organizations will need to find a way to prioritize patient care and health care outcomes at the same time as controlling costs and managing processes; in fact, more demands with less money.

With increased government and public scrutiny on their operations, U.S. health care organizations face another challenge: how exactly will health care reform affect them? National debates and challenges are still ongoing, but these organizations need to be prepared now for the future, no matter in what shape health care reform comes (the only thing we can agree on is that it is coming). And many believe that the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence hold the key to how to get prepared—and how to offer the highest-quality care and control costs at the same time.

The recently released 2011-2012 Health Care Criteria offer a proven improvement model, framework, and management tool that can help an organization align all elements of its operations for sustainability, from its leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce focus; operations focus; to its results. The Health Care Criteria guide an organization in balancing stakeholders' needs, focusing on patients and other stakeholders, controlling overall costs, preventing medical errors and unintended harm to patients, and measuring marketplace performance and sustainability.

But the Health Care Criteria are not just another management tool. They are a proven improvement tool with several world-class, role-model Award recipients who have used the tool to achieve results. There are best practices to share and strategies to succeed.

As no one knows the future, all we can do is be prepared. The Health Care Criteria offer a pathway to do just that.