BLOGRIGE

City Deploys Baldrige Criteria to Survive Difficult Economy

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

 

 
I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the current economic forecast for America's cities is not good. But maybe I can share a little hope connected to the Baldrige Criteria.

In October 2010, the National League of Cities published a study on city fiscal conditions, reporting that the effects of the economic downturn continue to adversely impact our nation's cities. City finance officers report struggling housing markets, slow consumer spending, and high levels of unemployment that are driving declines in revenues. According to the report, in response, cities are cutting personnel, infrastructure investments, and key services. The report also notes that nearly nine in ten cities were less able to meet fiscal needs in 2010 than in 2009, property tax and sales tax revenues continued to decline, and fiscal pressures regarding public safety and employee-related costs continued to rise. Also in 2010, CNNMoney.com reported that several U.S. cities were on the verge of defaulting on their debt, and it named three cities on "the verge of broke."

So what about an inspirational story for America's cities?

The City of Coral Springs, a 2007 recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest honor for performance excellence, reports that it has used the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to manage during the economic crisis and achieve its goals, especially in relation to comparative cities.

Coral Springs has done this by focusing on the six process categories of the Criteria. The first category is Leadership, and the city focused on key tenets of the Criteria, such as communication, ethics systems, sustainability, accountability/transparency, and societal responsibility. Using the Criteria as a guide, it looked to public/private partnerships, communication meetings, and the transparency of financial statements and the annual state of the city report. Coral Springs also used the Criteria to guide its Strategic Planning, focusing on financial trend monitoring, environmental scans, an analysis of customer requirements, and performance analysis, specifically looking at key intended outcomes and department measures.

Keeping its focus on the categories of the Baldrige Criteria, the city refined its Customer Focus listening methods and data segmentation. It looked to comparisons/benchmarks and a knowledge network to guide its Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management activities. And for Workforce Focus, the City of Coral Springs set goals to have no layoffs and to refine its benefits program, reward and recognition systems, wellness programs, and use of focus groups and volunteers. These efforts included workforce performance management and individual goal setting that led to an incentive pay system for city employees. Finally, in using the Criteria as a guide, the city focused on Process Management and refined its Comprehensive Community Management Plan and Continuity of Operations Plan, and it utilized cross-functional teams.

By using the Baldrige Criteria to manage during difficult economic times, the City of Coral Springs reports that it has continued to achieve high customer satisfaction and maintain a low operating millage rate over time. In fact, in July 2010, Money magazine named the city 44th on the overall list of the 100 Best Places to Live in America and first in the state of Florida.

Based on this city's experience, perhaps the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence could help other American cities manage as well.

 

On the Road Again...with a Mission

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

This past week I had the pleasure of attending two national conferences: the Congress on Healthcare Leadership, sponsored by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and the SEPG conference, sponsored by the Software Engineering Institute. The ACHE brings together 4500 health care leaders from around the U.S. and globally. The SEPG conference brings together leaders and practitioners in software and systems process management from across the U.S.

Why do I and others from the Baldrige staff go to conferences? First, to listen to the voice of our customers, as recommended in the Baldrige Criteria. But, let me use these two conferences to illustrate some of the other reasons. The ACHE conference gives us the opportunity to meet informally with many of the senior leaders of hospitals and health care systems who might have questions or not know about Baldrige (Banish the thought!). It is especially beneficial when we exhibit at meetings where our Award winners are also presenting talks on their "Baldrige benefits." At this meeting, Heartland Health and AtlantiCare talked about the role of senior leaders and the survival of organizations with a capacity to change. Having just accepted members onto our 2011 Baldrige Board of Examiners, several of them stopped by our ACHE exhibit to say hello and ask questions about our upcoming examiner training.

The SEPG conference obviously afforded another opportunity to meet people and answer questions. In addition, it gave me the opportunity to explain how CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is compatible with the Baldrige organizational improvement and management framework. CMMI, like other process tools (e.g. lean, six sigma, ISO 9000 registration) helps organizations improve key processes. Baldrige helps them decide which processes to improve and puts it in a strategic concept for managing the entire enterprise.

But there is another reason for us to get outside our established Baldrige community. We claim that the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence reflect the "leading edge of validated management practice." Meetings like these two are part of our ongoing information gathering that is translated into the biennial evolution and updates of the Baldrige Criteria. It was at meetings over the last two years (among other indicators) that the power of social media for customer information exchange became so evident that social media became a theme in the 2011 Criteria revisions.

And finally, why do I personally go to meetings? Because it is frequently while travelling that I gather the "rich" experiences that lead to stories I tell to illustrate the benefits of using the Baldrige Criteria. Stories that frequently violate every tenet of our Customer Focus category. Stories that allow me to entertain examiners on Wednesday evening of examiner training each year. And this trip did not disappoint! On this trip, I had very positive customer experiences with merchants and some whoppers of experiences with customers behaving badly. Want to know more? See you at examiner training!

The Secret to Reducing High School Dropouts

Posted by Pamela Wong

Everyone agrees that we can’t have 1.3 million U.S. high school students dropping out every year—almost one in three.

This week, the America’s Promise Alliance and its partners are sponsoring here in Washington, D.C., the Building a Grad Nation Summit to “inspire a national movement to reach our goal of a 90 percent national graduation rate by 2020.”

To this end, I think it is inspiring to look at how recent winners of the Baldrige Award for education have tackled this problem.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland, a 2010 award winner, surpassed the graduation rates of the nation, the state, and a comparable school district from 2006 through 2010. Further, according to a study published in Education Week, MCPS’s 2010 graduation rate of 87.4% is among the top for the 50 largest U.S. school districts.

At Iredell-Statesville Schools (I-SS) in North Carolina, a 2008 award winner, the percentage of ninth graders who graduated four years later increased steadily from 64% in 2002–2003 to 80.7% in 2007–2008.

MCPS points to its graduation rate as an indicator of student satisfaction. Indeed, from 2007–2009, 83.3% to 87.7% of middle and high school students agreed or strongly agreed with “I am getting a good education at this school.” The district also has favorable results for how students perceive their school’s safety and its expectations of them.

I-SS identified alternative schools, alternative learning processes, and attendance as improvements that could impact its graduation rate. The district developed programs and processes to deal with these priorities and, in 2008, it reached the lowest high school dropout rate in its history. In addition, its attendance rate surpassed a local district, 20 peer districts, and the state, and class size in core subjects decreased.

The data from MCPS and I-SS show that having more students finish high school doesn’t depend on any one program or process. Rather, it results from student-centered excellence. Student-centered excellence, a core value of the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence, must take into account “all educational program and service features and support that contribute value to your students.” Such behavior leads to student “acquisition, satisfaction, preference, and loyalty,” which may be reflected in the graduation rate.

I’d like to hear how your school district has increased its graduation rate.

 

 

Nestlé Purina, High-Flying Acrobatics, and Baldrige!

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

 

Because I am a dog lover and someone who has been active in animal rescue, when I heard that the High-Flying Purina Incredible Dog Team^® was performing at the 23rd Annual Quest for Excellence Conference, I was pretty excited. And I'm looking forward to it not only because it will be amazing entertainment during the conference celebrating Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients, but because I see all sorts of linkages to the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence.

First, the dog team is sponsored by Nestlé Purina PetCare Company, a 2010 Baldrige Award recipient, which uses the dog team as part of its focus on pets, a key customer, and its contribution to societal responsibility, a key component of category 1 in the Criteria. (The company has many other societal responsibility contributions focusing on pets including its Purina Give A Bowl, ONE HOPE, and Rally to Rescue programs.) In the last two years, the team trainers have spent more than 300 hours performing for charitable organizations, educating people about responsible pet care, proper nutrition, and how good training can bring out the best in any dog, despite its age.

Another aspect of the dog team that caught my attention was that many of these dogs have been rescued from shelters, where they have been signed over by owners who deemed them untrainable. The spirit in the Criteria of perseverance and investing in a performance excellence program that may not be easy and may not lead to a Presidential Award in the organization's first year came to mind here. I also remember as a dog rescuer all those phone calls and e-mails that a dog was returned to the shelter or found as a stray and needed to be rescued, and did I have the time to take on another foster dog in an already canine-dominated home. Much like the dog team stresses the "'incredible' potential in every dog," any volunteer animal rescuer knows that the potential is already there, you just need to find the time and will to invest in it (much like the Criteria's potential for any organization).

Another key element of the Criteria that I've turned to during my years in animal rescue is their focus on volunteers, not as people outside of the workforce but as people who are part of your workforce, who your organization needs to train, cultivate, reward, recognize, communicate with, and engage with because they could very well be your key to sustainability, especially in nonprofit organizations. 

For me, the High-Flying Purina Incredible Dog Team^® showcases some key elements of the Criteria: a focus on customers (in this case pets!), a focus on giving back to one's community (societal responsibility), and a focus on volunteers. I hope many of you will be able to attend the Quest for Excellence and join in the fun, and I also hope that others can see these key elements in the Criteria and how they can apply and help you improve your own organizations. 

Wading into the Curriculum/Instruction Cage Death Match

Posted by Jeff Lucas    

 VS 

There have been a lot of rounds fired in the curriculum versus instruction battles over the last week or so.  First we had Tom Vander Ark calling for "an uncommon Curriculum" over at edReformer.  He was reacting to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) support for a common curriculum to support the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the joint National Governor's Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center)/Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSO) project to define the knowledge and skills that students should have as part of the K-12 careers. Instead, he looks to "next generation learning platforms" that will harness the new and now ubiquitous technologies capable of effectively and efficiently customizing virtually every experience in our waking hours.  These would be the eventual extensions of initiatives such as the School of One project that I posted on here. 

Almost immediately, he was slammed by Robert Pondiscio on the Core Knowledge blog as carrying the banner for "Ed Reformers for Illiteracy" .  Okay, so not surprising that the folks in E. D. Hirsch's shop are going to prefer focusing on a rich common body of knowledge to focusing on delivery systems, but I thought his "If you are opposed to teaching a common body of shared knowledge to all children, you are opposed to teaching children to read" was a bit harsh.  

Next, Kathleen Porter-Magee from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute comments on the above exchange and adds her own thought that teachers have much more impact on the equation than curriculum.  She reports that her experience with implementing multiple curricular changes showed that time and again the highly skilled teachers had more success, no matter what the content. She then concludes that "the most effective way states can help diagnose instructional problems is to ensure that there are rigorous statewide assessments that are tied to accountability at all levels."  

All three of these folks are really smart people whose opinions I respect and follow in many areas of the education policy debate.  I don't get near the time to devote to thinking about these issues that they do, but I am going to try out something that I hope might be at least a little helpful to the discussion.  Maybe the "system," in school system, is in there for a reason.  It seems to me that not understanding some of the characteristics of dynamic systems, especially those that are heavily involved with the interaction of human behaviors, makes it really hard not to get locked into making choices and pronouncements --  making "either/or" choices rather than looking for "both/and" opportunities.

So can I use system dynamics to solve the ills (supposed or real) of the public education system in the remainder of this post?  Nope, not a chance.  But I thought it might make for an interesting lens through which to view some of the current issues percolating in the education policy world over the next few weeks.  

But let me start with one of the most global of the systems dynamics principles: There is no one right answer.  As Jay Forrester, founder of system dynamics at MIT, put it:  "There are no right answers. Because system dynamics illustrates the interdependencies within the current system, there is never a single right answer to any question. Instead, the discipline reveals a variety of potential actions you may take... Each of these actions will produce some desired results and (almost certainly) some unintended consequences somewhere else in the system. The art of systems thinking includes learning to recognize the ramifications and trade-offs of the action you choose..."   I am hoping in some future posts to take a look at things like how cause and effect are frequently separated by a lot more time and distance than you might think, how pushing harder for change can set up balancing loops that actually create more resistance, and how the obvious fix to a problem frequently makes things worse.  

As usual, the Baldrige community contains plenty of folks that are more deeply versed in systems dynamics than I am, so what principle from the discipline do you think most cries out for application to public education?

Where Brave Men Dare Not Go

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

Okay, this is a serious topic, but I think the discourse of late has gotten out of hand. Two people with the same skills, training, and job responsibilities should receive the same pay. It should not depend on their gender, ethnicity, or any similar factors. Why can't we agree to that and focus our energy on proactively bringing that about, rather than debating the inequities and are they justified or real? There is a new White House report on the gender pay gap. Last week I read a blog post why the gender pay gap is a myth because, among other things, men work longer hours (according to the blog post). Then I read the results of a recent research study about the effect of weight on pay gap and its relationship to gender. According to that study thin women earn considerably more than their average-sized female colleagues and thin men, on the other hand, earn less than their average-sized male colleagues. As a matter of fact (according to the study) thin women earn $16,000 more per year and thin men about $8,000 less than their counterparts. Why can't we focus on what is important to doing the job?

In a 2007-2008 credit industry salary survey, gender was the fourth highest correlate with salary, beaten out by budgetary authority, size of subordinate staff, education level, and number of invoices generated per day. Interestingly right below gender was time spent in internal meetings. Could we have focused the level of effort for this and other studies on proactive studies to truly pay all people for the value they add, independent of any gender or other bias?

So how does this relate to the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence? A great deal. It starts right at the beginning of the Criteria with the setting of organizational values and promoting ethical behavior. It is critical to the way senior leaders create a high performing organizational culture that is characterized by open communication, engagement of the entire workforce, and benefiting from the diverse ideas, cultures and thinking of that workforce. So why can't we all set our sights on the future and use these parameters from the Baldrige Criteria as our guiding principles?

But in case you disagree, here are the set of values for my former employer, the Gone-Wrong Company:

1. Higher salaries for balding, aging males (in the spirit of transparency and self-interest)

2. Live in the past 

3. The CEO has the ideas, workers carry them out.

Oh yes, one last point, despite being on the brink of total failure, Gone-Wrong has just turned down a lucrative take-over bid from a woman-owned company.

Please accept this tongue-in-cheek post in the spirit it was written. Hopefully, I have not offended anyone. The point is we need to focus on equity, high performance, and the future not on debating the past. The Baldrige Criteria can point us in the right direction.

"To Care For Him Who Shall Have Borne the Battle . . . "

Posted by Jeff Lucas

In his second inaugural address President Abraham Lincoln spoke the words from the title of this post as he urged the then divided nation "to finish the work we are in and bind up the nation's wounds."  Since 1930, the federal agencies charged with attending to the needs of the nation's veterans have been consolidated under the Veteran's Administration (VA).  Today, the VA operates a nationwide network of services that include a health system that sees over 75 million outpatients each year, a benefits system that provides education benefits to over 500,000 people annually, and a home loan program that benefits more than 1.4 million families.  And, just in case you were unaware, they also operate The Secretary's Robert W. Carey Performance Excellence Awards -- a Baldrige-based performance improvement and recognition program for entities that provide all of these critical services. 

The Carey Awards use the Baldrige Criteria, but have adapted their review and award selection process to meet the unique need of the VA.  They do recognize organizations with a set of tiered awards based on the level of achievement, very similar to that utilized by many of our state and local quality programs (Note to Baldrige Geeks:  one of the organizations recognized this year at the Performance Achievement level was the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia -- employer of our former Baldrige colleague Jane Poulter!).  In addition, they have provided their potential applicants with a number of great resources for planning and writing applications.  These are available at the link above and would also be quite helpful for anyone submitting an application to a state award program or for the Baldrige Award.  You can also find links to the presentations from this year's Carey Awards Symposium which featured a number of organizations familiar to the Baldrige community including:  Heartland Health, North Mississippi Medical Center, and, not surprisingly, the VA Cooperative Studies Center.  

One of the top three reasons that Baldrige Examiners give for the incredible amount of time that they volunteer to our program is the ability to provide service to their country.  So, it should come as no great surprise that numerous members of our community also participate in the Carey Awards as examiners, judges and presenters at the Symposium.  This year's cycle of awards is just getting ready to kickoff and the folks at the VA are always looking for experienced examiners to supplement their internal resources.  If you are an experienced examiner at either the national or state level, live in the DC area, or have an employer who would be willing to fund travel expenses associated with this ongoing professional development (unfortunately the VA cannot cover costs for training or consensus, both of which take place in the DC area, but they do cover travel for site visits), and have not gotten your fill of writing feedback reports, contact Diane Burton at diane.burton@va.gov and she can give you more details.  

Helping those who provide services to our war veterans "deliver ever increasing value" . . . hard to think of anything more rewarding than that. 

America Needs . . . BPEGs

Posted by Jeff Lucas

When Larry Potterfield of MidwayUSA (2009 Baldrige Winner) suggests that you do something, you are well advised to get on it right away.  When you check out this video that describes his organization's experience with the Baldrige Criteria, he seems like a charming, folksy business man from Missouri, but look closely at that opening quote.  He has thoughts about ruling the world and given his track record of success, I am not betting against him.  So, before I am "voluntold" (Larry's term) to do something that I may not be capable of, I want to report on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Group presentation that he made prior to the Innovate Tennessee conference put on by the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence recently. 

  

A Baldrige Performance Excellence Group (BPEG) is a community based collaboration that brings together leaders from the Business, Education, Health Care and Nonprofit sectors to learn about the Baldrige Criteria, the benefits of applying to your state quality program (or the national program for that matter) and why you or your colleagues should consider serving as Examiners for these programs. Check out the Baldrige Cheermudgeon's original post on the subject here.  The focus is a grassroots effort to extend the power of Baldrige to develop your town or city into a Community of Excellence.  Larry and the folks at MidwayUSA have already done a lot of the heavy lifting for you.  If you go to the America Needs Baldrige website you will find the "BPEG-in-a-box" that provides you with all the guidance and tools you need to get a BPEG started in your community.  

So, back to the presentation in Tennessee.  Northeast Tennessee has long been a center of Baldrige-based activity in the state.  Two national Baldrige Award Winners, Eastman Chemical and Pal's Sudden Service, are headquartered in Kingsport and there is strong involvement from the education and health care sectors as well. Katie Rawls, the Executive Director of TNCPE, being keenly aware of this interest and already having secured Larry Potterfield as a keynote speaker for the conference, didn't want to pass up the opportunity to bring these parties together to explore starting up the state's first BPEG.  I know if I try and list the impressive roster of attendees at the event I will miss someone important, but suffice it to say that they included all of the above mentioned as well as representatives from the Chambers of Commerce and state government (see my earlier post on Tennessee's Three Star Program for another great Volunteer State initiative).  Larry made a very compelling case for the importance of local based initiatives if the Baldrige effort is really to be taken to scale.  In addition to challenging me to write this blog post, he also made it pretty clear that he felt this would be a beneficial vehicle for Baldrige to utilize as we look to promote performance excellence.  I agree, so let me make this the first in what I hope will be many opportunities to promote BPEGs.  I urge you to click through to get the materials; contact your state quality program (information here); contact your local leaders; and plan your first BPEG meeting.  To paraphrase Larry, it's what America needs.