Malcolm Baldrige Criteria – A Business Excellence Model

2009 Excellence in Government Conference:
Who is Missing from the Party?

Are large scale system failures becoming more common, or are we just getting better at finding them? But does it matter? Look at the impact on all of us: broken financial and regulatory systems, inefficient health care systems, failing educational systems (only 71% of American eighth grade students graduate 4 years later with a high school diploma), accelerated job losses through off-shoring and industrial failures… we not only CAN do better, we MUST do better.

Which brings us to the 2009 Excellence in Government Conference held in Washington, DC, on October 5, 2009. Reviewing the online agenda (http://www.excelgov.com), amidst announcements that “experts are studying what is required for success in federal programs” and “the administration is focusing on technology to transform the federal government”, we found the following statement:

“The Obama administration issued a mandate for agencies to achieve a high performing workforce.”
A mandate? This seems to imply that there are organizations out there that do NOT want a high performing workforce.

We have a different view. A “high performing workforce” does not take a “mandate”. It takes knowledge, theory, discipline, and a system designed for success.

This is not a Democratic or Republican criticism. Every incoming administration mandates a new approach to performance management across the federal government and its 2.2 million employees.

We have done enough work in the public sector to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the systems and the people who work in these systems.

Which brings us to the central question: Where is Baldrige? Why are we about to embark on yet another cycle of “new” management initiatives when the federal government already has within it direct access to arguably the world’s finest performance excellence system, the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence? At the same time that world-class companies and government agencies around the world are achieving transcendent success through the Baldrige System, here is Washington, DC, Baldrige is a no-show at a conference ostensibly dedicated to excellence in government.

Interestingly, as we are writing this newsletter, the following announcement came into our inbox from the Arabian Business News:

“Using the Baldrige criteria, organizations assess their management systems to identify the strengths of their systems and the opportunities for improvement. This assessment, evaluation, and improvement process helps them embed the Baldrige core values in their cultures, leading to excellent results… We are about building better organizations and ensuring those organizations are prepared to go forward on the global stage. We envision the Middle East and North Africa region as a center of excellence that the rest of the world sets their standards by, not the other way around.”
(http://www.arabianbusiness.com/press_releases/detail/39697)

Were only this vision shared within our own government.

The lesson is clear. We in the Baldrige community are on our own. But we already know that. We will patiently ride out the “mandates” and “new” initiatives and stay focused on doing the best possible job we can every day, enlightened and empowered by the knowledge that a Baldrige-type process is not the easiest path to take, but it is the only enduring method for achieving long-term results that matter.

source: Global Insights. Global Performance Systems, Inc. http://gpsinc.us. Copyright 2003-2009 Craig Anderson. All rights reserved.

Audit and Accountability: Underutilized Pillars of Performance Excellence
Craig A. Anderson, September 2009

The pursuit of performance excellence is a team sport. As defined in the 2009-2010 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, performance excellence refers to an “integrated approach to organizational performance management” that results in (1) ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, (2)
improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities, and (3) organizational and personal learning. Integration is further clarified as “the harmonization of plans, processes, information, resource decisions, actions, results, and analyses to support key organization-wide goals.” The Criteria emphasize that effective integration is achieved “when the individual components of a performance management system operate as a fully interconnected unit.”

The overarching concept is easy to grasp: bring people together to work as a team to achieve common goals. But as all of us know, the challenge is to move from concept to real world implementation. We need allies to make this happen. These allies are often right down the hall, in the internal audit department.

The audit and accountability function is an underutilized resource that is well-positioned to support the pursuit of performance excellence. Auditors are trained to think constructively and analytically, and tend to bring a cross-cutting view of the organization to their work. Auditors are also comfortable with the idea of using data as the basis for their findings, conclusions, and recommendations for improvement.

Organizations aiming for performance excellence must aggressively and consistently seek out areas of competitive advantage. An audit and accountability function that not only performs its traditional oversight role but also vigorously supports performance excellence offers a unique and powerful advantage. In effect, you have an integrated team of professionals that understands your organization identifying key opportunities for improvement and developing appropriate findings and recommendations.

How to get there? We suggest a four step approach to engage your internal auditors in the pursuit of performance excellence.

Step 1: Establish a dialogue
Performance excellence makes sense on many levels, but it cannot be grasped without awareness. The first step is to open a dialogue with key audit and accountability managers and staff. Introduce the principles of performance excellence and allow ample unforced time for skeptical analysis. Performance excellence will “sell itself” as long as smart people are allowed freedom to challenge and question the information. Position the dialogue as a process. And, ultimately, even if (sadly) performance excellence goes nowhere in your organization, this dialogue will result in an improved internal audit process.

Step 2: Agree on a common vision
As understanding deepens, raise the stakes by defining a common vision for the role of the audit and accountability function in performance excellence. Identify stakeholders across the organization who are in position to help define this vision. Recognize the critical importance of not impairing auditor independence in any way throughout this process; fortunately, there are no prohibitions against auditors thinking more clearly and expansively, and developing meaningful recommendations that will help to integrate performance excellence across the organization.

Step 3: Provide coaching and support
As the vision is articulated and deployed, seek out opportunities to provide coaching and support directly to audit teams. Tread lightly—you are on their turf here, but with the support of audit management, coach audit teams on how they can leverage their unique skills and abilities to move the organization along the
path of performance excellence. Our experience is that auditors do not inherently want to operate in a “gotcha” mode, but that too often this is the expectation created by the organization. Replace “gotcha” with “win-win” and you will sharpen your competitive edge.

Step 4: Recognize and celebrate success
Like we said earlier, performance excellence is a team sport. Find opportunities to recognize and reward your audit and accountability function for playing a larger role in support of performance excellence. Highlight examples of audit findings and recommendations that demonstrate an understanding of integrated performance excellence. Respect the importance of the traditional audit and accountability function, but also make it clear that the competitive landscape demands that the bar be raised wherever possible and audit is no exception. Fresh thinking and new engagement with this valuable resource can have a huge positive impact on your competitive position.

Malcolm Baldrige Award Criteria was developed into its respective seven categories. Each of these seven categories focus on a key process to achieve performance excellence.

The Malcolm baldrige Criteria emphasize on alignment of all these key processes. The Baldrige values and Concepts are build into the criteria to attain alignment of the seven categories yet without displaying the values and concepts specifically in the criteria itself.

The Malcolm Baldrige Criteria used to be revised on a yearly basis and has changed to a once in two years basis effective 2009 with the introduction of the Malcolm Baldrige Award Criteria 2009-2010 version. The Malcolm Badrige Award is given to the best organization of its respective award categories. Each award Applicant has to exhits the highest standards of Approach, Deployement of their key process in relation to the seven categories in the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria.

The effectiveness of the Approach and Deployement are assessed in the area of its Results. Hence, the Baldrige Award Assessment Approach took into consideration an aligned actions of the Approach, Deployement and Results of strategies, key actions and plan in the organization. Whenever a Baldrige Award Assessment is carried out to an applicant, the Baldrige Assessor will evaluate how well the values and concepts are being deployed as a way of life in the organization.

To be awarded the Malcolm Baldrige Award winners, the applicant has to show an holistic approach to all the seven cetegories as well as a high level of Implementing Malcolm Baldrige Award Criteria.

One way to provide information about the implementation of the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria is to provide an award application report to the Malcolm Baldrige Award authority which is used as a basis for Baldrige assessment.