Avoid the most common pitfalls
Tips for a successful Assessment
12. Differentiate the assessment from a compliance audit
People in most organizations have had experience with compliance audits, in various guises. So unless they are told otherwise they will tend to assume that the Baldrige assessment is a similar process. Assessments can indeed be conducted like compliance audits, but this approach is counter-productive and leads to undesirable behaviors at all levels in the organization. For example:
- people may not be forthcoming or candid during the interviews. They may feel that it's disloyal to reveal problems to an 'auditor', and they may also fear being identified and punished for doing so
- when the report is being presented, leadership may become anxious about the large number of opportunities for improvement reported. They may think that these all have to be fixed, since this is usually how compliance audit findings are handled.
To avoid such fears and defensiveness it's important to clear away false assumptions that may impede the process, by communicating some key messages about the assessment.
For example, everyone needs to know that it's safe to be candid during the interviews – because the focus is on the system, not on individual or group performance, and because the anonymity of interviewees is protected. The leaders need to understand that the large volume of findings will be analyzed and distilled down to a few high-leverage improvement actions.
Further reading
This
article just touches on some of the key issues.
For lots more information on how to conduct an assessment effectively, see
"From Baldrige
to the Bottom Line".