From Baldrige to the Bottom Line

Excerpt: 'About This Book'

This book describes a powerful, proven methodology for driving organizational change and improvement: the assessment process. This process provides a roadmap for any organization to develop a high-performance management system and thus improve its "bottom line" – whether this means better financial results or the fulfillment of a mandate.

From Baldrige to the Bottom Line addresses the needs of a wide audience – from senior leaders and managers to educators and facilitators in the trenches. The early chapters provide information that the leaders need up front to get the process started: fundamental concepts, strategy issues, and how to plan for an assessment. Later chapters provide detailed implementation guidance, tools, and techniques, as well as case studies of five role model organizations. A companion website provides a wealth of additional information that complements the book.

Anyone, at any level, who is interested or involved in the assessment process will find valuable information in each chapter.

If you have never heard of a Baldrige-based assessment before (perhaps you thought that a Baldrige might be some kind of farming implement), you'll find this book an easy read: it starts from the basic principles and continues up to advanced issues that keep the experts on their toes.
If your organization is already using Baldrige (or one of its many counterparts), this book will help you to get even more out of your assessment process by making it more effective, more streamlined, and more enduring. If your organization has run into snags in using the assessment process, this book will help you to see why – and figure out how to put things right.
If you are an expert in this area – perhaps you have served as an examiner for Baldrige or a similar award program-most of this book will resonate strongly with your own experience. However, it may also challenge some of your thinking about what constitutes best practice outside an awards program, when the primary goal is to create an improvement plan and translate this into improved performance.
If your organization performs management system audits, this book will reveal rich new possibilities for self-examination and diagnosis. Unlike the traditional compliance audit, the assessment process is designed to engage people in a positive fashion, help build support for change, reveal high-leverage opportunities for improvement, and thus contribute directly to the goals of the organization.

What the Book Covers

The following chapters describe the four phases of establishing an the assessment-driven improvement cycle:

The preparation phase – to make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you get started
The assessment process – a structured examination of the organization's management methods
The improvement steps that must follow after an assessment – planning, implementation and monitoring – in order to translate the assessment findings into improved performance
The ongoing cycle that is needed to keep the improvement "wheel" turning. (See Exhibit I.1.)

Exhibit I.1 Turning the Improvement Wheel

Finally, there are five case studies. These are the stories of five outstanding organizations that have integrated assessment into their way of doing business:

Xerox Corporation: One of the original pioneers of quality improvement and a role model. Xerox is a world-class company that has won not just the Baldrige Award (twice), but virtually every other similar award on the planet. So why is Xerox still performing assessments of every business unit every year?
TELUS Mobility: A Canadian mobile phone service provider that is a model for how to achieve profitable growth by focusing on the customer. Why did TELUS start using assessment when it had only 50 employees?
Medrad's products help radiologists obtain clearer X-ray, CT and MR images. Medrad created the market for such products, grew this market into a major industry, and still dominates it. Medrad has never had a serious crisis, has never been anything but successful and growing. Why did Medrad management decide that conducting assessments would enable them to do better?
Cargill: The multinational agribusiness giant. Cargill operates as a loose federation of largely autonomous business units. Why is this thrifty firm encouraging its business units to spend money on assessments?
Pinellas County School District: One of the largest, most diverse school districts in North America, Pinellas is recording dramatic improvements in student achievement. What does this have to do with Baldrige and the assessment process?

These case studies provide a window into the real-life experience of these high-performing organizations and how they use this methodology to drive change and improvement.

How This Book Differs from Others

"From Baldrige to the Bottom Line" has a very precise focus, which complements the other resources and literature available in this field. It concentrates on:

The assessment process rather than the criteria (which describe what the assessment should look for).
There are other books that describe the Baldrige criteria in much greater depth, and training is essential to properly understand these criteria. This book focuses on the assessment process-because assessment is not a "one size fits all" methodology, and expert tailoring of the process can make the difference between success and failure
Assessment as a method of planning for improvement rather than an awards examination process. There are many valuable uses for Baldrige-like criteria, but this book focuses on assessment as a systematic, dependable way of launching highly focused improvement efforts. The process of adjudicating awards has many similarities to the assessment process-and it can also be used to support planning for improvement-but these are different processes with different primary goals.
How to use assessment as a catalyst for organizational change.
Organizational change is usually difficult and time-consuming, and when many people don't buy in, progress grinds to a halt. This book is not just about the mechanics of the assessment process. It shows how to use assessment to engage people and bring them on board. It explains how to create an understanding of the need for improvement, and a commitment to shared improvement goals.

The Companion Website

If you have access to the Internet, you can obtain additional information from a companion website that complements this book. This electronic material has some features that the convenient printed volume in your hand does not:

It contains additional sections and case studies that couldn't go in the print version without making it a very large, expensive tome.
It includes reference information that is subject to change, such as lists of awards and assessment criteria available around the world. This information is kept up to date on the website.
It lists recommended reading on related subjects, such as managing change and quality management.
It provides guidance on how to get in touch with other leading organizations that are using this process, such as those featured in the case studies, or the winners of Baldrige and similar awards.
It answers questions that other readers have asked-perhaps questions that have occurred to you, too.
It has links to other online resources, which are abundant on the Internet.
Finally, it provides an easy way of contacting the author, to ask questions or to comment on this book.

The aim of this package – the book plus the companion website – is to provide a virtual consultant-in-a-box. Of course this material cannot be a substitute for real live helpers and proper training; you will still need help from competent colleagues, moral support from friends, and probably guidance from an experienced process expert. But the book gives you a huge head start in learning about the assessment process, as well as a valuable reference text. And the website provides a way of obtaining even more information and staying up to date.

If you decide to proceed with the assessment process, or if you have more questions after reading the book, the website should be your next port of call.
You will see the symbol www whenever there is reference to materials on the companion website, which is located at:

www.dhutton.com/roadmap

Important Note: The website contains a restricted area – the Readers Lounge – that is reserved for readers of this book. In order to gain access to the Lounge, you should have the book at hand when you visit the website for the first time.

Many capable people generously contributed their knowledge during the making of this book. The result is a distillation of more than a decade of collective experience and experimentation. So whether you are a seasoned assessor or just learning about this methodology for the first time, you will find plenty to make you think. If you are involved in the assessment process in any role, this book will help you to be more effective. If you have no intention of ever being involved in an assessment, it might change your mind.

Read and enjoy!

David W. Hutton

From Baldrige to the Bottom Line

Excerpt: 'About This Book'

What the Book Covers

How This Book Differs from Others

The Companion Website

More Information