How do your leaders drive Performance Excellence?

So you think you are ready to pursue a Baldrige award?

Your organization leaders may start reviewing the criteria for achieving an award and see that it is quite overwhelming. This article is written to give you some insight into one very important piece of the criteria – Leadership and creating a successful organization.

The Leadership category asks HOW SENIOR LEADERS’ personal actions guide and sustain their organization. It also asks about their organization’s GOVERNANCE system and HOW their organization fulfills its legal, ethical, and societal responsibilities. This is all about continuous improvement for your enterprise.

Senior leaders in businesses want to create successful organizations. That’s the driver that motivates them every day. And it is the root of what causes them to lose sleep at night when things aren’t going well. Sometimes leaders are unsure about how to quantify the benefits from improvements and aren’t sure that their controls (i.e., governance) are driving the right behaviors. A leader may even question whether the improvement activities they are encouraging are the right ones.

The “how” of ‘Creating a Successful Organization’ is spelled out in the Baldrige criteria. Making the 'how' tangible, manageable and successful is what IMEC is all about. Here are some examples of the improvement strategies organizations may pursue…

• Creating an environment for the achievement of their MISSION, improvement of organizational PERFORMANCE, PERFORMANCE leadership, organizational LEARNING, and LEARNING for people in the WORKFORCE

Focused improvements may include: Strategic planning, Lean training, QMS Implementation, E3 (sustainability) Assessment, and Training Within Industry (TWI) Job Instruction

• Creating a WORKFORCE culture that delivers a consistently positive CUSTOMER experience and fosters CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Focused improvements may include: Value Stream Mapping, Training Within Industry (TWI) Job Relations, Strategic Planning, and Supply Chain Optimization

• Creating an environment for INNOVATION and INTELLIGENT RISK taking, achievement of your STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES, and organizational agility

Focused improvements may include: Technology Scouting, Competitive Market Intelligence, and Technology Driven Market Intelligence

• Participating in succession planning and the development of future organizational leaders

Focused improvements may include: Strategic Planning, Transition/Succession Planning, and Executive Coaching

If you would like to learn more about the Baldrige Framework for Performance Excellence and how it can be used as a tool for creating success in your company, visit http://ilpex.org/ or contact your local IMEC representative.

Article contributed by Mary Hallock, IMEC Technical Specialist