As for the skeptics who point to the failures of Baldrige Award recipients, I recently posted two articles in response. In “Responding to Critics,” I quote Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and, most recently, How the Mighty Fall, who wrote, “Just because a company falls doesn’t invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.”

No organization is even close to perfect, Baldrige Award winners included, but those organizations that strive to integrate the Baldrige model can show results among the best in their industries. I encourage the doubters to actually read the Criteria for Performance Excellence and the application summaries of award recipients to see the power in this process. Both are available at the Baldrige program’s Web site at http://www.quality.nist.gov.

I don’t know if being called a contrarian is a good or bad thing, but in this case I’ll go with Aristotle, who advised “all things in moderation.” That certainly applies to these seven criteria.

Leadership. The three greatest leaders of the 20th century, i.e. the people who changed the world the most, were Hitler, Mao and Stalin. Peter Drucker, being Austrian, had good reasons for being leery of “Leaders”. Leadership can be a great thing or it can be a disaster. Please see Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Bob Nardeli at Home Depot and Chrysler. (I could reuse Nardelli to argue in favor of moderation in process focus, but I’m not that cruel.)

Leadership, in moderation, is a good thing. Personally, I like a LOT of moderation in my leaders. The examples I’ve listed are well known, but there are many others, much less famous, that I would just as soon moderate with cement boots in the middle of Lake Michigan.

Strategic planning is important. It’s an overworked analogy, but nonetheless true, that if excellent tactical execution were more important than strategic planning, the Germans would have won WWII. Fortunately, the Allies had a better strategic planing and that made up for horrendously bad tactical execution and a horrific loss of human lives, especially for the Russians.

That being said, consulting organizations and I will name names: McKinsey, Bain, BCG etc. overuse the term “strategic planning” the same way used car dealers overuse the word trust. And they inspire the same sensation.

Strategic planning is important and should be done by people whose lives and careers are invested in the corporation and who understand the intricate details of how strategy interacts with tactical execution and operations. It should not be proposed twenty-somethings with Harvard MBAs who understand Excel analysis and detailed powerpoint presentations, but have never worked in a business. Strategic Planning is great right up to the day you hire a consultant. The day a company hires strategic planning consultants, the downfall is near.

A good rule of thumb, if you can describe your strategic plan with pictures on a bar room napkin when you’re drunk, it’s probably a good strategic plan (think SouthWest Airlines, Kinko’s and WWII.) If it requires deeper analysis then that, it probably won’t work, think of what McKinsey did to Kinko’s, GM etc.

Customer and market focus vs Process Improvement. Customer focus is absolutely important and one of the main problems with being process focused. Process improvement is about focusing internally on improving operations. The problem with focusing internally is that companies often stop focusing externally. These two have to be kept in balance. Most businesses can’t focus so exclusively on customer support that they don’t use processes to achieve efficiencies. Likewise, they can’t focus so much on internal processes that they lose sight of their customers. It’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, this balance is one of the toughest to keep. Moderation is the key to that balance.

Measurement analysis and knowledge management. I wouldn’t group these two together, but I’m not Baldridge. In the world of software engineering, which is really all I know, I’m a huge fan of applying analytics and lean manufacturing. I love the work Andrew Chen (http://andrewchenblog.com/) and Eric Reis (http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/08/building-new-startup-hub.html) are doing applying lean manufacturing and split-test analysis to startups. They are bringing discipline to an area that needs it.

The knowledge management part I’m not so sure of. KM shouldn’t cost money. It really should be called thinking. Business leaders are paid to understand ramifications, think, and act. If they need to buy software or hire consultants to think for them, they should be fired. As Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan/Bank One is famous for saying – “No consultants. We better know our business better than anyone.”

Workforce focus – this is really the result of articulate strategic plans and clear tactical direction. As a friend of mine whose a commander in Afghanistan is fond of saying, your strategy better be clear and obvious enough that over excited nineteen year olds with guns in the mountains, know what to do and why. Unfortunately, this neither true in Afghanistan nor most businesses. Maybe the answer to workforce focus is that strategic plans and tactical directions need to be written on bar napkins. Too much analysis leads people to think they’re too clever and they try to do things that are too complicated and workplace focus impossible. Less is more. Was there ever a more moderate statement?

Results should be measured in terms of financial results. America has been successful for so long that people have forgotten that there are only two types of businesses. Not-for-profit businesses and for-profit-businesses. Not-for-profits’ do wonderful work and fill a necessary space in the world and in give people the opportunity to do good work, network and learn new skills. For profit businesses exist for one and only one reason – to make a profit. Those are the results that count, of course, some moderation might be helpful here.

To get back to your comment:
“My key point was not the award, but the wisdom contained in the 7 criteria. If you get a chance, re-read the criteria and I would be happy to discuss which of those you could get too much of.”

All of these things are important and all of them need to be moderated. If you want to take any one of them to the extreme, I’ll be happy to debate on the side of moderation. I’m even willing to bet beer-n-brats at the Hofbrauhouse on the outcome.

Does that make me a contrarian?

Andy “the moderate” Meyer

Every week I select five excellent posts from this week’s independent business blogs. This week, I’m pointing you to posts on using Baldrige guidelines to re-make your business, one step beyond MBWA, promotion case studies, measurement, and changes i…

-Blaming the framework is like blaming the chocolate cake for making you fat. To my knowledge, no piece of cake has yet jumped up and jammed itself down anyone’s throat. Although, I think it occasionally talks to me!

-See also Motorola’s involvement in TQM long before Baldrige. (I could go on at considerable informed length about this interesting company…but you are absolutely right, they missed the market. Their former employees also are happy to highlight the horrible quality and rework programs that they lived with while in the heyday of their quality initiatives.)

-There are some great companies that have prospered over the years that give credit to the framework as their business planning tool.

My key point was not the award, but the wisdom contained in the 7 criteria. If you get a chance, re-read the criteria and I would be happy to discuss which of those you could get too much of. -Art

I’m familiar with Baldridge though I haven’t really followed it in a couple years. The reason being that so many of the award winners found themselves in deep financial trouble after winning the award. For example: Motorola, 3M, Cadillac, Xerox, Westinghouse, AT&T, Boeing etc.

All these companies won the award and had near death experiences shortly there after. At least among the people I mixed with, the belief was that the types of companies that won the award focused too much on internal processes and missed major shifts in the market as a result.

As an Industrial Engineer who’s education was deeply steeped in TQM, I believe there is a place for awards like Baldridge, but it’s like chocolate cake. At small slice is nice and gives operations people something to salivate over. Too much and you get sick.

Nice Juran encounter! My close encounter with a Quality deity was attending a seminar put on by my company with Dr. Deming.

Thanks for the comment! -Art