I spent two days in training last week with new, returning and senior members of the Michigan Quality Leadership Award (MQLA) Board of Examiners. This state program is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria for Business, Non-Profit, Health Care and Education.
The core values and concepts woven through the Baldrige Criteria provide a holistic framework that businesses, non-profits, health care organizations and schools can use to increase their performance excellence and improve their competitive position in today’s marketplace:
- visionary leadership
- customer-driven excellence
- organizational and personal learning
- valuing employees and partners
- agility
- focus on the future
- managing for innovation
- management by fact
- social responsibility
- focus on results and creating value
- systems perspective
Can you think of an organization that doesn’t need these core values and concepts today? Whether or not you’re ready to apply for a state or national leadership award, the appropriate Baldrige Criteria can help you and those in your organization ask yourselves some really good questions. The challenging part, then, is using those questions to help your organization learn, innovate and improve in those areas critical to its success.
Award recipients often use the term journey to describe their performance excellence initiatives and it’s a very appropriate metaphor. Many of them probably started out in a place very similar to where you are now. You’ve heard this old saying, right?
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Confucius
If your organization is ready to take the first step toward a higher level of organizational excellence, you might consider using the Baldrige Criteria as a guidebook for your journey. Delta Possibilities offers a one-day workshop on System-Wide Organizational Excellence, using the Baldrige Criteria as a framework. If we can help you get started on your journey to excellence, please contact us at 734.929.9463 or beth@deltapossibilities.com.
For more information about state or national leadership award programs based on the Baldrige Criteria, contact the Michigan Quality Council or the Baldrige National Quality Program.
[tags] performance excellence, Michigan Quality Leadership Award, MQLA, Michigan Quality Council, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Baldrige National Quality Program, journey, organizational values, system-wide organizational excellence [/tags]
