Issue 31, Thursday 2 November, 2000
Made in New Zealand - twice winners of the America's Cup
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Made in New Zealand - twice winners of the America's Cup
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"A wise old man, Donald Curtis (old enough that when we met, the Big Five were the Big Eight and he worked for Touche Ross & Co.), said to me, 'Ted Williams didn't bat .400. Ted Williams swung the bat. His batting average was the measure of what he did - but it is not what he did'."
Award is a free fortnightly email magazine with the tools, techniques and best-practices that deliver high performance in the new economy
In this issue
WarmUp – an abiding 'Baldrige' dilemma
Ten Minute MasterClass – Category 3.1 - ten 'customer and market' rules for the new new economy
Ten Minute MasterClass – RAPID
QuickPoll - whaddya love? Hate? Really!?
Quick Case Study – public-private partnerships
Sixty Second Snapshots
>> ISO-Buster does U-turn. Surely not
>> What's Quality v2
>> Is 'boss' a 4-letter word?
>> Stop obsessing over metrics
>> corporate citizenship - collaborative comms
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WarmUp® – Now here's a dilemma.
If the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria booklet was a commercial product, it would be a number one all time best seller. A gazillion copies sit on shelves and in filing systems, all around the world. Don't ask where the numbers come from, but it's claimed that something like a third of all corporates in the US (by dollar value) have some connection to Baldrige. So why is 'Baldrige' almost invisible in the business literature? Ever see it mentioned in Fortune, Fast Company or Business 2.0?
Maybe it's because 'Baldrige' is, well, old-economy. A legacy idea that no-longer energises investors. Maybe it's because 'Baldrige' is hardly ever implemented as a complete package – organisations do this bit or that bit, or they customise and re-label. Certainly there are past winners who hide their award behind the shrubbery in the trophy room.
And why, if 'Baldrige' is the American economy's secret weapon, are there so few national applications every year? You could say the same and ask the same about the European equivalent – the EFQM. Or about any other national scheme. I know, I know – one answer is because there are so many state and local award schemes, where winning is easier, means more locally, and where one is not so, ah, exposed.
There are other reasons – the criteria don't fit well with existing structures, the effort required is too great, too many people equate 'Baldrige' with 'quality' (and 'quality' is bad politics, or something 'quality' people do in a distant office somewhere near the despatch dock).
In short, there are barriers to implementing and applying the whole package that have created an enormous gap between interest and application.
There've been attempts to bridge the gap. The Texas state quality people have some great on-line entry-level stuff, as do Minnesota – with Baldrige Express. But is Baldrige-Lite the answer? British specialist Malcolm Holden has another approach – take the best of 'Baldrige/EFQM', throw in just the right amount of best practice and six sigma, shake, and out comes something that seems to be a hot property! See RAPID, below.
Ten minute MasterClass® – Baldrige category 3.1
Customer and market knowledge in the new new economy
In 'Ten rules for the new economy' published Nov 1 for clickz.com, columnist Sean Carton wrote “In the future, people won't care whether or not they're online”. How'd he come to this conclusion? Playing around with Tellme, a voice-portal service (1-800-555-TELL) that allows you to navigate web-supplied content using voice commands over your telephone. "Is this the web?, Sean wondered, and if so, “How is it different?"
An 'ah ha' moment. What separates the new economy from the new new economy? Not the medium – it's the information or service itself. The old new-economy/dot-com explosion was based on the assumption that the web mattered. It was a revolution. The old rules didn't apply. Businesses were expected to succeed because they were on the web, not because they had earnings, stable business models, or good management teams.
Not how things turned out, eh? Companies whose only claim to fame was a www or a dot-com are going out of business in droves. High-flying firms that based their businesses on the new economy have seen their values tank.
The big mistake, says Sean, was thinking that consumers cared more about the medium than the information. Do people using Tellme care if their driving directions are being processed via a voice middleware application pulling data over a network running TCP/IP? Hell no.
Where are we heading? New assumption – in the new new economy, content rules, not the tech that delivers it. Whether over the phone, on a PC, in our TV, via satellite radio, in a game, carried on a PDA, or in a disposable computer purchased from a vending machine, tomorrow's consumers won't care... as long as they get what they're looking for when they want it.
Means what? Marketers will have to rethink tactics, working from the customer out, not from the medium in. Here's Sean's 10 rules for the new-new economy:
- Be where the customer is – doesn't matter what medium you're using as long as it's the one your customers are using. In some cases it may be the web; in some cases it won't. The most important thing is to reach the greatest number of eyes (or ears) in the most effective way possible. Find where the customers are, and go to them.
- Measurement and optimization rule! – the web has brought radical accountability to advertising. Clients are no longer satisfied with vague assurances. They want the measurable results the web offers, and they're going to start looking at the not-so-hard numbers of other mediums and start demanding accountability. Use the new hard data to ruthlessly test your assumptions about where your customers are.
- Focus – main reason people like big box retailers? All the stuff they need is in one (Wal-Mart) place. But on the web, everything's more or less a click away. Consolidation for consumer convenience is a nonsense when no "distance" separates one store/business from another. Doing one thing really well wins.
- Fit the creative to the medium – remember all those dreadful brochureware sites (remember them! They're still everywhere!). We've learned that interactivity and value work much better. As more and more delivery options become available, take the time to understand how the medium affects the message.
- Come together – one-stop shopping isn't necessarily something that consumers want or need online. And while companies need to do what they do best (see 3), there's no reason why networks of focused sites can't work together in an integrated fashion by forming partnerships, alliances, or affiliate programs.
- Differentiate where it counts – just another me too? You're dead! And just being different isn't enough. In the new new economy different means 'in a way that makes sense to consumers.' A goofy mascot, a famous celebrity spokesperson, or a nifty business model mean zip if killer service, lower prices, and free shipping are all your customers really want.
- It's the experience, stupid! – infinite choices, easy price comparisons, instant access to perfect (or near-perfect) information. Base your buying decision on what? The nicest experience, right?
- Don't become a commodity – fight commodification through service, quality, features, delivery, experience, or whatever will make your brand stand out to your customers.
- Old habits die hard – you've always bought groceries at your local grocery store. Why change – you like things the way they are. In the new new economy, if a company can't provide a truly compelling reason for consumers to change their behavior, they won't.
- There is no one solution – tactics such as permission marketing, viral marketing, wireless advertising, and location-based marketing all have very good applications, but none of them will ever be THE answer. Test, measure, optimize, and keep your eyes on the lookout for better ways to reach your targets. Chances are the best way will always be a combination of new and old ways.
Ten minute MasterClass® – RAPID
A few weeks ago, occasional correspondent Malcolm Holden emailed a pdf brochure about something called RAPID.
“Essentially,” he wrote, “it is a no nonsense approach to business improvement based on academic models plus benchmarked best commercial practice from some of the world's leading companies.”
“There are many organisations in the UK (public and private sector) trying to implement the EFQM Excellence Model and making a complete mess of it," he wrote, "because:
- they don't have the right culture at the very top
- the model is only used for assessment, has a complex scoring mechanism, is not enshrined in the 'Management Process'
- it proposes use of a bespoke business blueprint - which defines the organisation's Desired Future State for each key driver of the business and for each end result (Balanced Scorecard)
- the blueprint actually is the business, rather than a generic assessment tool that may change every year or so at the whim of an external body over which the company has no control
- the blueprint has a comprehensive set of best practice improvement tools built into it - such as a world-class benchmarking process (based on Xerox methodology), problem solving, process improvement, project management, statistical and advanced management planning tools, 360 degree appraisal, team building, empowerment, Employee Opinion Survey, Customer Survey(s) and so on.
“Above all RAPID has been designed for top down use - with emphasis on simplicity. This is key to gaining the hearts and minds of the CEO and his/ her management team.”
According to the May 2000 issue of the Journal of the Institute of Management Services (Unlocking the Secret behind the Balanced Business Scorecard), "Philip Atkinson and Malcolm Holden have synthesised best practice from leading edge change management methodologies and designed a bespoke process for driving culture change. This flows strategically from the top of the organisation and swiftly results in implementing a process of breakthrough and continuous improvement geared specifically to the customer."
We'll return to RAPID in future issues of Award.
In the mean time, for more information, contact the authors care of Malc@malcolmholden.freeserve.co.uk
QuickPoll - Favourites
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Quick Case Study® – lessons from public-private partnerships.
We're pointing you to the complete James E Austin-authored work, "Principles for Partnership" in Leader to Leader, No. 18, Fall 2000, but to get you going, here's an excerpt:
The problems facing our cities seem to defy solution. But the only certainty is that these increasingly complex challenges exceed the capabilities of any single sector -- public, private, or nonprofit -- to solve them alone.
At the same time that the public is asking government and nonprofit organizations to be more effective, produce demonstrable results, and make more of the public and philanthropic capital invested in them, it is also asking businesses to take more responsibility for the well-being of the communities in which they operate. Given these heightened demands, more and more leaders are finding an innovative answer both to community problems and to the furtherance of their own long-term interests.
"Public-private partnership is the answer," says Robert Gillespie, head of KeyCorp and chairman of Cleveland Tomorrow, a coalition that worked to revitalize that city. "I don't know of any of my peers who think any of this could have been done by the business community alone. If you don't have that kind of partnership, you shouldn't bother trying, because it simply can't be done."
Gillespie isn't alone in this view. Increasingly, leaders are seeing that functions that might have been viewed as clearly the government's domain, such as public education or public safety, also require attention from the business and nonprofit sectors.
Cross-sector partnering between business, government, and nonprofits will be the collaboration paradigm of the 21st century.
Sixty second snapshots®
Brutally short summaries of material too valuable to junk
SSS 1 – ISO 9000 critic does U turn!?
To coincide with the publication of his latest book The Case Against ISO 9000 on Thursday 26 October, John Seddon, recognised around the world as the leading critic of ISO 9000, has written the Vanguard Standards, a systems thinker's guide to interpretation and use of the new ISO 9000 Standard.
Is this a U turn? “No” says Seddon, “my advice remains the same – avoid registration to ISO 9000. But the fact is that market-place coercion – 'you comply or we won't buy' – is driving ISO 9000 registration. So for those who feel they have no choice, I would encourage them to use the Vanguard Standards”.
Seddon maintains that ISO 9000 still contains what he calls bad theory, despite the year 2000 revision. However, the revision does provide greater scope in interpretation. “The better theory is based on systems thinking. It is a far superior way to design and manage work”, says Seddon. “Using the Vanguard Standards will ensure learning and improvement rather than conformity – if you think conformity is what you need you'll drive yourself out of business”.
The Vanguard Standards are available to download free of charge from www.lean-service.com. John Seddon is am occupational psychologist, researcher, management thinker and leading authority on change in organisations. He appears often in Award, usually in his ISO-Busting cape.
SSS 2 – Quality Advice at Quality Today v2
Keen souls who found their way to my QT response to a 'what is quality' question (Award 30) may be interested in American Guru Myron Tribus' alternative view.
As far as I can see, wrote Myron, you didn't answer the question.
”Here is a paraphrase of an answer I gave a number of years ago.
'Quality is what makes it possible for your customer to have a love affair with your product or service. Telling little white lies or attempts to bribe in the form of lower prices or giving favors may induce a temporary infatuation, but it takes a continual quality experience to woo customers. Since love is fickle, there must always be close attention to customers' wants and needs.
'Today I would only add, "The customer may not always know in advance what he or she wants but when you deliver, the customer should feel a renewed affection."
'I believe, along with Persig (see "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") that quality is a 'primitive' idea, incapble of being defined in terms of other ideas. In that regard it is like the word "love", which you can never explain properly to your 14 year old son or daughter.
As you see, if you examine closely what I have written, I have defined quality in terms of love. People who do not recognize they do not know what 'love' means, find this a good definition – unless they do not believe in love.”
SSS 3 – Is "boss" a 4-letter word?
In his latest column for Workforce Online, Tom Terez "takes a microscope and pickax to several words and phrases that are commonly used in the workplace. Full text.
"While you're at the site," TT says, "you can pay a quick visit to five organizations where dialogue is a true strength: Texas Nameplate, PQ Systems, the City of Madison, the Instrument Society of America, and the South Carolina Forestry Commission. I profiled these five workplaces in the July issue of Workforce Magazine." Article online.
SSS 4 – Stop Obsessing Over Metrics
In “Message to Managers: Stop Obsessing Over Metrics” Award-favourite Thomas A Stewart wrote “A wise old man, Donald Curtis (old enough that when we met, the Big Five were the Big Eight and he worked for Touche Ross & Co.), said to me, "Ted Williams didn't bat .400. Ted Williams swung the bat. His batting average was the measure of what he did … not what he did.”
One of the biggest mistakes managers make, Stewart said, is confusing the result of a process with the process itself. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called it the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness." To mistake the fever for the disease, the idol for the god. When people fall into this fallacy, they invariably make another, bigger mistake: They try to shoehorn people into their rigid, unreal scheme of the world, rather than using people to change the world. The fact is, one of the best ways to improve efficiency is to find out what pisses your people off.
Consider the benefit Cisco Systems got by listening to the complaints of its sales force. The reps were out there rolling up numbers – and coming home to discover that expenses were being reimbursed maddeningly slowly. Rule number one, not just for fast-growing companies: Keep your sales reps happy. Especially when you discover, as Cisco did, that if you start cleaning up your finance process so as to reimburse the reps instantaneously, and then keep going until you have got all your finance processes fast, accurate, and easy, you can cut the cost of finance in half.
Squeaky wheels are telling you something. It pays to listen.
SSS 5 – Corporate citizens - collaborative communication
Last issue (Award 30: Quick case study – corporate citizenship) we looked quickly at the new philanthropy. Giving back. Linked it to the 'Baldrige/EFQM' corporate citizenship questions. Let's develop that line of inquiry. Best source? We've cited them before – the Drucker Foundation's Non-profit Innovation of the Week site.
In the October 25 issue (v2 #17) the Drucker people ask: Are you interested in:
- partnerships between private and social sector organizations?
- collaborative communication campaigns?
In 1996, the National Safe Kids Campaign, a nonprofit organization devoted to eradicating unintentional injury, partnered with General Motors to initiate the Safe Kids Buckle Up campaign. GM (biggest car maker in the world) introduced child passenger safety to dealerships, previously education-free zones.
The leading killer of children is not a disease but unintentional injury, the leading cause of which is automobile accidents. Each year, more than 1,800 children ages 14 and under die and 282,000 are injured as motor vehicle passengers.
Key aspects of BUCKLE UP include: providing GM dealership employees with basic child passenger safety education through on-site workshops by trained child passenger safety specialists; offering parents and caregivers the opportunity to receive hands-on instruction about how to install and use car seats correctly; and delivering free educational materials on child passenger safety to parents and caregivers via a toll-free number.
The program has served as a model corporate nonprofit car seat safety program. Nissan and DaimlerChrysler have begun similar programs with nonprofit partners.
The discoveries in this program include effective use of:
- Alliances, partnerships
- Communications, public relations
- Resource use and management
Safe Kids Buckle Up profile, plus contact information.
Not an advertisement
We'd like, as always, to remind you about EDGE FIRST, our companion eZine dedicated to leaders and leadership - a fortnightly serving of provocative thinking about what it means to be a leader, and the tools, techniques and best-practices that drive leadership improvement. If you haven't seen it, click here for a complimentary issue.
In recent issues
Competing for the future - Hamel is THE MAN, embrace innovation!
Women and leadership - for real progress ... give men the nappies
Quick case study/Jennifer White - on picking winning teams
tompeters! - new economy DNA. Flaky? Irresistable! The survival kit
Snapshots of the new economy - from Seybold to Subramanian
eStrategy - best, first, fastest, lastest ... just watch out for Wal-Mart
A better way - but don't try this at home
Gen II - who wants to be a CEO
>> Next issue November 15 - reader contributions warmly received
>> Copyright © 2000, Macpherson Publishing
>> All rights reserved. But if you found this eZine useful we strongly encourage you to email it intact to associates, friends or acquaintances
>> Award and EDGE FIRST are trademarks of Macpherson Publishing
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>> Visit our web site at www.baldrigeplus.com
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