A Baldrige primer
So you're new to Baldrige, and would appreciate a quick overview of what it's all about.

Or maybe you need a couple of cut and paste paragraphs you can email to people when they ask ‘what’s this Baldrige thing you guys are into?’

Created by US public law, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the USA’s premier annual award for business excellence. Begun in 1988, named to commemorate a Secretary of Commerce killed while competing in a Rodeo, the Baldrige award is American business’s secret weapon, a core driver of economic strength, deeply entrenched in the business community.

How Baldrige arrived at 3M Dental Products

The Baldrige system is customer and process-focussed. It’s all about identifying and continually improving key organisational processes in the interests of delivering better value to customers.

Building your business around customer needs can revolutionise it. During my visit to eight Baldrige winners in March 1999 (including all three 1998 winners) I saw extraordinary customer satisfaction and customer loyalty programmes. Time and again this was cited as a key driver for business success.

While the customer is king (whoever the ‘customer’ might be - Boeing Airlift and Tanker Programs, for example, effectively only has one customer, and one product), it’s hard to create satisfied customers with dissatisfied staff. Baldrige organisations put a lot of effort into building and retaining a skilled, motivated, productive and happy workforce.

And of course, results matter. The Baldrige system allocates almost 50% of its emphasis to outcomes. While it’s an approach that facilitates best practice and process improvement, in the end that has to translate into good results. Baldrige winning organisations usually produce stunning results.

THE BALDRIGE CRITERIA
(click to continue)

In this section