No matter the size of your business, it is imperative to benchmark yourself with best performing organizations in order to learn, grow and become successful. In this blog, I’m going to share three of the seven criteria for performance excellence, Baldrige, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Baldrige, is said to provide an ROI of 820:1! Who wouldn’t want that for their business? Look, having served as an Board Examiner for the Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence, I can tell you that this stuff works. Let’s dive in.
1. Leadership
The first criteria centers around leadership. John Maxwell, once said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership”. This category will help you answer questions like:
- How do senior leaders lead?
- How do senior leaders set your organization’s vision and values?
- How do senior leaders demonstrate their commitment to legal and ethical behavior?
The next time you’re in a board or leadership meeting ask one of these questions and watch what happens. You will be amazed.
2. Strategic Planning
I’m sure you’ve heard it said that, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. It can be very challenging for businesses, big or small, immersed in the day-to-day activities of their business to spend enough time to plan for success. Here are some questions in this category:
- How do you develop your strategic plan?
- How do you identify strategic opportunities?
- What are your organization’s key strategic objectives and your timeline for achieving them?
If you need a road map to accelerate your business, strategic planning will set you on that part.
3. Customer Focus
Most people in business will agree that the customer is King. Compounded with customers kingship reign is their ability to acquire information about companies, products, promotions and bargains courtesy of modern channels like social media and smart technologies. In this category, you will answer questions like:
- How do you obtain information from your customers?
- How do you determine customer and market requirement for product offerings and services?
- How do you leverage social media to enhance customer engagement and relationships with your organization?
The last four categories are: measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus, operations focus and result. Together they form a solid foundation for business performance excellence.
If you desire to put your company on the journey to performance excellence, we will glad to help your organization leverage these best practices for its success. Call us at 303-586-3346 or email us at info@eliasonconsulting.com to discover how we can help your business achieve similar level of business improvement. It’s a journey, so start early.
