Values and Concepts
Administrative Services systematic approach to quality is based upon the 2001 Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria for Performance Excellence. These criteria are
built upon a set of core values and concepts that are the foundation for integrating key
business requirements within a results-oriented framework. These values and concepts
are:
Of these eleven values, Administrative Services has identified three that are core to its
daily operations – Customer Driven Excellence, Organizational and Personal Learning,
and Management by Fact.
The remainder of this document is dedicated to providing descriptions of the three core
and the eight secondary values. This content is largely drawn from The Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award 2001 Criteria for Performance Excellence, a publication of The
National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Administrative Services’ senior leaders (the vice chancellor and direct reports)
need to set direction and create a customer focus, clear and visible values,
and high expectations. The direction, values and expectations should balance
the needs of all stakeholders. Senior leaders need to ensure the creation of
strategies, systems, and methods for achieving excellence, stimulating
innovation and building knowledge and capabilities. The values and strategies
should help guide all activities and decisions of Administrative Services.
Senior leaders need to inspire and motivate the entire workforce and should
encourage all employees to contribute, to develop and learn, to be innovative
and to be creative.
Senior leaders need to serve as role models through their ethical behavior and
their personal involvement in planning, communications, coaching,
development of future leaders, review of organization performance and
employee recognition. As role models, senior leaders can reinforce values
and expectations while building leadership, commitment and initiative
throughout Administrative Services.
[To Top of Page]
Administrative Services’ customers judge quality and performance. Thus,
Administrative Services must take into account all product and service
features and characteristics and all modes of customer access that contribute
value to customers and lead to customer acquisition, satisfaction, preference,
referral and loyalty. Customer-driven excellence has both current and future
components: understanding today’s customer desires and anticipating future
customer desires and marketplace offerings.
Value and satisfaction may be influenced by many factors throughout the
customer's overall service experiences. These factors include Administrative
Services’ relationship with customers that help build trust, confidence, and
loyalty.
Customer-driven excellence means much more than reducing defects and
errors, merely meeting expectations or reducing complaints. Nevertheless,
reducing defects and errors and eliminating causes of dissatisfaction
contribute to the customers’ view of Administrative Services and thus also are
an important part of customer-driven excellence. In addition, Administrative
Services’ success in recovering from defects and mistakes (“making things
right for your customer”) is crucial to retaining customers and building
relationships.
Customer-driven organizations address not only the product and service
characteristics that meet basic customer requirements but also those features
and characteristics that differentiate products and services from competing
offerings. Such differentiation may be based upon new or modified offerings,
combinations of product and service offerings, customization of offerings,
multiple access mechanisms, rapid response, or special relationships.
Customer-driven excellence is thus a strategic concept. It is directed toward
customer retention, market share, and growth. It demands constant sensitivity
to changing and emerging customer requirements and to the factors that drive
customer satisfaction and retention. It demands anticipating changes in the
marketplace, awareness of developments in technology and competitors’
offerings, as well as rapid and flexible response to customer and market
requirements.
[To Top of Page]
Achieving the highest levels of business performance requires a well-executed
approach to organizational and personal learning. Organizational learning
includes both continuous improvement of existing approaches and adaptation
to change, leading to new goals and/or approaches. Learning needs to be
embedded in the way Administrative Services operates. This means that
learning
-
is a regular part of daily work;
-
is practiced at personal, work unit, and organizational levels;
-
results in solving problems at their source (“root cause”);
-
is focused on sharing knowledge throughout Administrative Services; and
-
is driven by opportunities to effect significant change and to do better.
Sources for learning include employees’ ideas, research and development, customers’
input, best practice sharing and benchmarking.
Organizational learning can result in
-
enhancing value to customers through new and improved products and services;
-
developing new business opportunities;
-
reducing errors, defects, waste and related costs;
-
improving productivity and effectiveness in the use of all resources throughout
Administrative Services; and
-
enhancing Administrative Services’ performance in fulfilling public responsibilities and service as a good citizen.
Employees’ success depends increasingly on having opportunities for
personal learning and practicing new skills. Administrative Services invests in
employees’ personal learning through education, training and other
opportunities for continuing growth.
Personal learning can result in
-
more satisfied and versatile employees who stay with Administrative Services,
-
cross-functional learning, and
-
an improved environment for innovation.
Thus, learning is directed not only toward better products and services but also
toward being more responsive, adaptive and efficient – giving Administrative
Services additional performance advantages.
[To Top of Page]
Administrative Services’ success depends increasingly on the knowledge,
skills, creativity and motivation of its employees and partners. Valuing
employees means committing to their satisfaction, development and
well-being. Increasingly, this involves more flexible, high-performance work
practices tailored to employees with diverse workplace and home life needs.
Administrative Services needs to build internal and external partnerships to
better accomplish overall goals. Partnerships with employees might entail
employee development, cross-training, or new work organizations, such as
high-performance work teams. Internal partnerships might also involve
creating network relationships among work units to improve flexibility,
responsiveness and knowledge sharing.
External partnerships might be with customers, suppliers and other education
organizations. Strategic partnerships or alliances are increasingly important
kinds of external partnerships. Such partnerships might offer entry into new
markets or a basis for new products or services. Also, partnerships might
permit the blending of Administrative Services’ core competencies or
leadership capabilities with the complementary strengths and capabilities of
partners.
Successful internal and external partnerships develop longer-term objectives,
thereby creating a basis for mutual investments and respect. Partners should
address the key requirements for success, means for regular communication,
approaches to evaluating progress and means for adapting to changing
conditions.
[To Top of Page]
Success today demands agility – a capacity for rapid change and flexibility.
All aspects of e-commerce require and enable more rapid, flexible and
customized responses. Organizations face ever-shorter cycles for the
introduction of new/improved products and services, as well as for faster and
more flexible response to customers. Major improvements in response time
often require simplification of work units and processes and/or the ability for
rapid changeover from one process to another. Cross-trained and
empowered employees are vital assets in such a demanding environment.
All aspects of time performance now are more critical, and cycle time has
become a key process measure. Other important benefits can be derived
from this focus on time; time improvements often drive simultaneous
improvements in organization, quality, cost and productivity.
[To Top of Page]
In today’s competitive environment, a focus on the future requires
understanding the short-and longer-term factors that affect Administrative
Services. Pursuit of sustainable growth and leadership requires a strong
future orientation and a willingness to make long-term commitments to key
stakeholders – your customers, employees, suppliers and partners, the public
and the community. Administrative Services’ planning should anticipate any
factors such as customers’ expectations, new business and partnering
opportunities, the increasingly global marketplace, technological
developments, the evolving e-commerce environment, new customer and
market segments, evolving regulatory requirements, community/societal
expectations, and strategic moves by competitors. Strategic objectives and
resource allocations need to accommodate these influences. A focus on the
future includes developing employees and suppliers, creating opportunities for
innovation, and anticipating public responsibilities.
[To Top of Page]
Innovation means making meaningful change to improve Administrative
Services’ products, services, and processes and to create new value for
stakeholders. Innovation should lead Administrative Services to new
dimensions of performance. Innovation is no longer strictly the purview of
research and development departments; innovation is important for all aspects
of the business and all processes. Administrative Services must be led and
managed so that innovation becomes part of the culture and is integrated into
daily work.
[To Top of Page]
Administrative Services depends upon the measurement and analysis of
performance. Such measurements must derive from business needs and
strategy, and they should provide critical data and information about key
processes, outputs, and results. Many types of data and information are
needed for performance management. Performance measurement should
include customer, product and service performance; comparisons of
operational, market and competitive performance; and supplier, employee and
cost and financial performance.
Analysis refers to extracting larger meaning from data and information to
support evaluation, decision-making, and operational improvement. Analysis
entails using data to determine trends, projections and cause and effect that
might not otherwise be evident. Analysis supports a variety of purposes, such
as planning, reviewing overall performance, improving operations, change
management and comparing performance with competitors or with best
practices benchmarks.
A major consideration in performance improvement and change management
involves the selection and use of performance measures or indicators. The
measures or indicators selected should best represent the factors that lead to
improved customer, operational and financial performance. A comprehensive
set of measures or indicators tied to customer and/or organizational
performance requirements represents a clear basis for aligning all activities
with organizational goals. Through the analysis of data from tracking
processes, measures or indicators themselves may be evaluated and
changed to better support goals.
[To Top of Page]
Administrative Services’ leadership needs to stress its responsibilities to the
public and needs to practice good citizenship. This responsibility refers to
basic expectations of Administrative Services -- business ethics and
protection of public health, safety and the environment. There needs to be an
emphasis on resource conservation and waste reduction at their source.
Planning should anticipate adverse impacts from production, distribution,
transportation, use and disposal of Administrative Services’ products. Plans
should seek to prevent problems, to provide a forthright response if problems
occur and to make available information and support needed to maintain
public awareness, safety and confidence. Administrative Services will must
not only meet all applicable local, state and federal laws and regulatory
requirements, but must treat these and related requirements as opportunities
for improvement “beyond mere compliance.” This requires use of appropriate
measures in managing public responsibility.
Practicing good citizenship refers to leadership and support -- within the limits
of Administrative Services’ resources -- of publicly important purposes.
Administrative Services’ leadership as a corporate citizen also entails
influencing other organizations, private and public, to partner for these
purposes.
[To Top of Page]
Administrative Services’ performance measurements need to focus on key
results. Results should be used to create and balance value for key
stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers and partners, the public and
the community. By creating value for stakeholders, Administrative Services
builds loyalty and contributes to growing the economy. In order to meet the
sometimes conflicting and changing aims that balance implies, Administrative
Services’ strategy needs to explicitly include key stakeholder requirements.
This will help to ensure that actions and plans meet differing stakeholder needs
and avoid adverse impacts on any stakeholders. The use of a balanced
composite of leading and lagging performance measures offers an effective
means to communicate short- and longer-term priorities, monitor actual
performance and provide a clear basis for improving results.
[To Top of Page]
The Baldrige Criteria provide a systems perspective for managing the
organization to achieve performance excellence. The Baldrige core values
and the seven categories form the building blocks and the integrating
mechanism for the system. However, successful management of overall
performance requires organization specific synthesis and alignment.
Synthesis means looking at Administrative Services as a whole and builds
upon key requirements including strategic objectives and action plans.
Alignment means using the key linkages among requirements including the
key measures/indicators. Alignment includes senior leaders’ focus on
strategic directions and on customers. It means that senior leaders monitor,
respond to and manage performance based on results. Alignment includes
using measures/indicators to link key strategies with key processes and align
resources to improve overall performance and satisfy customers. Thus, a
systems perspective means managing the whole organization, as well as its
components to achieve success.
[To Top of Page]
|
