Improving Education Organizations

Two articles ago, I talked about the Minnesota Council for Quality and its efforts to improve the economy of Minnesota by facilitating the improvement of the processes that produce the goods and services of the state. In the last article, I talked about the lack of training in our school system on quality improvement and how we are placing future generations at risk. We are falling behind Asia and other parts of the world in this critical area. In this article, I will attempt to tie them together and, yes there is a glimmer of hope. It is not widespread nor is it stemming from leadership from higher education or statewide, but from leadership of individual schools.

Founded in 1987, the Minnesota Council for Quality advances continuous improvement and performance excellence within organizations, individuals, and communities. It helps leaders identify strengths and improvement opportunities and builds networks that bring information, resources, knowledge, and best practices to organizations desiring to improve. They offer services such as their Baldrige based organizational assessments and the Minnesota/South Dakota Performance Excellence Award.

Established in 1991, the Performance Excellence Award is given to organizations that successfully complete a full organizational assessment using either narrative-based or survey-based approach. Applicant organizations receive between 800-1200 hours of evaluation from a volunteer Board of Evaluators. The assessment process includes an independent review of the application, a consensus review by the Evaluator team, a site visit review, and an Improvement Planning Sessions, at which senior leaders prioritize improvement opportunities for their organization.

To no ones surprise the winners of the Award in the early years were almost all manufacturing companies because they were being pressed to improve by competition. Then state offices and medical organizations began to appear as winners. And now in 2012 the winners are:

Designs for Learning

Marshall Public Schools

Byron Public Schools

Avera Sacred Heart Hospital

Rochester Community & Technical College

Cardinal of Minnesota

Half of the winners this year are individual schools seeking to improve and another is related to education!

This raises the questions:

What did the staff and teachers learn to help them in the future?

What did the students learn?

How has the curriculum been affected to better prepare students for continued improvement?

A retired teacher from Byron Public Schools, Carolynne White lives on Long Lake. She said the Superintendent of Byron Schools, Dr. Wendy Shannon, brought with her knowledge of the Baldrige Award criteria thirteen years ago when she was selected as Superintendent and started applying it to the school system with strong support from Mayo Clinic and IBM. The staff was trained in continuous improvement. They developed a new math curriculum on their own which is now widely recognized as a model for other schools. Every student learned to set personal learning goals and track improvement on charts, even down to the fourth grade. The students graph their improvement from year to year and take pride in their accomplishments. A highlight of the student-lead Parent Conferences in the middle school is when the students present their progress.

There is reason for hope when you see forward thinking schools like Byron and Marshall, but what about the rest of the schools? Ms. White said incoming practice teachers and new teachers have no knowledge of these continuous improvement methods and have to be taught.

How will this new knowledge get fed back into the curriculum of the teachers’ colleges at the universities? Continuous process improvement methods are being taught across Asian and now African schools, including elementary schools, but only rarely in American schools. Resources like the Council for Quality and industry leaders like Mayo and IBM are available to help but we need the education departments of the universities to teach the teachers.

It is my hope that key people from the universities visit with people from Byron Public Schools, Marshall Public Schools, and Rochester Community & Technical College to see first hand the benefits to the students and our future society of continuous improvement practices.

This is also a good idea for leaders of our local public school boards to also visit and learn from these leaders in education.

Quality in Education

Some years ago, I met with some Japanese executives and they mentioned quality improvement techniques taught in their school system. I asked them when they start teaching these techniques in their schools and one of them responded, “Oh, I would have to ask my son who is in the third grade when he started.” He went on to say, “I myself started when I was in the fourth grade.” These students have grown up to help change the quality of Japanese products and services to the highest standards of the world.

Other Asian countries have taken note of Japan’s success and have followed suit. Starting in primary school and extending throughout high school, students are introduced to the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Kaoru Ishikawa, and many other great figures of quality. They learn quality problem-solving tools, basic kaizen, statistical methods, and a host of East/West theories about human development and behavior.

The city of Lucknow in northern India is home to the City Montessori School, the worlds largest school according to the Guinness Book of World Records with 40,000 students.¹ Dr. Jagdish Gandhi and his wife, Mrs. Bharti Ghandi founded it in 1959 and began including quality concepts in their curriculum during the 1990s as they saw what Japan had accomplished.

Jagdish Gandhi’s teachings have spread throughout India and various parts of Asia and Africa. The teachings are shared primarily via an annual convention called the “International Convention on Students’ Quality Control Circles at cities around the world.

For the students from India, given the backdrop of India’s economic rise, one can only wonder what fantastic career paths there will be for these future leaders when they infuse the vigor of their childhood training in quality into their country’s bloodstream.

Meanwhile, what is happening in this country? We are focused on leaving no child behind and certainly would not want to introduce statistical methods in primary school. Even if we were properly motivated to teach improvement techniques to our students so they could compete in the world market on a level playing field basis, you might ask who would teach the teachers?

It turns out that is not a problem.  Most institutions of higher learning have a section or department, with a staff that is knowledgeable in quality improvement. The major problem is that they are focused outward and not inwardly on their own system. They provide training for industry on the improvement philosophy and techniques but rarely does the institution practice it internally. If they did, the professors and staff would see the benefits firsthand and quickly work it into their curriculum, including the Department of Education where they train future teachers.

As Dewar and Bammert said in their article, what we are seeing in Asia is a refreshing young class of future leaders. There is little doubt that their early grounding in quality philosophy and tools will strongly influence how they will one day lead, and live. Deming and Juran were Americans who taught the Japanese. It is time now for us to learn from the Asians the importance of teaching quality improvement to our students.

Benefits of Quality Improvement

Is it worth all the effort required to initiate and sustain process quality improvement in your organization? It is indeed a lot of work and takes time which most of feel we already feel is in short supply. So, does quality indeed get results? The answer is a resounding yes! Many studies are available to answer that question. A search of my files revealed data gathered over the years testifying to the positive impact of quality on performance of organizations’ market, operational, and financial performance. Some highlights of Minnesota companies are:

Company A - Tripled earnings since in five years, increased revenues 62%, reduced manufacturing time 64%.

Company B - Reduced product defects 50%, reduced product returns 75%.

Company C - Increased sales 15%, increased customer retention 92%.

Company D – Doubled business volume, increased productivity 20%

Company E – Increased revenue per employee from $63K to $100K

Company F – Increased Earnings 40%, increased revenues 12%

NOTE: Their names are not shown because they are former clients.

From an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Arpil 6, 1975, Harvey Mackay’s column, “Motorola … spends millions on quality training but it costs them nothing because of the savings they enjoy on returns, retooling, rebates, lawsuits, and customer satisfaction.”

From the United States General Accounting Office report May of 1991, “MANAGEMENT PRACTICES, U.S. Companies Improve Performance Through Quality Efforts”-GAO review of the 20 companies that scored highest of 1988 and 1989 applicants for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award indicated that nearly all achieved:

·      Better employee relations

·      Higher productivity

·      Greater customer satisfaction

·      Increased market share

·      Improved profitability

Details of the study are interesting. Financial performance was detailed in that 15 companies reported a total of 40 observations as measured by several ratios widely used in financial analysis. The ultimate impact of quality management practices is improved profitability.

·      34 improved

·      6 declined

American Quality Foundation and Ernst & Young, joint study, 1992.

·      Higher performing organizations have 25% of their workforce performing in teams compared to 5% for poorer performing organizations.

·      Higher performing organizations had nearly 100% of their workforce formally trained in problem solving compared to less than 20% in poorer performing organizations.

Business Week, October 18, 1993 study –

·      The three publicly traded, whole company, Baldrige winners outperformed the Standard & Poors’ 500 from the time of their winning through September 30, 1993 by 8.6 to 1.

·      The ten Award winners that analyze productivity enhancement as annual increase in revenue/employee, a median average annual compounded growth rate of 9.4% and a mean of 9.25% have been achieved.

Perhaps the greatest testimony to the business results was the investment management company policy of Robinson Capital Management. The president, Jack Robinson, was the oldest active fund manager.  After 44 years of managing another fund, Mr. Robinson followed a path of investing in quality. He decided to only invest in companies who believed in Total Quality Management, the kind that is based on the teachings of the noted quality consultant, Dr. W. Edwards Deming.  He had taken notice of the performance of stocks of TQM companies. He said, “Quality is a companies greatest asset, and it doesn’t show on the balance sheet.” In one years, General Securities Fund was up 9.2% vs. 0.7% for the average fund.

Indeed, quality does pay!

Attributes of a “Best Boss”

Do you think you might be considered the best boss any of your employees ever had? Think about this long and hard. What really constitutes a “best boss”? How would you describe them?

There is a simple exercise you can use to determine the best characteristics of a leader. The next time you are with a group of people, ask them to close their eyes and think about the best boss they ever had or observed; ask them to remember someone who had a positive, long-term impact on their lives. Picture that person in their mind until they remember everything they can about them and write down ten adjectives that best describe that person. Then ask them to call out their adjectives while you record them on a flip chart, blackboard, or computer screen. You and they might be amazed at the adjectives that receive more than one mention.

Business consultant, Ron Wiley, asked that question of some 10,000 people.  The top-ten list is listed in the table below along with the results from similar exercises conducted by the American Management Association and AT&T. Note the similarities.  The fourth column lists those traits commonly taught in our management training schools and seminars.

Characteristics of Leaders

	Ron Wiley	American Mgmt. Assoc.	AT&T		Commonly Taught Characteristics
1.	Honest	Honest	Honest		Visionary
2.	Knowledgeable	Competent	Competent		Persistent
3.	Understanding	Forward Looking	Inspiring		Dedicated
4.	Good Listener	Inspiring	Courageous		Passionate
5.	Fair	Intelligent	Forward Looking		Principled
6.	Considerate	Fair Minded			Resourceful
7.	Positive	Broad Minded			Quick-minded
8.	Supportive	Straight Forward			Self-confident
9.	Caring	Imaginative			Honest
10.	Punctual	Dependable			Determined

Are you surprised that the number one attribute from all three of the feedback groups is honesty?  Notice the high ranking of fair, considerate, dependable, and caring. Wiley concluded that if you want to be a good leader, read the Boy Scout manual. It is all there.

Compare those results with the fourth column of what we think are desired characteristics of a good boss. Do you see similarities or disconnects? Which is right? Perhaps, all of the above.

Now take this one step farther; what do you think your employees would say about you if they were asked to write ten adjectives to describe you. Would honesty be number one on the list? Would you be embarrassed, afraid, or proud of what they might list?

Any exercise has little value unless it results in action. A useful exercise is to write down the ten adjectives that you think they might say and compare to the top ten lists above. Next compose a list of actions to undertake to improve your characteristics. Share this list with a spouse or friend to affirm your commitment and follow through.

It is never too late, nor are we too busy, to improve.