You will see me again...
You will see me again...
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Great!
Great!
If you clicked yes the first time, we're glad to have you on board! For those of you that didn't choose the right answer the first time, sorry for how many times you had to go through the loop, but you would have always ended up here anyway. I mean, obviously, we know you love working here as much as we do!
We're trying something new here at Awesome and Stuff. We hands down believe in what we're doing and get the same feeling from all of you. If that is not really the case please reach out to anyone from management we would love to give you a penny for your thoughts!*
We believe that we are doing well with our customers and doing right by our employees and making a decent living doing so. We also recognize that we may not be the smartest business men and women to ever be born. So we have been doing some research into many different Organizational Assessment tools, There are a ton of them... Well, after much deliberation, we have decided to move forward with an organizational assessment of Awesome and Stuff by applying for the Baldrige Award. If you know what Organizational Assessments are and are versed in the Baldrige Award, reach out to management ASAP! We will pay you way more than a penny for your thoughts and you can skim through a lot of this.**
Organizational Assessments
Organizational Assessments
According to people who study this for a living and are way smarter than us about it, "[an] assessment [can] provide crucial information about strengths, areas for improvement, and potential investment strategies for achieving performance benefits. As performance is being recognized as a complex and multifaceted construct, assessment tools seek to incorporate and reflect a holistic measurement of performance across multiple dimensions such as stakeholder value, leadership, culture and quality" (Perkins, Nightingale, Valerdi, & Rifkin, 2010). So basically what we want to do is dive deep into our organization with the guiding principles of what it takes to win the Baldrige Award.
Here are some links to other honorable mention assessment tools that we thought about using if you would like to learn more. Pretty cool stuff! (A little dry, but don't tell "The Mastermind!" shh... keep reading)
- The Good-to-Great Diagnostic tool (Collins , 2006)
- The LAI Enterprise Self-Assessment Tool (LESAT) V.2 (LESAT V. 2.0: Facilitator’s Guide, 2012)
- The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence (The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence, 2014)
If you went through all of the information in the links above click here to take a test to be put in for a prize! Make sure you click all of the links (and buttons!) from here forward as you learn about the: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. There will be a final button to take you to the survey/test so you can prove you read everything and obtain your coupon for one "wear pajamas to work day."***
Who Is Involved?
Who Is Involved?
- YOU! Anyone who wants to be involved here, can be in some way.
- ****Jared Cripe the new Corporate Culture Director
- The aforementioned Jeff
- Aubrey from HR
- We're also bringing in an outside brain to keep us all on the straight and narrow
- Dr. Marie Wallace aka "The mastermind" (Or just, Marie, she doesn't really like being called the mastermind, but we still do it)
What Is The Baldrige Award?
What Is The Baldrige Award?
Start by reading this letter. You didn't read it, did you? Well, you missed the Hairy Director then. Did you really go back and look for a hairy director? I meant to type "the Director Harry S. Hertz." I can't believe you went back and checked it for the Hairy Director! Anyway, The Baldrige Award, named after Malcolm Baldrige was created on August 20, 1987. Malcolm Was the US Secretary of Commerce from 1981-1987. He did some really cool things for America (check them out here).
The award was created to do three main things (Tibben-Lembke):
- Stimulate companies to improve quality and productivity
- The stimulation comes in the form of a 50 page feedback report that tells us how awesome we are doing in some areas and how we could do better in some areas with our other stuff.
- Recognize successful companies to be an example to others
- By looking at our core values from 7 different categories
- Leadership
- Strategic Planning
- Customer/Market Focus
- Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
- Workforce Focus
- Process Management
- Results
- By looking at our core values from 7 different categories
- Give guidelines for companies to assess their own progress
- Based on a ten step process. Click here
When?
When?
After you go back and click the link for the 10-step process, unless you are a great employee and already did, then... Right now. This is happening now. As you read this, it is happening.
Where?
Where?
Umm... I don't know why this question is here... but the answer is, "what is Awesome and Stuff Inc."
Where we work.
Finally... The Why!
Finally... The Why!
There are four different stages of life for organizations: Birth, Adolescence, Adult, and Decline (Charles et-al. 2002). Birth would be the organizations creation. It’s adolescence is comprised of much confusion. If the company or organization is able to grow to this stage this is where more leadership should be brought in (i.e. what happened to us a few years ago when Jeff came on board). The policies and procedures are fine tuned here, and this is the part of the cycle that can determine the length of the adult stage. Businesses are ever evolving creatures that go through a natural life cycle that can either be long and fruitful (what we're aiming for) or short and sweet (not what we want). If the company can make it to the adult stage they have done well, not necessarily financially well (we've taken some hits), but they have made it through the first life cycle. Trying to maintain a fruitful adult life cycle and avoid the decline is the hard part. We believe this is where the company finds itself today and we want to take proactive steps towards maintaining what we have built together by taking on this task together.
* No actual pennies will be given outside normal business hours, talk to us on company time so you can get more than a penny! (i.e. your wage)
**All promotions still need to go through HR via the standard application/interview process in place. Because laws and stuff.
*** We still need to clear this up with Aubrey from HR, but our fingers are crossed. Underwear are not pajamas.
**** This was all his bright idea, blame him if it doesn't work. (Well, actually, don't because we all think it's a good idea... But don't tell him we said that)
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