(c)1996 OPI, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or copied by any means without written permission from Organizational Productivity Institute, Inc. Write OPI.

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH MAINE State Quality Award (MCSMSQA) provides a wonderful opportunity for Maine organizations to receive meaningful feedback. The MCSMSQA is essentially a planning device. Your organization will benefit by key people coming together to discuss and document what it is you are doing. This process will reveal interesting and divergent opinions, and highlight where work is needed to improve processes and outcomes.

The second way to benefit is to mail in the application. Whether or not you win an award you will receive a report that identifies actionable items to boost your overall quality. The report becomes your outline of potential quality improvement initiatives; specific things that will have a bottom line impact on efficiency and effectiveness. The report provides a powerful voice within your company. Discuss it with your employees in small groups, make the report the center of key management meetings.

Bob Waterman, Jr. provides an example—Waterman was the co-author with Tom Peters of In Search of Excellence. Waterman was called in to do a major piece of consulting for one of the largest Japanese banks—they were losing market share and wanted to turn that around. Over the course of a few months, a team hashed out a plan. Waterman wanted to run it by top management, the Japanese team members insisted that was thewrong approach. First, they said, we will take it to every employee in the bank in small groups. “This will take at least 6 months and cost a small fortune in added consulting fees,” argued Waterman. “It will also delay implementation and the resulting market share gains.” The Japanese were insistent. So he agreed, and the team took the proposal to every employee to be discussed and reviewed. Six months later, it was ready for top management. Waterman expected another laborious round of reviews and revisions with top management. Instead top management approved the plan as revised by the employees without discussion.

And here is the kicker:

The upturn came as a result of every employee understanding the plan—employees had already made the attitude and working adjustments to implement the plan. Top management was on the bottom of the pyramid, their role was to acknowledge the plan’s existence and to make it an official part of the organization.

"Many organizations need support to begin a journey into total quality management."

The report MCSMSQA provides is your consulting report. Your key mission is to get it out to every employee to understand it and implement meaningful changes in their jobs. If done properly, by the time top management approves it the impact will be felt in bottom line results.

The MCSMSQA is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The criteria are continually improved to reflect learnings of applicants and examiners. It is not a prize to be won; it is a process to improve your organization. “In a state where nearly 80 percent of businesses have 10 or fewer employees, many organizations need support to begin a journey into total quality management, or to improve on a recently initiated program.”

“Consequently, we have developed a new, simplified awards program designed to help businesses of any size begin, maintain and develop a program on continuous improvement.” [Quoted from a recent Maine Quality Center brochure.] The award process has been adjusted for 1996 to recognize three levels of achievement from starting up a quality process to world classquality achievement. It is easier than ever before to receive appropriate help in your company’s quality journey.

[Art Boulay is an OPI partner and an examiner for the MCSMSQA, 1995. To learn more about the MCSMSQA call the Maine Quality Center at 207-946-4687, email mqc@gwi.net or visit their web page www.gwi.net/mqc.]