Baldridge Criteria Can Improve Communication

Posted on April 16, 2009
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In communication terms, as well as those of production, organizations can do well by adopting the Baldridge Criteria for Performance Excellence, whether they intend to seek the national quality award or not.

Boiled down, which is what Quality Digest does handily in its April issue, the Baldridge criteria are leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management, and results.

These can be as much of a mandate for a deliberate, attentive approach to organizational communication as they are for production quality. Communication, too, has results and we often are blissfully unaware of them, especially if they’re unfavorable.

Leadership starts with vision and is propelled by effective communication. You can’t focus on customers without communicating with them, by whatever means, effectively or not. Your staff members become the beneficiary of enlightened communication or the victims of poorly presented organizational imperatives.

And, above all, communication is a process that needs to be deliberately and intelligently managed. Do all that with your organizational utterances and you’re an award winner – if only in your own setting which, of course, is where effectiveness matters most.

So get familiar with what the Baldridge people expect of top-performing organizations, but in communication terms above all. Baldridge may not, in fact, have express communication criteria because they are implicit in their entire program. Do well in quality and you’re likely an effective communicator.

But give your communication stance express consideration. How are you getting the results you get? Could they be better with better communication? Very likely.

Countering Information Overload

Posted on April 2, 2009
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There was Kathleen Parker on the op-ed page of The Washington Post writing about a “TMI-addled nation.” Her reflections coincided with the 30th anniversary of the accident at my former workplace, and I thought for a moment she was exaggerating the anniversary’s impact a bit. But no, she was reflecting on “Too Much Information.” Now there’s a concern for these times.

Ironically, information overload is occurring at a time when newspapers, the core of the traditional media, are disintegrating. In my own Pennsylvania neighborhood, the two Lancaster papers just merged and my hometown paper, The Lebanon Daily News, will shortly be printed by a sister paper in York, 53 miles away. (It will be interesting to see how the delivery time holds up there.)

But Kathleen has a point in that the media array is atomizing, our information setting is becoming highly variegated and challenging to comprehend. I wouldn’t say too much so, because it’s not clear how all this will settle out. As Clay Shirky says, we’re in 1,500, with electronic Gutenbergs clamoring for our attention from the Internet and cable TV.

The danger, as Ms. Parker notes, is that as people become overwhelmed with information they become less attentive, less hopeful of, and thereby less interested in, finding meaning in the buzz. Prolonged, such an overload state can make for a truly dysfunctional, inattentive society.

Maybe the best we can all do is to stake out our own information limits, and stay with them. Choose the blogs we want to follow, the books we want to read, the electronic media we want to indulge (like Bill Moyers, not Fox) and stay with them, piecing together meaning for ourselves but not expecting to get it universally – or, as they used to say, objectively – correct.

Instead of going with the flow, use a dipstick and hope it provides accurate enough samplings.

We’re Back, With a Focus on Communication

Posted on April 1, 2009
Filed Under Communication principles | 2 Comments

We’re back, with a little sharper focus than before. On the beat, we’ll be talking about communication – communication that occurs in groups, organizations and society at large. It may, or may not, just happen – good communication usually doesn’t occur that way – but we’ll be looking for examples of situations that were either improved or weakened by communication that worked, or not. Don’t know how readily we’ll find them, but feel free to contribute as our readers and partners in this interest.

We’ll also be looking at risk and crisis communication, as examples or needs arise.

We’ll start with a definition – this is the Web, so Wikipedia is our source for the term “organizational communication”: “Broadly speaking, people working together to achieve individual or collective goals.”

Well, people in groups should be working together, but don’t always. We all know that. What’s not as readily apparent is the awareness factor within a group: do its members realize they’re not communicating well? Do they care? They might not have a clue how they’re coming across, or what they’re missing out on. This is a sad reality, but one that can be improved by leadership. focus and awareness.

Wikipedia adds that communication “can be defined as the transfer of meanings between persons and groups.” For that to happen, leaders and members of groups need to have worthy aims in mind and recognize what might block them from being achieved. They need to value the all-important skills of framing, listening and receiving feedback.

You can easily have a half-dozen people in the same office working at cross-purposes if they’re not mutually aware what they’re aiming for, why it’s valuable, and what the blockages may be. In short, group communication is an express, explicit, shared skill, not one that necessarily comes naturally.

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