government-division-news-spring-2012 (4)

Spring12 Vol.15 No.1

In This IssueChair Elect’s Comments ................. 2

Employee Surveys: Getting Results Through Effective Process ......... 5

Taking the “Long View” Is Critical to Success in Government ............... 7

The Lost Legacy of Quality in Government ............ 8

Directory of Government Division Leadership Team .......10

The Wal-Mart Lesson: Why Transformation in Government Takes Time

By John Baranzelli, PE

“Why is change so difficult in government organizations?”

I have heard this question a thousand times during my career in the public sector and it never ceases to amaze me. My response is always to say, “Have you ever taken a civics course?” By the very nature of their DNA, government organizations are designed to resist change. Consider the design of the U.S. federal government—three separate but equal branches of government. Although ingeniously constructed to limit power, the structure of government makes leadership difficult. It natu-rally impedes the pace of change. There are probably few places on earth that are less promising for quality transformation efforts than government organizations.

Cheer up though—there is hope. It is pos-sible to transform your agency. It just takes time. Consider for just a moment the story of Sam Walton.

A few weeks ago, I visited Bentonville, AR. Bentonville is a small city nestled in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. It’s also home to the largest company in the world—Wal-Mart Stores. Located in the downtown square of Bentonville is the orig-inal Walton’s 5&10 store that Sam Walton founded more than 50 years ago. Today

it serves as a visitor center that shares the Wal-Mart story with visitors from around the world. And what a story it is. In 1951, northwest Arkansas was far from the center of wealth in the United States. Rural and nearly completely isolated from the rest of the United States, Bentonville was without a doubt one of the most unlikely places on earth to launch a transformation effort. Yet Sam Walton did it.

From these humble beginnings, Walton created a business that would one day become the largest in the world. Along the way he transformed the retail industry for-ever. His five and dime thrived because Walton understood the needs of his custom-ers. His mission was to find ways to reduce the prices of goods at his store to improve the standard of life for his customers. With this elegant philosophy, Walton eventually built the framework for what would one day become the world’s largest company. Walton’s journey from that small five and dime to America’s wealthiest man is a fas-cinating example of the American dream and a powerful lesson in change manage-ment. Quality professionals would be well served to emulate some of the simple prin-ciples Walton used to build Wal-Mart in their attempts to lead transformation efforts in their own government agencies. Let’s spend a few moments reviewing some of those principles.

cont. on p. 3

Government Division 2 Spring 2012

Quality and CommitmentBy Richard E. Mallory

This issue is all about quality and commitment, and the fact that the quality journey is not so much about short-term initiatives, or the latest tools, but rather about a long-term commitment. Our lead article uses the lessons learned in the suc-cess of Wal-Mart to develop four

rules for implementing a quality initiative:

• Startsmallandkeepitsimple.

• Embracemistakesandlearnfromfailure.

• Lookforopportunitiesinunderservedareas.

• Befrugalandworkhard.

Other articles speak to the importance of strategic planning and performance measure, the use of employee surveys to target improvement areas, and the adoption of basic quality values to drive overall progress.

In this past year, the Government Division has worked hard to keep the vision of quality alive by providing webinars and articles that are motivational and instructional. As we all know, the “problem” with quality in government is that government has no bot-tom line, so ineffective and inefficient agencies do not

ChairElect’sCOMMENTS

automatically go out of business. Those poor performers often are sustained with our scarce public resources to the same extent as excellent performers.

We also know that quality is the right way to man-age in the public sector, but without natural incentives it depends on those who want to do the right job right. And hopefully that is you—the members of the Government Division. So we want to help you to be the sponsors of quality in government, and to promote quality solely because it is the right thing to do, and the only way to ensure that the public is well served.

Our programs for the coming year will be discussed Sunday, May 20, in a special session just before the start of the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement, in Anaheim, CA. We hope any members will join us in that discussion, and help us to review our progress, develop our programs, and set our goals.

As we look forward to coming newsletters and webi-nars, we ask our members to tell us about successes in their own organizations, and share, share, share the good news that you come across. We need your help and participation to make it happen.


Start small and keep it simpleWalton’s approach was based on simplicity—he was deter-

mined to control costs better than his competitors and pass the savings onto his customers. Walton began this approach in a small manner—in that first store in downtown Bentonville. Eleven yearswould transpire beforeWaltonopened the firstWal-Mart store in Rogers, AR, and nearly another decade would elapse before Wal-Mart went public in 1971. During that time, Walton and his team focused on the success of one store at a time. With each successful store, Walton slowly but surely ushered in a true transformation of the retail industry. The first supercenter opened in 1988 and by 1989, Wal-Mart sales had grown to $26 billion. Today, Wal-Mart boasts more than 10,000 stores that employ more than 2 million people worldwide. Throughout this remarkable growth period, Wal-Mart embraced the simple approach of its founder and has focused its growth on one store at a time. There’s a moral in Walton’s story for aspiring quality professionals.

Quality efforts often stall when the focus grows too wide. Instead of viewing the latest quality management initiative as a tool for improvement, the movement becomes a panacea for all the organization’s ills. Such quality leaders imagine that results will soar, morale will improve, the blind will see, and the lame will walk! With such extreme proclamations, no wonder quality management initiatives fail. Miracles should remain in the realm of religion. Quality manage-ment initiatives should abide by the Walton approach—start small and keep it simple. If you’re trying to get a quality improvement initiative off the ground, approach it in the same manner that Walton did when launching his global empire. Find a single area of the organization that is in need of improvement and focus your energies on making that area a success. Once success comes (and it will), you can begin to branch out to other areas of the organization—but it’s impor-tant to be patient. Use the relative anonymity of this initial effort to incorporate the next Walton principle.

Embrace mistakes and learn from failureWalton made lots of mistakes in those early years. Many

of the stories have become legendary. Case in point is what Wal-Mart associates refer to as “the watermelon story.” In 1964, Walton opened his second Wal-Mart in Harrison, AR. A man by the name of David Glass had heard about Walton’s new approach to retail and decided to visit the grand open-ing of the Harrison Wal-Mart to learn a bit more about the company. He would later say that the Harrison Wal-Mart was the “worst retail store I had ever seen.” When Glass arrived, he observed that Walton had trucked in a huge number of watermelons in the parking lot of the store and had incorporated a donkey ride as well for the kids. The day was hot and so by the time the afternoon rolled around, the temperatures were topping 100 degrees. This caused many of

the watermelons to pop and the juices ran all over the place. As Glass explains, “The donkeys began to do what donkeys do and it all mixed together and ran all over the parking lot. And when you went inside the store, the mess just continued, having been tracked in all over the floor. Sam was a nice fellow but I just wrote him off. It was terrible.” Twenty years later, Wal-Mart was one of the fastest growing companies in the world and Glass was named Wal-Mart’s president.

Part of Walton’s genius was his fearlessness and his open-ness to try a new idea that could improve the organization. Walton was so committed to finding new ideas that he traveled the country visiting his stores to mine gold from the suggestions of his associates. Some of the most iconic practices of Wal-Mart resulted from Walton’s travels—including the concept of the Wal-Mart greeter. As the story goes, Walton was visiting a Wal-Mart store in Louisiana in 1980 and was surprised to see a Wal-Mart associate standing at the door greeting customers. Intrigued, Walton inquired and the store manager explained that he wanted to reduce shrinkage (shoplifting) but didn’t want to intimidate his honest customers by posting a guard at the door. The role of the associate standing at the door was dual—a “greeter” coming in and a “cop” going out. Walton thought it was the best idea he’d ever heard of and less than two years later, the greeter became an integral part of every Wal-Mart store in the country. Walton’s willingness to try new ideas created a culture of continuous improvement that penetrated every Wal-Mart store in the country.

The concept of learning from mistakes is fundamental to the philosophy of quality management, yet many quality professionals seem to be fearful of making a misstep. While espousing the benefits of tracking and analyzing noncon-formities to identify root causes, they fail to adopt the same principles in managing the quality management initiative. New ideas are the lifeblood of continuous improvement. Quality professionals should always be on the lookout for new ideas that can improve their performance. Not only is this philosophy critical to the success of your initiative, it’s even more important to set a good example for the rest of the organization. How can we expect employees in our agencies to embrace a culture of continuous improvement if we do not incorporate those concepts into our own work habits?

Set a good example for everyone in your agency and embrace mistakes as a tool for continuous improvement. Incorporate the Walton approach and hunt for new ideas and new opportunities. When you find one that has a reason-able chance of success, pull the trigger and give it a try. If it doesn’t work, try something else. Be fearless and you will be rewarded with improved performance.

Look for opportunities in underserved areas1962 was a remarkable year for the retail industry. Walton

opened the first Wal-Mart, S.S. Kresge started Kmart, Dayton Hudson opened Target, and the retail giant Woolworth

Transformation Takes Time cont.

cont. on p. 4


launched Woolco. With so many new retail companies emerging, there was significant competition in the big cities so Walton focused on expanding his Wal-Mart stores to the smaller markets, which his competitors ignored. While his competitors beat each other up for the larger markets, Walton slowly but surely saturated the underserved and overlooked rural markets. Before long the small-town Wal-Mart became an American institution.

Following this strategy, Wal-Mart achieved $1 billion in sales by 1979. It was the fastest period of growth ever seen in the retail industry. None of this success could have been achieved without Walton’s deliberate focus on rural America. Had Walton decided to battle his competition for the large markets, Wal-Mart would likely be little more than a footnote in American history. Serving the rural markets was one of the foundations for the ultimate success of Walton’s company.

As quality professionals, we often spend a tremendous amount of time and energy battling organizational inertia in our attempts to improve the agency’s core functions. Intuitively this makes sense. After all—improvement of the core functions of the agency is where we can provide the greatest impact with the implementation of quality manage-ment techniques. Unfortunately, these areas are generally the most difficult “markets” to penetrate. Many of these functions involve organizational “sacred cows” and include some of the most highly sought-after jobs in the entire organization. Our proposals for transformation can generate significant resistance from front-line employees, managers, and execu-tives. This bewildering mixture of pride, reticence, and ego is extremely difficult to navigate. Many quality professionals have watched in horror as their proposals are dashed against the rocks of organizational resistance.

A better strategy is to model the Wal-Mart approach and take your transformation efforts to the “rural” areas of your organization. These places aren’t nearly as attractive, but they are generally overlooked and underserved. While you must engage in fairly heavy lifting to convince executives to allow you to tinker with the agency’s mission-critical processes, get-ting their approval to improve noncore processes may be a fairly simple task. Instead of focusing your initiative on opera-tions, take your approach to human resources, purchasing, or perhaps even the mailroom.

What will happen when you venture into these under-served “markets?” You will likely find leaders eager for help and many underappreciated and underserved workers grate-ful for the attention you are bringing to their work. As you begin to serve this “rural” market, you will win converts to yourcause.Essentiallyyouwillbecreatingqualitymanage-ment “customers” throughout the organization and word will begin to spread. Before you know it, you’ll be grabbing the attention of senior management and you will no longer have to ask these executives for permission to enter this exclusive “market”—they will be coming to you for your expertise.

Be frugal and work hardThis is undoubtedly the most important principle of all.

The work ethic of Walton and his executive team was legend-ary. Walton was the hardest-working person in his company and his example set the standard for everyone in the com-pany—from the front-line employee all the way up the ladder to the C-suite. Walton and his team met every Saturday for business review meetings to discuss the performance of the business and to discuss ways to improve the company. The focus of these meetings was the control of operating costs. Walton was relentlessly frugal in everything that he did and he transferred those habits into his business. While other CEOswereflyingaroundtheworldinLearjets,Waltonandhis executive team flew coach. Walton’s work ethic and fru-gal habits set an example for every employee in the company and it translated into unmatched organizational performance. Many years before Wal-Mart would become the largest com-pany in the world, Walton was controlling the expenses of his stores better than anyone else in the industry.

There’s a powerful lesson in Walton’s work ethic for all quality professionals—there is simply no substitute for hard work and frugality. If it is your intention to transform your agency, then you must be prepared to put in long hours. You must never lose site of the fact that you are highly visible as the “quality guru” and must be prepared to set an example for the rest of the organization to follow. Incorporate Walton’s approach and control your costs better than any other man-ager in the agency. Never hire expensive consultants for any tasks that can be completed in-house. Instead of attending costly training seminars, buy a book. This is not to suggest that you should become frugal to the point of stinginess—just try to view the agency’s operating budget in the same manner as you view your own money and make good financial deci-sions. This was one of the secrets to Wal-Mart’s success, and Walton’s legendary work ethic is still emulated by Wal-Mart executives today all around the world.

So if you find yourself thinking that your government agency is perhaps the least likely place on earth to launch a successful quality management initiative, take a moment to reflect on the story of Sam Walton and remember that transformation takes time.Startsmallandkeepyourapproachsimple.Embraceanentrepreneurial approach to the management of your qual-ity initiative and embrace mistakes as a tool for continuous improvement. Most importantly—work hard and be frugal. Regardless of where your quality journey leads you, never lose sight of your true purpose—making the world a better place to live. I think Sam Walton said it best many years ago:

“If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone … we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.”

Alright—enough with the pep talk. Now go and do that.

John Baranzelli is currently the acting engineer of design and environment for the Illinois Department of Transportation and is the author of the book Making Government Great Again. He is a member of the ASQ Government Division leadership team.

Transformation Takes Time cont.


Employee Surveys: Getting Results Through Effective Process

by Michael DeSousa, M.A. Sr. Consultant, CPS HR Consulting

The ability to accurately solicit and track employee feedback has proven increasingly valuable during the cur-rent extended period of public sector budget cutbacks, hiring freezes, layoffs, and restructuring. Public sector human resource professionals acknowledge that the employee sur-vey has emerged as a tool to gauge employee opinion and categorize that feedback for management. Web-based survey tools especially have become an important and convenient tool for assessing numerous workplace issues—including levels of employee engagement, alignment of mission, employee development, and management communications.

This article will provide a brief review of how effec-tive an employee survey process used in a recent survey project was, and how it ensured actionable feedback that made a difference. The subject organization is a Northern California public agency that engaged a consulting firm to design and conduct its first agency-wide employee survey. It was developed to establish a baseline of employee feed-back to strengthen its HR and management practices. The agency, whose name is withheld at the agency’s request, has a relatively stable workforce of less than 100 employees located at two work sites. The first survey was conducted in summer 2010 and a re-survey conducted in fall 2011. The online survey tool used included 76 scaled (five-point scale) items requesting a level of employee agreement or disagree-ment with statements regarding the workplace, and three

open-ended questions that invited written responses. The 2010 survey included post-survey meetings with employees to “drill down” to the employee views represented in the sur-vey results that were less favorable.

The 2011 survey used both the scaled survey items along with open-ended employee comments. A side benefit was that it resulted in a strong degree of measurable improve-ment in employee perceptions regarding key conditions of employment. In general, a significant number of moder-ately unfavorable responses in 2010 had reversed course to become more favorable in the 2011 survey. Strongest increases in favorable responses were in dimensions such as management communication (25%), confidence in man-agement (29%), organizational teamwork (14%), and board communications (24%). Some specific scaled item responses are included in the table below to illustrate notable increases in favorable responses from the first survey to the re-survey.

The issue then becomes: Why the improved results—good luck or good process? I will propose this project demonstrates good survey process in the following areas.

Dimensional focusThe original survey designed and launched in 2010 was

not a generic instrument but an assessment tool custom-ized to meet the informational needs of the organization. Survey item focus areas (or dimensions) were determined based on meetings with agency management and review of HR and management practices. It is recognized at the outset that there are many survey dimensions that are commonly utilized across many organizations since they touch on areas of near universal relevance (e.g., supervisor relations, employee training, work resources). But most organizations

Scaled Survey Item (Five-point scale where 5.0 is strong agreement with the statement and 1.0 is strong disagreement with the statement; 3.0 is a neutral response.)

2010 Mean Score

2011 Mean Score

The forms and process used for annual employee performance evaluations are user friendly. 2.26 3.39

I believe that high job performance is rewarded at ____. 2.51 3.34

The decisions and priorities of the ____ Board of Directors are effectively communicated throughout the entire organization.

2.52 3.54

Management clearly explains the reasons for changes and major decisions. 2.57 3.38

I am satisfied with the communications I receive from management about issues/changes that may affect me.

2.70 3.59

Management provides clear direction on where the organization is headed. 2.82 3.66

Management delegates sufficient authority to employees to make work-related decisions. 2.84 3.78

Management demonstrates trust in employees’ ability to make routine decisions. 2.91 3.78

I am confident the results of the All Employee Survey will be used to make ____ a better place to work. 2.93 3.66

I have the opportunity to express my views and concerns to management. 3.00 3.80

I am not afraid to bring up work issues or concerns to management. 3.04 3.78

Table

cont. on p. 6


have unique issues, features, programs, or constraints that can easily be addressed through targeted survey items within those dimensions. Like most assessment processes, better data tends to come from better questions or prompts.

Post-survey results confirmationAfter the numerical results of the first survey were pre-

sented, the agency supported the additional step of utilizing facilitated employee focus groups to confirm management understanding of the survey dimensions that were least favorable from the employee perspective. The focus groups provided an opportunity to more deeply understand the employee experiences or perceptions that were responsible for lower levels of satisfaction and engagement. An illustra-tive example may suffice here. If a cluster of survey items making up the dimension “employee training” revealed an agency mean score of 2.1 where 5.0 is highly favorable and 3.0 is a neutral response, you would know this may be an area requiring more intervention. But before you run off and start implementing “solutions,” you will need to know what explains the low favorable scores and what the root causes are—explanations could include:

• Theagencyhasnobudgettosupporttraining.

• Supervisorsarenotawareofagencytrainingoptions.

• Employeescannotgettimeofftoattendtraining.

• Thequalityoftrainingprovidedispoor.

• Trainingcurriculumisnotalignedwithcareerpaths.

A “shotgun” approach to improving employee training—pursuing many courses of action—may not address the specific issue needing intervention. In this survey the agency took the time to understand what the survey scores “meant” for them with the result of a more focused path toward inter-vention and improvement.

Shared resultsWith limited exception, the open sharing of survey

results is another process choice to promote best results. In this case the agency held all employee and board brief-ings before survey execution, and afterwards, to present results. It posted results to the agency intranet and mod-eled openness in management-employee communications. Publicizing results broadly is one more way to demonstrate top management support for the survey as a communication channel to management and provides an impetus to follow-up actions versus the survey ending up as one more project report gathering dust.

Action planWithout the clear intent to act when good data directs

you, any employee survey process is an exercise in futility.

While an employer who is ignorant of what is really going on in the organization is bad, an employer who knows what is deficient but still fails to act decisively is far worse—the distinction between management ignorance and indifference. Indeed, the standard employee survey process model posi-tions the action plan as fundamental.

I. Planning

II. Design

III. Implementation

IV. Analysis and Communications

V. Action Plan

This public agency required, as part of the project state-ment of work, that the consultant draft a detailed action plan based on the consultant’s assessment of the most criti-cal areas for action, the relative priorities of the actions, and potential interventions that could be considered to address less favorable results. The survey, like any substantive change process, needs to result in something akin to a project plan. It should include assigned tasks, timelines, resource allo-cations, reporting accountabilities, and critical paths. The survey’s action plan became the roadmap for a series of agency actions to address workplace issues and to do so with high visibility to employees. Meetings, communications, and follow-up after the initial 2010 survey stressed the link to the survey as the catalyst for agency action.

Re-surveyAs is often noted in this publication, “you manage what

you measure.” In survey assessment this means the com-mitment to some type of ongoing re-surveying to determine agency performance versus the baseline established in the initial survey. While longitudinal tracking will argue for a strong set of survey items that you can retain over time to allow for direct comparison, that does not mean that the sur-vey instrument cannot, over time, add or retire some items. Agency management in this project has reflected that they will consider some adjustments to the survey in the next iteration. The cycle to re-survey is often 12 to 24 months depending on agency-specific needs. To modify the apho-rism “measure twice and cut once,” in effective surveys, the phrase becomes “measure once and measure again.”

ConclusionThe employee survey is a potentially potent tool for assess-

ing employee views on myriad essential workplace issues, but the overall success of the survey depends on the conscious adherence to principles of a strong, well-executed process.

Michael DeSousa ([email protected]) is a senior consultant for CPS HR Consulting in Sacramento, CA. A former HR director, training manager, and university lecturer, his consulting work with CPS focuses on areas of employ-ment development, organizational assessment, and change management.

Getting Results cont.

mailto:[email protected]


Taking the “Long View” Is Critical to Success in Government

by Denzil Verardo

Strategic planning and performance measurement are two foundational tools for long-range improvement in government, and those tools provide a foundation for improvement in good times and in bad. The author relates his career experience with the application of these tools in two different California agen-cies, and the positive results created even in tough times.

Many people, including academics and professionals, feel that California government is broken. Its state agency management is neither visionary nor operationally effective. However, that is painting with too broad a brush. It ignores the success that has occurred within agencies that have taken a long view of their mission. An effective strategic plan, as well as meaningful measures through which to assess prog-ress, can lead to dramatic improvements that indeed seem visionary. While this article’s case studies are in California, the strategic plan methodology is applicable to any govern-ment agency at the local, state, or federal level.

Today, at this moment, virtually all departments of California government are consumed with two seemingly contradictory issues: managing the current budget crisis while providing the levels of service demanded by the public. Visionary leadership—one that takes a long view—should be measuring performance while managing toward effective future strategies through an active strategic plan. A successful model exists for doing just that. It has been proven within sev-eral agencies, albeit not universally throughout government.

First, some background information on the development and implementation of the model itself. During an earlier economic downturn in the 1990s, California’s governmental infrastructure could not be supported by a weakened tax structure and resulting decline in revenues. The challenge for agencies that relied on those dwindling dollars, one of which was the California Department of Parks and Recreation (State Parks), was how to cope with critically needed expansion and maintenance of a system that a burgeoning popula-tion demanded, while ensuring that those resources were available for future generations. State Parks leadership had not been known for its management efficiency, but realized it must improve the way it conducted “business” or face increased cuts and potential obsolescence.

The results of its effort included not only increased efficiency and effectiveness, but internal and external acknowledgment that Parks had became one of the best managed and highest performing departments in California government. After three years of effort, the department was awarded a Malcolm Baldrige-based California Quality Award,fromthenonprofitCaliforniaCouncilforExcellence,as “best in class” in government. In an event not unrelated to the positive change in business practices of the department,

the people of California then provided a large majority vote for the largest park bond in the nation’s history.

Now we fast-forward to today’s economic crisis. Another department, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control was, and is, awash in data. However, as late as 2007, that data was not aggregated in a manner that would illus-trate the department’s actual impact on human health and the environment. By 2010, using the model of the long view, the department was acknowledged as a case study in good government by the Little Hoover Commission-sponsored Performance Management Council. It was also awarded a CaliforniaAward for Performance Excellence (formerly theCalifornia Quality Award). So what did these departments of government with dissimilar missions and statutory direction have in common? An effective performance-measured strate-gic planning process.

Figure 1 below illustrates the basic model for sustained improvement over time by measuring current effectiveness while achieving a compelling vision for the future. It was origi-nally developed as a part of the 2004 California Performance Review (CPR). The CPR was to look at all departments of gov-ernment and make recommendations for change. One team focused on performance management including effective stra-tegic planning. The team looked at previous successful change efforts, such as California State Parks, but also across the coun-try at successful local, state, and federal efforts.

The vision portion of the model consists of developing a realistic plan through which to conceptualize the future while working on actual forward movement, including a new paradigm if that is called for. There is a fine line between a realistic, actionable vision and an unobtainable, frustrating one. The model forces a realistic approach with real account-ability. Like many strategic planning efforts, the vision is developed through a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportu-nities, and threats) analysis coupled with an “environmental scan” of the economic, technological, political, and social trends that affect the organization.

cont. on p. 8

VISION VALUES MISSION

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Analysis SWOT

Goals

Objectives

Strategies

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

Programs

Outcomes

Measures

Data Collection

Analysis

Targets

PERFORMANCE AGREEMENTS/ANNUAL PLAN

BalancedScorecard

Vision, Mission, andValues Check

EnvironmentalScan

Figure 1—Performance Management


Goals are determined once that analysis is complete, and objectives and strategies are the incremental breakdown of each goal into actionable and strategic initiatives. They are developed to carry out the goals.

Many strategic plans fail because the effort stops at this point, and in fact was only motivated by a desire to impress the political leadership. However, those who want to align the plan with actual operations next look to performance measures. The next step is to develop performance agree-ments with managers. An annual plan for the organization is developed with identification of individuals who are respon-sible for a specific objective and strategy.

Unfortunately, many governmental agencies have a great-sounding strategic plan, but really do not have good knowledge, based on real data, of what they are required to do. The mission half of this model forces an assessment, with performance measures, of current operations. Only through that assessment and the resources necessary to carry out required efforts can additional or redirected resources realistically be put into the vision portion of the model. Core programs are determined, outcomes are set for each of those programs, measures (the vital few) are set for each outcome, and data collected for each measure. The resulting analysis leads to meaningful targets of improvement for the current operation. Those measures/targets are regularly monitored by

the appropriate manager and also put in their performance agreement and/or in the annual plan.

Another way of looking at the system is illustrated in Figure 2.

A strategic plan and strategic planning methodology is vital anytime. But during tough economic times, partnering a vision-ary strategic planning process with a data-driven understanding of mission-critical requirements is essential. And it works!

Denzil Verardo is a nationally recognized expert on organizational performance management and has received numerous awards for his good government efforts. He has been on the executive staffs of California state agencies through multiple administrations and is currently a commissioner on the California Senate Advisory Commission on Cost Control in State Government.

The Lost Legacy of Quality in Governmentby Richard E. Mallory, MM, PMP, Chair-Elect

Pride in our work is a hallmark of the quality professional, and why so many of us are zealots for the cause, in good times and bad. Our pride comes from seeing workers and organizations transformed, and moving from dreary, disinter-ested, and ineffective work to environments where people are creative, invested, and proud. That transformation depends on implementation of the simple values of quality. Those val-ues gain power when they are adopted into leadership and become beacons and guides to work units, and overall busi-ness strategy.

The often “lost legacy of quality” is the vision of a changed organization, in which quality exists in the daily life of work-ers and is aligned with a leadership initiative that “improves constantly and forever the system of production and service.” ThisisthelegacyofDr.W.EdwardsDeming1, that was artic-ulated in many ways in his 14 points and seven deadly sins.

David Osborne, co-author of the 1992 classic Reinventing Government, said Deming’s 14 points boil down to five basic principles: “1) To rebuild their efforts around the mission of delivering quality to the customer; 2) to measure both work processes and results to see where problems lie; 3) to

empower employees to solve these problems by decentralizing authority; 4) to stress prevention rather than rework; 5) to focus on improving systems2 …”

This of course reminds us that quality does not come about primarily through the actions of management and an elite corps of trained professionals, but primarily through the actions of an empowered workforce. This is somewhat analogous to the idea of “catalytic government,” articu-lated in Reinventing Government3. The concept of catalytic government was one that “steers” rather than “rows.” One explanation offered in that book was that in the future, gov-ernment “… will more often define its role as a catalyst and facilitator. (It) will more often find itself in the role of defining problems and then assembling resources for others to use to address those problems.” The same is true of successful organ izational transformation: Leaders should steer more than row—the power comes from the front lines, mobilized by quality framework and tools.

The recent experience of this author is that the opposite is often true. Many contemporary “quality” initiatives are

The “Long View” cont.Strategic Plan

PerformanceMeasurement

PerformanceAgreements

RESULTS

SUCCESS

Perform

ance

Impro

vemen

t

Goals, Objectives,Strategies

What We DesireTo Do or

Accomplish

What We MustDo or

Accomplish

What We Can Do or Accomplish –

Addresses Closingthe GAP

GAP

VISI

ONM

ISSI

ON

ACCO

UNTA

BILI

TY

Figure 2—Performance Management System

cont. on p. 9


staking their claim to quality only on the back of trained Black Belts, Six Sigma teams, lean practice, or other so-called “advanced” techniques. The initiative owners have completely lost sight of building an empowered organization. They have no clue about creating the values of quality within their organizations in a way that profoundly affects the envi-ronment in which most workers exist. These organizations are often good at training and motivating managers to learn a new game—for example, “Lean Six Sigma teams”—and some workers favored to participate are also caught up in the “wave” and speak the new language. Leaders believe that complete success has been achieved because teams are organized, changes are made, results are tabulated, and some “wins” are achieved. Meanwhile, the majority of workers is left behind, and think that the elite “quality geeks” have been hit by the “Tower of Babel” and speak a language and exist in a rarified atmosphere in which they have no stake.

A restoration of this legacy will provide a fundamental change in the daily lives of most workers. In stark contrast, when advanced efforts exist without a foundation of quality values there is the constant threat that when management loses interest in their new initiative, or when resources get diverted to other priorities, the quality effort flat-lines. In addition, when front-line workers are not involved, there will be no change in organizational interaction with the customer. The ownership and excitement of employees with regard to the quality initiative is critical, and is often forgot-ten or bypassed in a rush to complex and difficult practices like Six Sigma.

While many quality values are important to organizational transformation, there are several of these values that are the equivalent of “gifts” from leadership, and which cannot exist without the active nurturing and support of leadership. These are among a small group that are foundational:

• Giveeveryworkeraviewtothecustomer.

• Develop customer requirements andmeasure successagainst those requirements.

• Askeveryonetodorightthingsrightthefirsttime.

• Recognizethatwhenerrorandreworkoccur,itisaprob-lem of management and not of the worker.

• Allowanyonetherighttochallengetheprocess.

• Allow everyone to ask questions and to get answers totheir questions.

• Empowerworkplaceteamstoimproveprocesses.

• Driveoutfear.

While long-time quality professionals will immediately recognize this list, it is apparent that many of our younger

and newer quality professionals do not. They may be Six Sigma Black Belts, but may not have heard of Dr. Deming’s 14 points. For those younger professionals, a reintroduction to the basic texts of The New Economics4, or The Deming Management Method5, may be appropriate.

The Deming Management Method notes that after many years of teaching quality in Japan, Dr. Deming added the need to drive out fear, specifically for American managers. It was said that in Japan, workers and managers maintained an easy rapport, and, “If anybody had some ideas on improve-ment, there was nothing in the world to stop him.” It was in America that Dr. Deming observed a “tyranny of fear, of bar-riers, of (work) quotas, and sloganeering.”

Closely related to driving out fear is “the right to ask questions,” which was described in this author’s book, Management Strategy: Creating Excellent Organizations6. “Excellentorganizationsrealizethatagreatstoreoforganiza-tional wisdom is at the lowest levels. There must be an active and open system of communication and decision making in order to tap that knowledge. How well this will work will depend on the simple matter of allowing people to ask—and to get answers—to their questions. … Without active strate-gies to support the effort at a high level, the voice of the front-line worker will disappear.”

We must all recognize that the power of quality depends on the transformation of everyone in an organization, includ-ing both the “advanced practice” teams aligned with the latest executive office initiative, and the front-line process action team using more simple quality methods. To be suc-cessful we must therefore remind the new generation of quality professionals to not forget the quality values that are fundamental to organizational empowerment.

Endnotes1. As noted in The Deming Management Method, by Mary Walton, Perigee Books, 1986.

2. From “Why Total Quality Management is Only Half a Loaf,” by David Osborne. Governing Magazine, August 1992.

3. Reinventing Government, by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler. The Penguin Group, 1992.

4.ByW. EdwardsDeming,MITCenter forAdvanced EngineeringStudy, 1993.

5. By Mary Walton, Perigee Books, 1986.

6.ByRichardE.Mallory,TraffordPublications,2002.

Richard E. Mallory is a senior management consultant and client services manager for CPS Human Resources Consulting of Sacramento, CA. Mallory specializes in performance measurement, program analysis, and organiza-tional transformation. He specializes in government practice, and has spent more than 25 years as a senior government executive, consultant, and per-formance coach.

The Lost Legacy cont.


Directory of Government Division Leadership Team, April 2012

Brian DeNiese, ChairBrian DeNiese is a project manager at the Region of Peel and is responsible for corporate performance benchmarking. He also leads strategic corporate proj-ects to improve processes/services at the Region. He sits on the management committee of the Ontario Municipal CAO’s Benchmarking Initiative (OMBI). The OMBI initiative is a collaboration that is led by the chief administrative

officers and city managers, and fosters a culture of service excellence in municipal government by creating new ways to measure, share, and compare performance statistics and operational practices. Prior to joining the Region of Peel, DeNiese was a senior quality consultant at AT&T Canada, where he worked in the corporate quality office and assisted various departments in implementing process management; he also trained/coached teams on problem-solving tools and techniques. During his time with AT&T he also participated as an auditor for the National Quality Institute – Canada AwardsforExcellenceapplicationreviewprocess.

Richard Mallory, Chair-Elect and Newsletter EditorRichard Mallory is a client services manager and senior management consultant at CPS HR Consulting of Sacramento, CA. He has assisted several clients achieve Bronze and Silver Award recognition in the California Baldrige Award program, and has served six times as an examiner and senior exam-iner for the California Quality Awards from 1995 to the present. He served as

an examiner for the U.S. National Quality Award in 2007. He wasapastjudgefortheCaliforniaTeamExcellenceAward(2004 and 2005). Prior to his consulting he served as director of the California Department of Housing (1997 and 1998), and as a California-Nevada state director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1986-1992). He is a Project Management Professional©, certified by Project Management Institute, and is author of the book Management Strategy: Creating Excellent Organizations.

Dr. Laura Freeman, SecretaryDr. Laura Freeman is a research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses. She currently works in support of the director, operational test and eval-uation, on the use of statistics, specifically designed experiments in operational test and evaluation. Freeman has also worked on test designs for NASA. She has a B.S. in aerospace engi-neering, an M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D.

in statistics—all from Virginia Tech. Her Ph.D. research was on design and analysis of experiments for reliability data.

John Baranzelli, Membership ChairJohn Baranzelli is the ISO Quality Assurance Officer for the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and is responsible for maintaining the Department’s ISO 9001:2008 certifica-tion. Baranzelli is a registered professional engineer and a second- generation IDOT employee with over 20 years’ experience in the public sector. During his 20 years with IDOT,

he has received extensive experience in the planning, design, and construction of road and bridge improvements. He is an award-winning public speaker who has spoken at locations throughout the United States and Canada on the subject of ISO 9001 and quality management in public service organi-zations. Baranzelli is also the author of the recently released book Making Government Great Again: Mapping the Road to Success with ISO 9001:2008.

Guy Gordon, Voice of the CustomerGuy Gordon is executive director, Institute for Citizen-Centered Service of Toronto (http://www.iccs-isac.org/en/) and he is one of the founding members of the Institute. The ICCS mission is to promote citizen satisfaction with gov-ernment through its client-satisfaction survey instrument, which facilitates benchmarking across jurisdictions. It also assists the public sector in identifying and applying innova-tive, best-practice service solutions. Gordon is the co-author of “The Creation of a National Citizen Satisfaction Index,” which was presented at the 53rd American Society for Quality Conference. He was instrumental in providing leadership respecting design, approval, and implementation of key cor-porate service delivery improvement initiatives, including: At YourServiceManitoba,E-ServicetoBusiness,SingleWindowfor Business, and Online Service to Citizens.

cont. on p. 11


Christena Shepherd, Member LeaderChristena Shepherd retired from NASA in 2009 after 32 years of government service in quality assurance, and is cur-rently working for Teledyne Brown EngineeringInc.asaconsultanttoNASA. Shepherd was a quality assur-ance team lead, responsible for managing the quality assurance effort for the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Propulsion Test Area, where testing is

performed for the Space Shuttle, NASA’s research and devel-opment projects, and industry customers. She is currently assisting the MSFC Test Laboratory in the areas of quality assurance, safety, risk management, and outreach. Shepherd is a member of the Huntsville, AL, ASQ Section and a mem-ber of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). She enjoys art, history, genealogy, and travel.

John Iverson, Program Chair John Iverson is a senior program man-ager at Vangent Inc., a leading federal service contractor. Prior to his current position, Iverson spent eight years man-aging quality for a number of federal programs with the Department of Labor, Federal Communications Commission, andtheDepartmentofEducation.Activein ASQ, Iverson has spent the last two years leading the development of the

Service Quality Body of Knowledge (SQBOK) to support ser-vice quality practitioners. He is also active in PMI, serving on the Quality Community of Practice Leadership Council. Iverson’s goal for the Government Division is to establish thought leadership that brings about improvement of govern-ment services at all levels.

Kishor Desai, Member LeaderKishor Desai is a principal consultant and auditor for KD & Associates Inc. Desai has been involved in management system auditing and consulting since 1995. His area of focus is quality, envi-ronment, health and safety, and food safety. Desai is associated with a leading North American-based registrar and a member of their Advisory Board on Management System Registration since

1995. Prior to 1995 Desai served in the public sector, work-ing in transportation and communications, and then in housing for the Province of Ontario. Desai is a registered pro-fessional engineer, and RABQSA-qualified lead auditor for quality and environmental management systems.

Karin E. Warner M.S., B.S.N., R.N., Member LeaderKarin Warner is the Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) program director/Lean Six Sigma Black Belt for U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa and the program executive officer for the Western Pacific Medical Alliance. In this regional role, she works with leadership and staff of U.S. Naval Hospitals Okinawa, Guam, and Yokosuka to improve quality and clinical capabilities, improve collabora-

tion across the facilities in the Western Pacific, and provide a structure for sustainability of quality outcomes. Warner is a senior member of ASQ and is also a DoD-certified Lean and Six Sigma Green Belt instructor, and mentors/coaches Green Belts and CPI teams. She holds a dual Master of Science degree in medical-surgical nursing and nursing health policy from the University of Maryland (1996). Her nursing and leadership experience includes work in cardiac step-down, neonatal intensive care and pediatric outpatient settings, DoD legislative fellow for national and veterans health pol-icy, education and training, emergency department, senior nurse, director of health and wellness, primary care, and head of quality management. She has also served as acting officer in charge, acting director of nursing, and acting exec-utive officer. Her assignments have taken her to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD; University of Maryland Graduate School; Capitol Hill in the Office of Legislative Affairs; Naval Hospital Twenty-nine Palms; Branch Medical Clinic La Maddalena, Sardinia; and Naval Hospital Pensacola, FL. She is the current Navy director of the Federal Nurses Association. Warner is married, has three sons, and her home of record is in western Pennsylvania.

Leadership Team cont.

Are you a member of the Government Division

with a few hours to spare and an interest in participat-

ing on the Government Division leadership team?

In particular, we hope to find members to help us

maintain the content on our website: asq.org/gov.

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Contact Linda Milanowski at ASQ for more informa-

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Government Division News is published quarterly by the Government Division of ASQ.

All communications regarding this newsletter, including articles for publication, should be addressed to:

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