What Is Your Organization’s IQ?

1. A Message from the President: What is Your Organization’s IQ?
2. Leading Change for Results that Stick: A One Day Workshop on Change — April 12
3. 2011 MN Quality Award Event: Celebrating 25 Years of Advancing Excellence — Hold June 5!
4. Self-Defeating Habits of Otherwise Brilliant People — Workshop 4/30 (Austin)
5. Developing and Managing a Balanced Scorecard at National Marrow Donor Program — PIN 3/1 (Minneapolis)
6. Decision Making with Data: It Isn’t What You Think — PIN 3/14 (St. Paul)
7. Transforming Care at the Bedside — RAQC 3/6 — RAQC 3/6 (Rochester)
8. Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network 3/21 (Duluth)
9. Quest for Excellence Conference — April 16-18 (Washington DC)
10. The Art of Project Management — PMI 3/13
11. The Power of Purpose-Centered Strategic Planning — Association for Strategic Planning 3/27
12. Creating Advantage in Today’s Challenging World — MN ASQ Professional Summit 4/2
13. The Heroic Journey: The Road to Transformational Leadership — MNODN 3/9
14. Out of Another @#%^! Crisis — ASQ Hiawatha Workshop 4/12
15. Practical Problem Solving: Removing Obstacles in the Way of Production Perfection — Enterprise MN 3/21
16. U of M College of Continuing Education Announces Upcoming Courses; Council Members Get 10% Discount
17. Hamline University Announces Upcoming Management Courses; Council Members Get 15% Discount
18. South Central College Announces Upcoming Courses; Council Members Get 10% Discount

A Message From the President: What Is Your Organization’s IQ?

What if you were able to measure your organization’s rate of innovation – its ability to build on its knowledge base to grow, increase revenue, and improve productivity? A professor at the Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis is doing just that: armed with a sizeable National Science Foundation grant (which is pretty rare for a business prof), Dr. Anne Marie Knott is researching how to measure a firm’s IQ to figure out what makes smart organizations tick. The implications are obviously significant…

Dr. Knott’s work is completely against the academic grain in that it challenges a 20-year-old concept called “absorptive capacity” – the idea that for an organization to assimilate new knowledge, it must have prior knowledge on which to expand. In other words, absorptive capacity assumes that organizations can only get smarter if they are smart in the first place. Obviously, this can’t be true. For example, organizations with little or no knowledge in a particular technology, product, process, or market can acquire another organization that does possess that knowledge.

So rejecting the concept of absorptive capacity, Dr. Knott believed that organizations could benefit greatly from knowing empirically if their investments in research and development were paying off. I’m labeling R&D broadly, as: making investments in anything from products, services, processes, markets, technology – in fact, one could call it making investments in innovation. Knowing this information would not only help organizational leaders determine how much to invest in R&D, but it would also suggest how much an organization should spend on acquiring knowledge from other organizations in the event that they needed to close a gap somewhere.

What emerged from this work is the notion of “organizational IQ” – a measurement that quantifies a firm’s effectiveness in generating revenue from R&D expenditures. Though she’s currently focusing on businesses, I believe Dr. Knott’s work could also apply to nonprofits, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, governmental agencies – to help them measure the return on investment for their outcomes or impact.

Before you close this article and move onto something else because you don’t think it applies to you, consider this: if you were able to accurately quantify your organization’s (or department’s or team’s) effectiveness at innovating – at improving products, services, processes, or virtually anything else in your enterprise – wouldn’t that help you set action plans and budgets that enable you to invest at the “right” levels to generate a desired return? And if you were able to actually measure your organization’s (or department’s or team’s) IQ, wouldn’t that help you monitor improvements over time – of whether or not your organization was getting smarter?

It would have helped Hewlett Packard. Knott used her IQ tool to explain the harmful impact that former CEO Mark Hurd’s decisions had on HP’s intelligence. According to Knott’s calculations (and as reported in the June 2011 Washington Magazine), for most of the 25 years leading up to Hurd’s tenure, HP had an IQ of about 159 – yes, that’s in the “genius” range for humans. Why? HP was brilliant at innovation, mainly thanks to highly effective research and development practices. One could also argue that they had a keen ability to allocate appropriate budget levels to sustain this R&D – that they had figured out the “right” levels of investment to keep their knowledge at a level required for continued innovation, growth, and sustained competitive advantage.

However, by the time that Hurd took over, the effectiveness of HP’s R&D had declined. Rather than focus on innovating, succeeding CEO Carly Fiorina had sold off the “smartest” parts of Hewlett Packard – those divisions that were successful at innovating – and bought companies that simply weren’t as smart. As a result, Knott calculates that HP’s organizational IQ dropped to 83 – that’s below average according to educational and psychiatric labels.

According to Knott: “The irony is that given Hewlett Packard’s current IQ, it is grossly over-investing in R&D – that is like buying books for someone who cannot read” she says.

Knott’s goal for organizational IQ is to ultimately provide a tool to help firms determine if they have the right stuff to turn research and development investments into profits (or, in the case of nonprofits, into growth of mission, impact, and so forth). Knott predicts that IQ information will provide useful data for organizations because “…once you know your IQ,” according to Knott, “you can actually start to improve it.” In essence, your organization can indeed get smarter.

And that leads to a positive cyclical pattern: smarter, more efficient firms will in turn generate more innovation. According to Knott: “Economic growth comes from innovation, and R&D is the biggest source of innovation. So if we can get each firm to increase their IQ a little bit, that will lead to a permanent increase in economic growth.”

Some things are incredibly difficult to measure – like organizational knowledge, effectiveness in innovation, and return on investment of the “soft stuff” like marketing and employee development. But as Dr. Knott is proving, even hard-to-measure soft stuff can be measured. And if it can be measured, it can be tracked, managed, and improved.

Interestingly, both Performance Improvement Network sessions in March focus on organizational measurement: March 1 (Minneapolis) will feature the National Marrow Donor Program’s use of Balanced Scorecard and March 14 (St. Paul) will feature Perry Parendo’s insights on decision making with data. Information on both sessions is below or at http://www.councilforquality.org/performance_current.cfm. And these discussions are – as always – free for members of the Council (and open to non-members for a small fee).

Yours in Improvement,

Brian S. Lassiter
President, Minnesota Council for Quality

Leading Change for Results that Stick: A One-Day Workshop on Change — April 12

Did you know that only 30% of change programs succeed according to John Kotter in his landmark book, “Leading Change”? If you’re charged with developing or deploying changes – Lean Six Sigma, ISO certification, Baldrige, best practice implementations, culture changes, or others – this workshop will provide significant help. Or if you are at the receiving end of change activities that fall short on specifics, measures, and defined results that are expected, this workshop will give you the tools to proactively push through with the right questions.

You’ve likely heard pitches like this before. But in this workshop, the two facilitators are practitioners – two professionals who will explain what works, what doesn’t from the perspectives of having the “burnt fingers and scars” to learn what’s puffery and what actually works in the real world. John Fechter and Gary Floss have been leading, directing, and evaluating change programs since the early 1980s – working in the processes and on the processes as national Baldrige Examiners, VPs at Fortune 500 companies, graduate course instructors, and business consultants.

What’s different about this workshop is the opportunity to actively use these tools. You’ll learn to ask the questions that separate wishes from real project charters, how to use the words of your team members and executives to define what is truly needed, and how to make the incremental changes that lead to the lofty goal becoming reality. You’ll learn and get to practice developing a start to finish plan that can be carried through to results.

The plan will include identifying key ingredients needed to START, naming the barriers that are in the way of success and need to STOP, and highlighting the activities that are working and that you need to KEEP.

Come join John and Gary on April 12th from 8:00 to 5:00 in St. Paul (location TBA) to learn a new model for change that is being offered exclusively through the Minnesota Council for Quality. Cost is $200 for members of the Council, $400 for non-members. To register, email brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org with your name, affiliation, and membership status.

2011 MN Quality Award Event: Celebrating 25 Years of Advancing Excellence — Hold June 5!

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to announce the date of the 2011 Minnesota Quality Award event: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 (with pre-conference workshops Monday, June 4). The full-day event will include the following:

• keynote presentations from CEOs of world class organizations and recipients of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award – businesses, schools, healthcare organizations, governmental agencies, and nonprofits;
• remarks from Governor Dayton (invited);
• break-out workshops, featuring 20+ organizations on the journey to excellence – current and former MN Quality Award recipients, each sharing some aspect of how they are improving their outcomes and processes; and
• an evening reception and celebration, featuring senior leaders from high performing organizations (Baldrige recipients); the evening will also feature the MN Quality Award recipient organizations’ accomplishments, will thank our Board of Evaluators and other key volunteers, and will promote networking with leaders and professionals interested in performance excellence.

It is also an opportunity to celebrate the Council’s Silver Anniversary and look forward to our next 25 years!

The event will be held at The Great Hall in downtown St. Paul, and we expect 400+ leaders and professionals to attend. The event is open to the public.

Save the date!

The Council will also be seeking sponsors for the event to help offset expenses. Sponsors will be recognized in all marketing and during the event itself. If your organization is interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please email brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org.

Self-Defeating Habits of Otherwise Brilliant People — Workshop 4/30 (Austin)

The average manager spends between 30 and 50% of their time grappling with the fallout of mistrust and lack of cohesiveness. In a recent Gallup poll, nearly 70 % of employees report they are disengaged from work. Fortunately, there are proven strategies to resist and reverse these discouraging trends.

The Minnesota Council for Quality, and our affiliate the Rochester Area Quality Council, are pleased to announce a special workshop April 30 in Austin MN: “Self Defeating Habits of Otherwise Brilliant People.” The session will be facilitated by Anna Maravelas of TheraRising (Thera is Greek, meaning “to heal”).

Through thousands of seemingly insignificant interactions, we unknowingly create environments that are either cohesive or adversarial. In this life-changing seminar, these behaviors, and their far-reaching consequences, become stunningly clear. You will learn how to short-circuit destructive disagreement, extinguish incivility and eliminate reactions that trigger anger and blame. Both executives and front-line employees testify that this seminar transformed the way they respond to disagreement and discontent – in their professional and personal lives. The strategies have been featured in dozens of publications including The New York Times, HR Magazine, Harvard Management Update, Oprah Magazine, and MSNBC.

At the end of the day you will be able to:

• Resist the temptation to bond teams by denigrating the efforts of others

• Prevent destructive forms of disagreement, instead of continuously being hindered by their toxic effects

• Eliminate behaviors that divide and discourage

• Turn resentment into a shared responsibility for the future

• Short-circuit the Ten Hidden Costs of Contempt

• Renew energy, collaboration and optimism

• Be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

• Shift the focus off people and personalities to the five root causes of workplace tension

Cost for the full day workshop is $200 members; $300 members of partner organizations; $400 non-members.

Space is limited. Please register by emailing brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org your name, organizational affiliation, and membership/partnership status.

These same workshops last year were sold out and had 100% attendee satisfaction! So don’t miss this valuable program!!

Developing & Managing a Balanced Scorecard at National Marrow Donor Program — PIN 3/1 (Minneapolis)

What could be a greater driver of strategy development than the desire to reach a goal of delivering more than 10,000 transplants per year by 2015? None, according to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and the Be the Match, both non-profits dedicated to creating an opportunity for all patients to received the bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant they need, when they need it.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Bette Braem, Director of Quality Systems and John Rudrud, Strategic Planning Specialist of the National Marrow Donor Program/Be the Match Registry to our March 1 PIN: “Vision into Action: Developing and Managing a Balanced Scorecard at National Marrow Donor Program.”

All organizations that make strategy development a priority can learn from NMDP’s journey. With a goal of better integrating strategic metrics with an existing strategic business plan, senior leaders chose the Balanced Scorecard as their approach because it includes building a strategy map, develops objectives and measures, and uses the concept of cascading strategic objectives from corporate to department to individual levels.

Apply the lessons learned by the NMDP as they transformed their annual planning process from a project-focused business plan to an award-winning, integrated strategic management system that aligns employees’ work to strategies for fulfillment of the organization’s mission and vision. Their process has been recognized by the Balanced Scorecard Institute.

The discussion is from 7:30-9:00 a.m. on Mar 1 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:00 a.m.) at MCTC, 1501 Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis (near the Basilica).

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Space is limited so register today by emailing brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org.

Decision Making with Data: It Isn’t What You Think — PIN 3/14 (St. Paul)

Good decision making is essential to organizational improvement and sustained business success. However, in many organizations, decisions are made based only on opinions rather than objective data. As a result, decisions made throughout the organization may vary – people will come to different conclusions based on their own perspectives and experiences. As you can imagine, the resulting variability can dramatically impact organizational outcomes.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Perry Parendo, President of Perry’s Solutions, LLC, to our March 14 PIN: “Decision Making with Data: It Isn’t What You Think.”

Perry will discuss how to think about your organization’s (or project’s or department’s) data and how it relates to your decisions. He will explore how data should fit into a decision making process, balancing the need for intuition and experience. He will outline the benefits and pitfalls of data-driven decision making, and will explore how you can create you own decision making process that creates consistent, timely, more effective decisions.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on Mar 14 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at Metro State University, 700 E 7th Street, downtown St. Paul.

We thank our sponsor, Metropolitan State University, for their support of this session, helping us to keep it complimentary for members.

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Space is limited so register today by emailing brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org.

Transforming Care at the Bedside — RAQC 3/6 (Rochester)

Launched in 2003, Transforming Care At the Bedside (TCAB) is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the objective of improving clinical outcomes and quality of care on hospital medical/surgical units. Olmsted Medical Center’s Medical/Surgical unit became part of the regional effort in August 2010, and their lessons can translate to other types of organizations in the community.

The Rochester Area Quality Council, an affiliate of the Minnesota Council for Quality, is pleased to welcome Sheri Peters, RN, TCAB Nurse at Olmsted Medical Center, to our March 6 program, “Transforming Care at the Bedside.”

TCAB engages leaders at all levels of the organization, including the front-line staff to:

* improve the quality and safety of patient care

* increase the vitality and retention of nurses

* engage and improve the patient’s and family members’ experience of care

* improve the effectiveness of the entire care team.

Sheri will share how TCAB has improved the quality of care and clinical outcomes at OMC’s medical/surgical units, how TCAB has improved the effectiveness of the entire care team at OMC, and how these principles translate to other organizations.

The session is March 6 from 7:30-9:00 AM RCTC.

Space is limited. Please register by contacting Jennifer Burmeister before Mar 2 at jennifer.burmeister@councilforquality.org or 507-213-8132.

Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network 3/21 (Duluth)

The next Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network (TPPEN) discussion is scheduled for Wednesday, March 21 in Duluth. Topic/speaker will be announced soon at http://www.councilforquality.org/TPPEN.cfm.

Quest for Excellence Conference — April 16-18 (Washington DC)

Attend the 24th Annual Quest for Excellence Conference April 16-18 in Washington DC. The event features the 2011 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient organizations, along with 22 other high performing organizations (all former Award recipients), each sharing their best practices on how they improved performance and results in leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce focus; and operations.

For more information, visit http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/qe/index.cfm. Don’t miss this valuable opportunity to learn and network with other organizations on the journey to excellence!

The Art of Project Management — PMI 3/13

The Minnesota Chapter of Project Management Institute (PMI), an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce its next breakfast session: “The Art of Project Management.” The session will be held March 13, and will be facilitated by Pam Carlson, Discipline Expert for Trissential.

There is much talk about the Art and Science of Project Management, especially around the “Science.” This discussion focuses on the three essential qualities of the “Art” of project management and how to successfully leverage them for your projects

The session is Mar 13 from 7:00-8:50 AM at Crowne Plaza Mpls West (formerly Radisson Plymouth), 3131 Campus Drive, Plymouth, MN 55441. Cost is $34 ($32.30 for Council members) before Feb 28 (MCQ members should call 651.209.8991 for discount). For more information, visit http://www.pmi-mn.org/.

The Power of Purpose-Centered Strategic Planning — Association for Strategic Planning 3/27

The Association for Strategic Planning-Minnesota Chapter, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next meeting: “The Power of Purpose-Centered Strategic Planning.” The session is facilitated by Todd Voit, general manager of Immedia, and Diane Nettifee, president of Magis Ventures (both also Council members!).

In 2010, Immedia embarked on a journey to discover their purpose. They felt they had a purpose that went deeper than creating profit. The result was a purpose that is now owned at all levels of the company and is used in driving everything from strategy to tactics and cultural norms. Diane and Todd will present some practical applications of how Purpose inspires strategy to create a winning formula.

Registration, networking, and breakfast is at 7:00 AM; the program is from 7:45-9:00 AM. The meeting location is the University of St. Thomas, 1000 LaSalle Ave in Minneapolis, Opus Hall 202. Advance cost is $35 to the public or $25 for members of Council. For more information or to register, contact Laurieberickson@msn.com or visit http://www.strategyplus.org/chapters/Minnesota.php.

Creating Advantage in Today’s Challenging World — MN ASQ Professional Summit 4/2

Join our partner, ASQ, for their first annual Professional Summit April 2-3 at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center. The Summit them is “Creating Advantage in Today’s Challenging World.”

Businesses today are facing chal­lenges unlike any they have ever experienced. Changing economic conditions are coinciding with a rapidly evolving business and technology environment, creating both daunting challenges and exciting new opportunities. These forces of change have given us all a new understanding of – and appreciation for – a fundamental shift taking place in the way people live, work and interact. It’s a different world view, one that demands new and better ways of doing business

The Summit is Monday, April 2, with a second day of post-Summit workshops on April 3. Costs range from $275 to $620, depending on member status, early bird discounts, and attending one or both days. For more information or to register, visit http://www.mnasq.org/summit/ .

The Heroic Journey: The Road to Transformational Leadership — MNODN 3/9

The MNODN, an affiliate partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next program: “The Heroic Journey: The Road to Transformational Leadership.” The session will be March 9, 8AM-10AM at University of St. Thomas (networking, breakfast 7:30-8:00), and will be facilitated by Peter Bailey, SVP at the Prouty Project.

The Heroic Journey model is a transformational tool, drawing from the early work of Joseph Campbell and from cultures around the world. The model offers us a valuable perspective on the cycle of life and learning. It can serve as a key to the map of our lives, helping us better interpret the landscape, symbols and contour lines of the paths we are on. Many of us are facilitators of experience. We help people make sense of their choices, how they respond to the things that happen to them in real life. The Heroic Journey is a useful tool for us to provide a starting place for deeper conversations. It is also an open challenge to us as practitioners to better understand the journeys we are on and the choices we have made, that we might serve as better allies for others we meet along the way.

The session is $25 ($20 for Council members, as allied partners). More information at http://www.mnodn.org/.

Out of Another @#%^! Crisis — ASQ Hiawatha 4/12

Mike Micklewright will impersonate Dr. W. Edwards Deming and alternate between the low pitch monotone Deming and the much more dynamic Micklewright in a very entertaining and thought provoking presentation. Learn about Dr. Deming, his principles (14 Points), how he would have viewed today’s business and quality world, and his viewpoint on current trends in Lean, Six Sigma, and ISO 9001.

The session is April 12 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM at Cabella’s in Owatonna. Cost is $245 (Council members get 10% discount).

To register, visit http://southcentral.augusoft.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=1010. For more information, email laura.hardy@southcentral.edu.

Practical Problem Solving: Removing Obstacles in the Way of Production Perfection — Enterprise MN 3/21

Enterprise Minnesota, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce their next upcoming event: “Practical Problem Solving – Removing Obstacles in the Way of Production Perfection” on March 21 in Anoka.

For more information on these programs, visit http://www.enterpriseminnesota.org/.

U of M College of Continuing Education Announces Upcoming Courses; Council Members Get 10% Discount

The University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce their upcoming improvement and business courses. Council members receive a 10% discount on all CCE courses.

2/29-3/1 Strategic Planning and Measurement
3/28-29 Developing Leadership Skills
4/12 Developing Direct Reports and Employees
5/3 Using Influence to Drive Results
5/24 Virtual Management
6/28 Customer-Focused Marketing

All courses are 9AM-4PM on the St. Paul Campus.

For more information on any of these courses or a complete listing of coursework, visit the University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education’s website at www.cce.umn.edu/professionaleducation or call 612-624-4000.

Hamline University Announces Upcoming Management Courses; Council Members Receive 15% Discount

Hamline University, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce the following upcoming programs:

Feb 27-28, Mar 5-6, Mar 12-13, Mar 19-20, Mar 26: PMP® EXAM PREPARATION ESSENTIALS, 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.; $1295 (15% off for MN Council Members)

Mar 2: Improving Board Involvement and Fund Raising, 1:00-5:00 p.m.; $99 (15% off for MN Council Members)

Mar 19-23, Apr 16-20: LEAN SIX SIGMA BLACK BELT TRAINING, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; $3,000 ($2,200 for MN Council of Quality members)

Mar 27-28: PMI® AGILE® PROJECT MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION PREPARATION ESSENTIALS, 5:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.; $1,295 (15% off for MN Council Members)

For more information on any of these courses or to register, contact Bridget at bknisely01@hamline.edu or 651-523-2650.

South Central College Announces Upcoming Courses; Council Members Get 10% Discount

South Central College is pleased to announce their upcoming quality and performance improvement curriculum. Council members are entitled to a 10% discount.

The following courses are scheduled soon (prices before member discount):

Mar 14: Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (FMEA), 8:00am-4:30pm, N Mankato, $235

Apr 10-May 22: Quality Engineer Certification (CQE) Review: Self-Study & Online, 6:00-9:00pm, Online, $199

Apr 18: Project Management, 8:00am-4:30pm, Rochester, $235

June 6: Workplace Lean PILLARS (Introduction to Office Lean), 8:00am-4:30pm, Faribault, $249

For more information, please contact Laura Hardy at 507-332-5802 or at laura.hardy@southcentral.edu or Tom Kammer at 507- 389-7336 or tom.kammer@southcentral.edu.