Igniting the Future: 35 Insights to Excellence — Feb 2024

Indulge me for a second: after nearly 10 years with the “PENworks” label, our annual conference is now igniteEX. Why the change? “Ignite” captures the essence of the conference -- it’s about inspiring change; sparking ideas and innovation; improving processes, people, and outcomes! After hosting years of successful conferences, we've seen first-hand the energy and [...]

2024-02-29T08:45:48-06:00February 29, 2024|

Insights to Excellence: Exploring 6 Great Practices in 18 Minutes — Nov 16 PEN Webinar

Leaders are dealing with so many challenges these days: continued staffing pressures; continued economic constraints; changing technology (including AI); changing customer preferences, and many more.  Juggling all of these challenges is difficult, at best.  And some organizations are good at managing some of the challenges; others are good at managing others. The Performance Excellence Network [...]

2023-11-13T10:31:07-06:00November 4, 2023|

Excellence is About People, Part 1: Engaging & Empowering your Team — PEN Mar 2019

Nothing great is ever achieved without people.  Think about it: organizations can only achieve with highly effective people running them; communities and nations can only achieve without highly engaged citizens and highly effective leaders setting a course for the future; projects, initiatives, task forces, scientific breakthroughs, inventions, and even sporting achievements are all the result [...]

2019-03-20T21:55:45-05:00March 20, 2019|

The Path to Excellence: The Real Value of Baldrige — PEN Feb 2019

In the wake of the last “Great Recession” in the 1980s (though we didn’t call it that back then), America was in economic trouble.  The country suffered a two-phase recession in 1980-82 – one that left unemployment high and interest rates even higher (recall credit cards and mortgages well beyond 20%!).  The economic challenges were [...]

2019-02-28T14:13:34-06:00February 28, 2019|

Excellence is a Choice: 44 Insights on Positivity, Optimism & Improvement – PEN June 2018

Quick show of hands: who is stressed?  Maybe not right this second, but sometime the last few days or weeks?  Any stress out there?  I’m not sure anyone is actually raising their hand at their desks, but metaphorically, for those of you who didn’t, you’re probably lying because the data show we’re all pretty stressed [...]

2018-06-24T19:12:34-05:00June 24, 2018|

Nobody Raves About Average: 52 Insights on the Road to Excellence

Last week, the Performance Excellence Network hosted our annual PENworks 2017 conference.  The event featured 31 local, regional, and national speakers, each sharing best practices and insights to improve organizational performance in areas such as leadership effectiveness, customer focus, workforce engagement, and operational efficiency.   Some speakers were from large, complex organizations (3M, Ecolab, Mayo [...]

2017-05-04T01:09:39-05:00May 4, 2017|

Performance Excellence Network Recognizes Four Organizations

Performance Excellence Network Recognizes Four Organizations 2016 Performance Excellence Awards Presented at PENworks 2017 Conference; Lt. Governor Celebrates Excellence in Minnesota   ST. PAUL, Minn., April 27, 2017 – The Performance Excellence Network (PEN), formerly the Minnesota Council for Quality, today honors four recipients of the 2016 Performance Excellence Award (formerly the MN Quality Award).  [...]

2017-04-28T15:51:23-05:00April 28, 2017|

The Path to Performance Excellence: The Real Value of Baldrige

In the wake of the last “Great Recession” in the 1980s (though we didn’t call it that back then), America was in economic trouble.  The country suffered a two-phase recession in 1980-82 – one that left unemployment high and interest rates even higher (recall credit cards and mortgages well beyond 20%!).  The economic challenges were [...]

2017-03-19T21:08:08-05:00March 19, 2017|
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