Excellence

“EXCELLENCE IS A cultural journey.” That 

was an insight made at the end of the first gathering of 

the Baldrige executive fellows, a group of senior leaders 

embarking in 2011 on a new program to look at leadership 

through the lens of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance 

Excellence.

1

As part of the program, fellows created capstone projects to address something of strategic significance they 

faced within their own unique organizations. What these 

senior leaders achieved through their capstones not only 

led to measurable improvements but also transformed 

cultures.

Baldrige capstone projects help 

leaders drive organizational change

by Dawn Marie Bailey

In 50 Words 

Or Less 

• Baldrige executive 

fellows embarked on capstone projects to address 

challenges within their 

organizations.

• Participants integrated 

feedback from other 

executive fellows and 

Baldrige award recipients, 

and applied the Baldrige 

criteria to find a solution.

• Executives brought the 

knowledge they gained 

back to their organizations, contributing to a 

culture of excellence.

Journey to
August 2014 • QP 43

LEADERSHIP

Capstone project

In masonry, a capstone is a finishing stone. In the military, a capstone 

leadership program is reserved for newly promoted brigadier generals 

and admirals to learn about the integration of military strategies and 

national strategic objectives. For senior leaders selected to participate 

in the Baldrige executive fellows program, a capstone project integrates leadership lessons learned from other senior leaders and the 

seven categories of the Baldrige criteria to impact and resolve a challenge in their own organizations. 

Figure 1 (p. 45) shows an example of the lessons learned and 

captured after a fellows session related to leadership and strategic 

planning, specifically to setting organizational directions and values, 

encouraging innovation, and helping employees understand their roles 

in the organization.
44 QP • www.qualityprogress.com

Each fellow has a sponsor, who is often the highestranking executive in his or her organization. In collaboration with the sponsor, the fellow develops an approach to 

an organizational challenge that taps learning and leadership skills gained from the fellows program. To complete a 

capstone, fellows:

• Identify specific problems or issues.

• Define clear goals and specific objectives.

• Develop detailed proposals and timelines for completion, with the goal of completing the projects (or having 

reached significant milestones) during the year-long fellows program.

• Conduct primary and secondary research, as needed.

• Perform quantitative and qualitative analyses.

• Develop and test solutions.

• Formulate options and recommendations.

• Produce written reports for their organizations.

• Deliver brief written presentations at the final fellows 

program session that focuses on their organizations’ intended audience, such as the board of directors or employees.

• Deliver more detailed presentations within their own 

organizations, as appropriate. 

Bringing knowledge home

Some of the fellows looked at their capstone projects as a 

way to first float an idea past executives from other organizations—even other sectors—and obtain feedback from 

senior leaders from Malcolm Baldrige National Quality 

Award-earning organizations. A Baldrige executive-in-residence—a retired Baldrige award-earning executive—traveled with the fellows and acted as a peer and voluntary staff 

member of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. 

It was important that this be a discreet, safe space where 

the fellows could share, compare and learn about personal 

organizational challenges and understand lessons learned 

by Baldrige award-earning executives during face-to-face 

sessions at the Baldrige Quest for Excellence Conference 

and at the sites of Baldrige award-earning organizations, 

such as Cargill and the Ritz-Carlton. 

Due to the fellows’ code of conduct, careful avoidance 

of conflicts of interest, respect for and protection of proprietary information, and mutual respect earned through the 

course of the program, the fellows developed a peer network that elicited ideas and inspiration from unique places.

“A recent experience reminded me of the value of seeking ideas and inspiration from elsewhere,” said Peter Pronovost, M.D., senior vice president for patient safety and 

quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “I was among 15 executives from various fields who toured Cargill through a fellowship run by the [Baldrige program]. On a visit to Cargill 

Corn Milling, among the largest of the gigantic company’s 

75 business units, I heard a story with unexpected parallels 

to healthcare.”

During visits to the Baldrige award-earning business 

units—Cargill Corn Milling and Cargill Kitchen Solutions—

the fellows toured the factory floor and spoke to employees 

as food was prepared. Pronovost said he learned “some of 

the best ideas for improving healthcare come from outside 

our field,” and he brought back his learning from the manufacturer regarding cultures of customer focus, continuous 

improvement and accountability.

“Mostly what I learned on my visit to Cargill is that excellence is a choice. It is not easy, and it requires a system 

like the Baldrige [criteria] framework; yet it absolutely is 

possible,” Pronovost said.

In sessions titled, “Visionary Leadership That Works,” 

“Operational Intelligence,” and “Leading for Engagement,” 

fellows built on learning and discussion gleaned from the 

Baldrige criteria-driven cultures of role-model organizations. 

Dave Brucks, executive director of Seagate Technology’s functional excellence program, said his organization 

benefited from learning about high-performing organizations and how their processes could apply at Seagate. 

“We’ve used some of the best practices already, for example, in how we manage customer complaints,” he said. “I was 

able to pen characteristics of good customer complaint processes from [Baldrige award-earning] hospitals, restaurants 

and other manufacturers. ... Baldrige core values, concepts 

and the [Baldrige] Criteria for Performance Excellence2

framework are integrated into their business models and 

demonstrated on a daily basis by their people.”

Based on Brucks’ capstone project, Seagate is establishing a functional excellence program to move it beyond its 

ISO 9001 and ISO 14001-certified compliance model to a 

performance excellence model that raises expectations in 

all areas of the global business.

Jo Ann Jenkins, chief executive officer of AARP Inc., 

said, “As a fellow, I was able to establish invaluable connections and garner insights into how other leading organizations—both private and public—are developing and 

implementing innovative, effective strategies in support of 

operational excellence and leadership development. 

“A significant insight that is often undervalued is that the 

leadership and senior management must model its organization’s mission consistently, with passion and enthusiasm. 

They must truly ‘walk the talk’—particularly during times of 

change,” she said.
At AARP, a large benefits firm for people 50 or over, learning from the fellows program led it to rethink its programs 

and services. 

“The Baldrige criteria were instrumental in driving our organization to seek and listen to the voices of those we serve. 

... With the Baldrige criteria as our guide, we have implemented a customer feedback loop for all of our programs 

and for the volunteers that serve in our programs. It is providing us with actionable feedback that allows us to excel at 

living up to our mission,” she said. “Applying the principles 

of the Baldrige criteria can help an organization perform and 

become more efficient, thus engaging more donors to help 

achieve the organization’s mission.”

When John Varley, vice president of quality and mission success of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC), participated in the fellows program, he had 

an idea for a capstone project that “was pretty startling to 

colleagues,” said Steven Sessions, supplier quality director 

and deputy of quality and mission success at MFC. Varley’s 

project focused on how to improve the entire Department of 

Defense (DoD) supply chain. 

Sessions said MFC already was working on strategies to 

address supply chain issues, a common challenge for manufacturers with a multi-tier supply chain. When the economy 

began to squeeze the smaller, lower-level contractors, the 

tendency was not to lay off the person who created the parts 

but the person who was in charge of checking the quality of 

the parts, he said.

 MFC has contractual relationships with the first line of 

its supply chain, but the manufacturer needed to know how 

to assess the risk with lower-level tiers that farm out parts 

of its work.

“[Varley]’s premise was that we either all improve together or all decline together because we are so integrated,” 

Sessions said. “It was an interesting insight. We tried to figure out how to use the Malcolm Baldrige [criteria] model to 

open up doors to companies that five years ago you would 

never have thought would open their doors to share processes, tools and techniques on how to improve the DoD 

supply chain.”

Based on the Baldrige criteria, a strategy called senior 

leadership engagement and benchmarking was developed 

by MFC. 

“[Baldrige] has made the whole effort take off to the point 

now where we’re having to leverage seasoned people with 

more people in the organization in order to keep up with requests,” Sessions said. “The interesting part is that we started 

out thinking that we are going to be ... helping [other DoD 

contractors] improve, and we’ve been able to do that. 

“But out of it, we gained a lot of insight into areas in 

which we can improve our journey, as well. What started 

out as ‘boiling the ocean’ materialized into a real partnership and relationship with some significant companies that 

are coming up with ideas on how to improve the supply 

chain that any of us by ourselves probably would not have 

been able to achieve.”

As a tool, capstone projects helped Baldrige executive 

fellows advance their organizations to the next step—from 

improving healthcare processes, to moving from a compliance model to a performance excellence model, to creating 

a customer feedback loop, to creating a strategy that would 

improve the entire DoD supply chain. Through the Baldrige 

executive fellowship, these projects have integrated learning about leadership, the criteria management framework, 

and the support and advice of a peer network to truly make 

excellence a cultural journey. QP

REFERENCES

1. Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/

criteria.cfm. 

2. Ibid.

NOTE

For more on the Baldrige executive fellowship, visit http://nist.gov/baldrige/fellows/

index.cfm. The application deadline for the next cohort is late December 2014.

August 2014 • QP 45

LEADERSHIP

Can be

scaled

Focus

Idea alignment

framework Ethics

lived,

breathed, 

top of

mind

Visibility

of

management

Consistency

with

measurements

30% of

time spent

on people

Culture

and focus on

communication

Use of

daily

metrics

Process

plus

innovation

Steward

leadership

Every

employee

understands his 

or her

relationship with

customers

Organizational 

structure, 

resources

to change

Strategy 

communication, 

deployment

simplicity

“How I fit 

and why

it matters.”

Organizational

profile at

orientation

Example of lessons learned 

and captured after a fellows session / FIGURE 1

DAWN MARIE BAILEY is a writer and editor at 

the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program in 

Gaithersburg, MD.