If commitment to quality is not a priority, any initiative is doomed to failure. The CEO of Motorola, a past Baldridge award winner, has quality as the first agenda item at every top management meeting. Frequently he left after quality was discussed. Basically sending a message that once quality was taken care of, everything else would fall into place. The third attribute is continuous improvement.
Continuous improvement is part of the management of all systems and processes.
Continuous improvement was mentioned in detail, earlier in the paper. The fourth and final attribute is Empowerment and teamwork. Dean and Evans believe that teamwork can be viewed in three ways. The first way is vertical. Vertical teamwork is between top management and lower-level employees.