The council is not a state-centric organization. Government makes up about half of our applicants. But I'd put up our department of revenue and the city of Coral Springs against any Baldrige winner. When I started to do this, you didn't have a lot of interest at the top levels of government. They didn't want to bother.
Government controls people through budgets.
But the people in the districts, cities, and counties were quite enthusiastic. In the late '80s and early '90s, there was a lot of negativity about government. But it turns out that the when you took away the senior leaders, the workers were who really mattered. It's not the leaders. It's the people working with the customers.