The setting is the Quest for Excellence Conference XXI held at the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC. There is a stage at the end of the ballroom with a podium, plants, and a big projection screen. An audience of about 550 conference attendees is seated about the ballroom. Jeff Lucas: As you all know, the Baldrige program in general, and Quest specifically, is all about learning. And since I have been associated with the program, I canāt think of anyone who has done a better job of utilizing this network for personal and organizational learning than our next speaker, Terry May. Terry founded MESA in 1979, and has managed its growth from a one-man service company to a manufacturing and construction company with over 100 employees that manufacturers and installs cathodic protection systems, a form of corrosion control. They have headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and regional offices in Houston, Ft. Worth, Tallahassee and Huntington Beach. Terry graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso, with a Bachelors of Science and Mechanical Engineering. And as many, or most of you know, he leads MESA Products, Inc. a 2006 Baldrige Award recipient. Please join me in welcoming Terry. Terry May: Good morning! God, these lights are bright! Itās been two years since I stood here before you as a 2006 recipient of the Baldrige Award. And I was invited here to talk to you today, give you some advice on taking advantage of what youāve learned this week in moving forward in your own organization. The thing is we all have choices and decisions to make. And the best advice I can give you is to make the positive choice of either beginning or starting, or continuing your Baldrige journey. As I told you two years ago, if our small business can improve its performance using the Baldrige process, then I know yours can as well. Actually, what I said was, ćIf we can win the award, anyone can.ä Weāre a small manufacturing and service business with headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and weāre in the cathodic protection business. I know what youāre thinking. Itās not a religious experience. You know, that joke is so old in our business, and my wife says I tend to run things in the ground, but as long as you keep laughing, Iāll keep saying it. Cathodic protectionās an electro-chemical process used to prevent metal structures from corroding, and in our case, underground pipelines, underground tanks. Itās a 60-year-old technology, which is mandatory for most underground hydrocarbon pipelines and tanks. Weāve been in business for 30 years and we provide technical services, manufacturing and installation in our business. And as Jeff said, weāve grown to over 100 people. And when I talk about our people, Iām talking about a passionate group of engaged people who care about what they do. Iām continually amazed at what people can accomplish when theyāre given a challenge in an environment in which they can make mistakes, they can learn, they can grow, they can make decisions. I believe that people want to do a good job, and that they want their jobs to mean something. I canāt imagine waking up in the morning, dreading going to work, and we all have bad days, but if you wake up that way every day, you need to go someplace else. I donāt think anybody wants to work in a negative environment. And we work hard at maintaining a positive one at MESA. We try to identify negative attitudes before they join our team. Weāll even help them leave if they sneak through. We have a rule at MESA: No beamers are allowed, bitchers, moaners and whiners. We started our improvement journey in the early 1990s, long before we were aware of Baldrige. And after several unsuccessful stops and starts with TQM, we had our first real success with strategic planning. And from there we experimented with customer satisfaction. ISO-9000 certification, LEAN, along with many others. One thing you could say about us is that we were systematically unsystematic. Our desire to improve was very well intentioned, but unplanned. We began our Baldrige journey with absolutely no experience. But after five national applications, three state applications, and seven site visits in a five year period, we became Baldrige veterans. And as I explained to some of the examiners in the later site visits, we had a lot more site visit experience than most of them. I wonāt tell you that those experiences were pleasant, and I can assure you that our reactions to those site visits was not very mature. Our fist Baldrige application in 2002 was just another experiment with little thought or planning, and as you might imagine, the feedback report was quite a wakeup call. With no real experience or understanding it was painful. I was mad, I was confused. And although it was obvious that I didnāt understand the criteria questions, I did understand the feedback. And as they say, denial is not a river in Egypt. Although this process isnāt personal, I took it as a personal reflection of mine and our performance. Small organizations tend to take on the personality of their leadership. And the word ćimmaturityä comes to mind. The part of the MESA DNA can also be described as stubborn, or hardheaded. Personally, I like the words determination and persistence-- they just sound better. As we emotionally matured over these years, we also matured as a learning organization. We discarded most of the OFIs from that first feedback report, but we took the major ones and incorporated them into our strategic plan. That first year was the toughest, but from where we were, it was also the easiest to show measurable improvement. That first year, we had over 150 OFIs to choose from. We prioritized and attacked the ones we thought we could address. And every year we measured results, improved, reprioritized, and slowly reduced the OFI list. Two years after receiving the award, weāre still working on that last OFI list. I view it as the gift that keeps on giving. Weāre very proud of our growth, particularly considering we operate in a mature market, with most of our growth coming at the expense of our competitors. When you look at this growth curve, I think itās obvious that continuous improvement has played a major role in our ability to- to survive and thrive. And I think itās apparent that the decisions we made over ten years ago, culminating in the Baldrige award have improved our performance, and changed our company. Since we received the award in 2007, weāve grown from 65 people to over 100 with over a 45 percent increase in revenue. And while experiencing this growth, weāve maintained and improved our performance in almost all of our metrics. Weāre focused, weāre systematic, weāre disciplined and weāre getting better. For the past seven years, Baldrige is the way weāve managed our growth, and unless I can find something easier or better, itās gonna be the way we manage our future. And we have high expectations for our future. There are so many lessons, and if we were quicker learners, it would have been easier. But the reality is every company will do this their own way. Thereās no magic formula. Organizations arenāt alike, and consequently the solutions probably arenāt alike. Iām often asked, what would you do differently? And the biggest lesson is to keep your expectations realistic. Our were not. This is a never ending journey, and if youāre focused on winning the award, which ours was, then youāre setting yourself up for failure. Iād bring in outside training much earlier in the process. Learning from others who have been there before can really help. And there are lots of capable resources out there. I strongly recommend using the state process first. We jumped right into the fire with the National Baldrige application before I was even aware there was a state process. The state organizations and their processes are invaluable in learning and training. On a personal basis, I would have become directly involved in the process earlier. I didnāt become an examiner until the final year that we received the award. And doing it earlier would have increased my level of understanding significantly. Although itās difficult at times, you need to maintain that positive outlook. Address the OFIs, and never lose sight of the fact that youāre improving. Commitment, patience. In 2006, we stopped calling it Baldrige. We needed to understand that it should be the way we manage our business. So we called what we were doing the MESA Way. And I know that made a difference in our organization. SO what are you waiting for? Or more appropriately, what are you going to do next? Baldrige is a journey, that if you persevere, youāll achieve higher levels of performance; your organization will be better positioned for sustainability; and youāll build value. In todayās world and economic environment, I can assure you that sustainability is important. Many of you have participated in this process for some period of time. Some of you are new. For those of you new to the process, hereās the first thing. Get inspired. My first exposure to continuous improvement was a TQM conference in Tulsa in the early 1990s. I sat at lunch between CEOs of two major Tulsa businesses and I was just stunned to hear them-- these CEOs-- talk about quality in their business. And the knowledge and understanding and importance they placed on quality. That made a huge impression on me. My first Baldrige event was a regional conference in Cincinnati in 2003. I listened to David Branch of Branch Smith. Tom Crosby of Palās Sudden Service. And Dale Crown over at Texas Name Play [ph?]. How could you not be inspired after hearing those stories? And more importantly, how can you not see that Baldrige is a proven formula for success? So take some of that inspiration back to your organization and get personally involved. Read, learn. The criteria isnāt easy to understand. And developing an understanding requires training. I still struggle with the words, ćI donāt talk like that.ä You might need to find a Baldrige interpreter to help you. One of the ways we accomplished that was to have our employees participate in the state process as examiners. Itās great management training, and my employees have gone from being forced to be examiners to actually volunteering. No, wait, thatās a fantasy. Theyāre still making me volunteer them. I do live in a fantasy world, by the way. For you veterans, go back, get your senior leadership involved. Major change requires senior leader buy-in and commitment. Apply the Baldrige tools. The self-assessment. Write an organizational profile. Write an application. You really gotta start somewhere. Take advantage of all the available resources. State programs, previous recipients, examiners, ASQ, consultants, trainers. All of these can really help you in your journey. Leverage the relationships you made at this conference. One of the things Iāve observed is that this group consists of open, caring people. Maybe itās because of the common goals and passion. But there arenāt any secrets. Weāre all a lot more alike than we are different. And one message I believe applies to everyone here is about leadership. In order to be successful in a Baldrige journey, you need leaders. Identify your change leaders. Get them onboard early. These arenāt always going to be your senior leaders, and in fact, some of them may tend to be younger and na•ve. But they will have passion. And thatās what you need in order to drive change. You all have the opportunity to be a change leader in your organization. Organizations have to learn in order to change, and organizational change doesnāt happen without personal change. Over the past two years, people have asked me, ćWhat does it take to be a Baldrige recipient?ä And my best answer is a culture of learning and change. Once you stop growing, you start dying. Iām going to repeat that. Once you stop growing, you start dying. Change is not comfortable. Change is hard, and sometimes very painful. But as my friend Max says, ćIf it doesnāt hurt, youāre not learning.ä So why is all this relevant? Out of all the questions Iāve been asked in the past two years, by far the most common is, ćWhy did you decide to use the Baldrige process?ä As the owner of a small business whose retirement plan is entirely invested in his company, a better question is, ćWhy wouldnāt you choose the Baldrige process?ä Because believe me, if there was an easier or better path, I would be all over it. Iāve seen the results of what Baldrige has done for us. Iāve seen it improve our performance, significantly and consistently. Iāve seen the value of my company grow. And I know it wouldnāt have happened without Baldrige. But bigger than that is the evolution in the Baldrige process over the years in maintaining relevance in todayās environment. The Baldrige Award was created in 1988 as a response to a crisis in US manufacturing. The key theme was international competitiveness. Now a two-year revision cycle has evolved for the criteria as new things emerge for responding to external environmental changes. The criteria have moved from its focus on manufacturing to an overall organizational excellence focus with applications for small business service, education, healthcare, non-profits. When we first started our Baldrige journey, it was at the end of the .com bubble. And there had been a lot of restructuring and reorganization within our industry. Does anybody remember the word ćEnron?ä Corporate ethics became a key emphasis in Category 1. And I might add that itās just too bad that we havenāt had more participation in the Baldrige process by the leaders of our financial institutions. Shortly thereafter we started talking about contingency planning, succession planning, emergency planning. You know, one of the neatest stories out there is the _______________ McDermott [ph?] story. Their site visit in 2007 was held about one month after Hurricane Katrina. What a great story they had to tell to the examiners in their planning and execution of their planning. And now weāre in an entirely new economic environment. One in which most of us have never seen before. I recently read a book titled ćBlack Swans.ä The thesis of the book is that major disruptive events, both negative and positive, occur with little warning and essentially without the ability to predict. Now we all understand itās easy to go back after a major event and come up with all the reasons why we should have predicted it. But the reality is that most of them occur with either no significant warning, or at least public acceptance of a warning. Some pretty obvious examples include 9/11, spike in energy prices last year, and the subsequent financial meltdown. The latest criteria revisions focus on sustainability in societal responsibility. Very appropriate for todayās environment. Iād like to share with you three very simple secrets to receiving the Baldrige Award. And if you follow this advice, then I guarantee that your organization will win the Baldrige award. I guarantee. Stop talking and get started. You have to start somewhere. Pick out those things that are most important. I donāt know how to tell you to do that. Itāll probably be different for all of you. You know, the leadership piece, and the strategic planning piece within your organizations is probably pretty well established, or you wouldnāt be sitting here. So just start working on whatever it is. It might be customer service. It might be relationships. It might be HR based. Maybe IT infrastructure. Make improvements, start developing a performance history. And then somewhere down the road, you actually have to write an application. This will probably be after a few years of performance history. Someone in your organization needs to take the lead, whether itās a senior lead or a quality professional. It needs to be someone whoās a believer, and who is committed. Second, steal, shamelessly. I think they call it benchmarking, or sharing best practices. Call it whatever you want. When we first started our journey, we thought we were pretty good, but we had never really tried to compare ourselves to anyone except through anecdotal feedback. And when we started looking for actual comparisons, we realized it wasnāt as easy as it seems. We operate in an industry where most of our competitors are privately held, making it very difficult to get comparative information. But through the advice of examiners in both feedback reports and in site visits, we started looking outside our industry and it was amazing to me how much data is really out there. There are so many examples of previous Baldrige recipients and participants who do things right. You donāt have to invent everything yourself. Weāve stolen and adapted many of our processes from other organizations who were smarter than we were. And finally, stick with it. This is not a quick fix. Donāt do Baldrige if your organization is in crisis and you need to see dramatic results in six months. Do this if you can sustain an improvement effort for a prolonged period of time. It isnāt easy, but then nothing worth having really is easy. I guarantee an award. So weāre back to the question, ćWhatās next for you?ä Iām going back to my organization feeling newly inspired, having heard some great stories. Iām going back to my organization with a better understanding of the challenges we face. Iām going back to my organization with some new ideas weāre going to try. Iām going back to my organization to make a difference, and I hope you are, too. Thank you very much! Signature Communications 6/2/09 Page 1 of 6 RF# SIGCOM-02 www.ProductionTranscripts.com ö 888-349-3022