Unlike most other competitions, Baldrige asks not only what companies do but also how they do it. So instead of checking a box or citing a practice, business leaders must provide detailed process explanations, backed up by charts or diagrams. Every organization is different, so there are no right answers. Volunteer examiners weigh whether each process makes sense within the context of the organization's structure and goals, whether it is well integrated with other processes, and whether it produces the desired results. When examiners deem processes inadequate, they provide feedback, suggesting improvements without being prescriptive.
Potterfield was intrigued by the program's emphasis on systems thinking—the idea that all the departments and processes within an organization work together—and liked its approach to eliminating inconsistency and unpredictability, which mirrored his own. But though he flirted, he did not swoon. Not bothering to slog through the voluminous criteria himself, he directed his freshly hired quality manager to fill out an application for the Missouri Quality Award. (State organizations run their own awards programs, which use the same criteria but are generally less demanding. Many aspirants to the national award start there.) "I wanted a Baldrige, and I thought we deserved one," Potterfield recalls. "We certainly didn't. The Missouri folks gave us a site visit and a bunch of feedback, none of which I read. The next year, we applied again and got more feedback, but no award. I thought, Well, this isn't any fun. So I punted."
In the ensuing years, Midway continued to grow slowly and steadily. Baldrige hung out in the back of Potterfield's brain, but he didn't think about it seriously again until 2003, while on a three-week safari in Tanzania. There, he read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and experienced two epiphanies. First, a small number of people—if they're the right people—can initiate massive change. Second, he would have to lead them. "Gladwell says that if you have 100 people and you can get 10 of them who want the same thing—passionately want it—then you can get it," says Potterfield. "You only need 10. But you probably need the boss."
Back in Columbia, Potterfield immersed himself in the award criteria, then personally taught them to 27 managers and executives. He assigned two vice presidents to become examiners for the Missouri Quality Award. (More on that shortly.) He also announced to the entire work force that Midway would win a Missouri Quality Award in 2008. He promised that in 2009, the company would take home a Baldrige.
Change was swift. "I went away to business school right when we were instituting Baldrige," recalls Adam Ray, Midway's vice president of e-commerce. "I was there for 21 months, and when I came back, the whole company was different. Everyone was using these Baldrige terms, and for the first time they were all speaking the same language. Everyone was moving in the same direction."
"This tour is full of guns and dead animals,"says Potterfield. "If either one of those offends you, you won't like it."
The morning after the conference, Potterfield has swapped his blue Baldrige jacket for a black leather number, NRA pin prominent on the lapel. Strolling through Midway's entry hall, we pass a shaggy mountain goat, a fringe-eared oryx, and a wart hog whose tusks curl with the panache of Salvador Dali's mustache. Outside the finance department, my host commands me to stand with my back against a wall next to a doorway and then quickly round the corner, upon which I find myself staring into a yawning mouth full of bared teeth. "Big, big lion," Potterfield observes nonchalantly.
Rifles, most hand-built by employees, bedeck the walls of many offices. Gun racks nestle beside desks like lethal coat stands.
But it is neither things that shoot nor get shot that draw people to this unassuming cluster of buildings hard on the highway. Rather, leaders of businesses, schools, and government agencies visit Midway to learn how it has adopted the Baldrige principles and translated them into meticulously designed processes—more than 1,500 at last count—that govern everything down to locking up at close of business. This is a company in thrall to best practices, which are defined by Midway as "the highest sustainable level of performance which we judge ourselves against." The place is like Jack Welch–era GE, with antlers.
That definition of best practices, as well as 59 other terms, is displayed on signs throughout the facility and rotated weekly so everyone is exposed to every one. Communication is a core Baldrige value, so copies of the company's mission statement, goals, and code of conduct are ubiquitous. On a central wall in the clean and cavernous warehouse, performance metrics, project updates, and customer comments flit across a large flat screen. As we peruse the wall, Potterfield talks about Midway's dedication to continuous improvement. Two hours later, we pass the wall again, and someone has added a poster describing the company's 21 types of meetings: their frequency, duration, attendance, and purpose. Potterfield looks gratified. "Well, there you go," he says.
On the day I visit Midway, Carter Ward, executive director of the Missouri School Boards' Association, comes by to discuss the practicality of involving the state's 522 school districts in Baldrige. Potterfield urges him to start with Strategic Planning, which he calls the application's "master category." Organizations failing to master that discipline, Potterfield suggests, take risks every time they put one foot in front of the other. "That's Midway's process," he says, gesturing toward a large poster board propped on an easel. "It's beautiful. Twenty-three steps. Best in class. Outstanding. You want a copy for your office?"
At Midway, the strategic plan is assembled from company action plans, which are different from department action plans, department process initiatives, and strategic process initiatives. Krishnasundeep Boinpally, an industrial engineer, has been assigned the unenviable task of explaining it all to me. By way of illustration, he describes the development of the most ambitious project in Midway's history: a $5 million fulfillment system called Nitro Express. Nitro achieved company-action-plan status in 2010 and swiftly became part of the strategic plan. For the next 18 months, the strategic-planning team tracked and adjusted its milestones, resource requirements, user impact, and expected results with the assiduity of Mission Control monitoring the space shuttle. The sprawling, package-bearing roller coaster was completed last April, on time and on budget. It makes possible Midway's popular same-day shipping policy (no cakewalk for a business that offers 120,000 products) and will allow it to increase order capacity 10 percent each year for the next decade.
