Later, I am taken to view the mighty Nitro. As a logistical and engineering feat, it seems absurdly ambitious for a 368-person company. But then, if you live by Baldrige, I guess you are used to that sort of thing.
Arguably, Midway's most intriguing process is leadership development. Baldrige doesn't merely inspire this program; it is the heart of the program. Every year, senior leaders select 10 to 15 high-potential employees to serve as examiners for Baldrige or the Missouri Quality Award. This is no trivial commitment; it requires up to 250 hours per employee. That's 3,750 hours of annual staff time focused on companies that are not Midway.
Midway's examiner program is an ingenious solution to a problem faced by many small to midsize companies eager to promote from within. Employees targeted for development typically learn by assuming new on-the-job responsibilities, which is dandy as far as it goes but restricts exposure to internal practices and ideas. Baldrige examiners, by contrast, burrow deeply into the strategies, cultures, and operations of other well-run companies. "I absolutely love this process," says Jake Dablemont, Midway's HR manager. "If I look at the value of what I've learned in grad school versus what I've learned as an examiner, I would choose to be an examiner every day of the week."
Baldrige examiners are selected in March and in April are given sample applications. Each examiner then has three to four weeks to pore over one of the samples, annotating half the responses with observations and suggested next steps. After a three-day training session, during which those comments are discussed, the examiner receives a real application. He or she has three weeks to weigh in on the entire document.
Examiners then begin working, via conference call and collaborative software, with their teams: six to eight veterans and newbies assembled from a variety of industries. Each team spends five weeks comparing opinions and assembles a report. A panel of judges determines which applicants merit site visits.
For three days in October, team members embed at their applicants' companies, where they have virtually free rein. They can request documents; meet repeatedly with executives, managers, and frontline employees; demand to see processes in action; wander the halls and factory floors; and ask anybody anything. The process concludes with two more days of team discussion and a final report.
For applicants, the report is the point of Baldrige. But the benefits to the examiners and the companies they come from are considerable. Most important, examiners are compelled to study companies as systems of interlocking parts, rather than through the lenses of their departments or specialties. That teaches them to take a CEO-eye view of their own organizations. "You come back seeing things globally," says Stan Frink, vice president of Midway's contact center and one of the company's first two examiners. "And you start thinking, If I make this little change, who am I affecting upstream and downstream, and what is the impact on the supplier and the customer?"
From a tactical perspective, examiners observe up close how would-be world-class companies operate, and naturally bring home that intelligence. At Midway, examiners not only import new ideas, but they also use their newfound process-analysis expertise to evaluate what's already there. Every quarter, veteran examiners review and score the key processes recorded on Midway's Baldrige application, which the quality department maintains as a living document. "We don't expect to be perfect," says Boinpally. "But we want to be very, very close."
There is one drawback to Midway's leadership development process. It works only so long as Baldrige exists. The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is a public-private partnership established by an act of Congress in 1987. (It is named after Malcolm Baldrige, a former Secretary of Commerce.) Last year, Congress voted down the program's $9.6 million funding as part of deficit reduction. The Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award—the private piece of the public-private partnership—has said it will keep the award going. Many state programs are privately funded. And, of course, the examiners, who make up much of the work force, are free labor.
Potterfield, for his part, hopes he will get the chance to advocate for Baldrige before a congressional committee. For now, he's busy evangelizing at the grass roots, seeking to expand the army of self-proclaimed "Baldrige geeks" who benefit from the program and can demonstrate its economic value. At the Kansas City conference, he runs a breakout session on Baldrige Performance Excellence Groups, or BPEGs—monthly gatherings of community leaders focused on you-know-what.
Potterfield hands out a booklet titled "America Needs Baldrige!," which is also the title of his conference-closing speech and of a Midway-supported website stuffed with PowerPoints and white papers. The booklet contains 16 pages of BPEG boilerplate, including processes for recruiting speakers, communicating with members, and—with typical Midway attention to detail—collecting cash for lunch. "Put your name on this and take it out into your communities," he urges his audience, holding up the booklet. "Can you imagine getting your hometown involved in Baldrige? Can you imagine getting your schools, your hospitals, your businesses, your not-for-profits, so that they have really got their stuff together and are delivering? If we can do that across America, we can keep America the greatest country on earth."
As for Midway, which will one day pass to Potterfield's grown children, Russell and Sara, it has yet to wring the last drop of value from Baldrige. Potterfield is required by his board to bring home a second award in 2015, the first year Midway is eligible to reapply. "Well, if the CEO is required by the board to do something, he has to do it," says Potterfield, not mentioning that the board is composed entirely of family members (one area in which Midway bucks best practice).
