Organizational Culture and Change
An organization’s value system and guiding principles that influence behavior.
Culture
These are practices recognized by the business community, and often verified by research, that lead to successful performance, and cannot be simply benchmarked and copied.
Best Practice
This consists of six stages: Adoption, Regeneration, Energizing, Maturation, Limitation / Stagnation, and Decline.
Life Cycle of Quality Initiatives
In one organization’s Six Sigma deployment, employees completed large amounts of training, but projects lacked executive involvement, weren’t tied to data or strategy, and eventually lost momentum. This represents the classic example of what deployment problem?
Failure Mode
At GE, teams learned that innovation and problem-solving accelerate when barriers between departments disappear. By removing silos, people, data, and ideas can flow freely across functions and business units. This cultural mindset is known as what?
Boundary-less Learning
This refers to the shared values and beliefs that shape how employees act and make decisions.
Corporate Culture
Senior leaders must be actively engaged (participating in training, reviewing progress, making site visits).
Committed Leadership from Top Management
Early Enthusiasm refers to when momentum is high at the start, Reality Dip refers to when doubt starts to rollout, Random Acts of Improvement refers to uncoordinated fixes, and Project-Based Plateau is a stall when improvements are scattered.
Common Dynamics & Warnings
Another company demonstrated the opposite outcome. Their CEO personally championed the improvement program, set clear expectations at tollgate reviews, required finance to validate results, and celebrated visible business wins. This became known as which type of deployment model?
Success Pattern
At GE, senior leaders didn’t just set direction—they personally taught strategy, values, and improvement principles in action. By turning leadership moments into learning opportunities, they spread a consistent message throughout the organization. This leadership practice is called what?
Teachable Point of View
A workplace where every employee embraces quality values, goals, and continuous improvement as a lifestyle.
Culture of Quality
The initiative must be justified and clearly linked to the organization's mission, strategic direction, and existing performance measurement systems.
Integration with Strategy and Measurement
This refers to senior leaders actively sponsoring, reviewing, and modeling quality behaviors.
Leadership Commitment
At Corning, continuous improvement isn’t treated as a side initiative but as a built-in part of daily operations. The company developed a system that combines Lean, Six Sigma, and kaizen principles into one unified structure to drive speed, cost efficiency, and innovation. What is this system called?
Performance Excellence Program
The American Red Cross applied analytics and process design to overhaul how it collects, tests, and distributes blood. The result was lower error rates, greater consistency, and improved safety across the supply chain. This transformation is an example of what major improvement effort?
Operational Redesign
This refers to when shared behaviors and values are at odds with an organization’s long-term health.
Dysfunctional Corporate Culture
Focus on business processes, including mapping them and using a disciplined approach to information gathering, analysis, and problem-solving.
Process Thinking
Routines leaders use (reviews, huddles, check-ins) to run and improve the work.
Management Processes
At Texas Nameplate, quality isn’t limited to a separate department or a few specialists. Instead, employees across departments share accountability for identifying waste, improving processes, and satisfying customers. This integrated approach is known as what?
Cross-Functional Quality
At Veridian, improvement isn’t left to chance. Leaders and teams periodically review their performance using structured Baldrige-based criteria to identify strengths, pinpoint gaps, and prioritize next steps. This process is known as what?
Baldrige Self-Assessment
The structured process of helping organizations transition from current to desired states.
Change Management
This is vital to ensure improvements target characteristics most important to customers
Disciplined Customer and Market Intelligence Gathering
This refers to turning core values into actions, measures, and daily decisions.
Values Deployment
At GE, a powerful problem-solving event was introduced to accelerate change. In these structured, large-group sessions, employees and managers meet face-to-face to remove bureaucracy, make rapid decisions, and implement improvements immediately—rather than waiting for approvals. What is the name of this approach?
Work-Out
When organizations like Veridian and GE want to prove the business value of their improvement projects, they require finance to confirm the dollar impact and validate results before counting them toward success. These verified financial outcomes are known as what?
Validated NPVs or Benefits