Baldrige New Zealand
Baldrige excellence tools and resources for New Zealand from the most experienced source
Great news: You can now download an MS Word version of the Baldrige Criteria
The 2012 Baldrige ARTICULATED Criteria . . . now approved by more than 20 national quality award programs
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Articulating the Criteria results in improved understanding and practicality
2012 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence versions with and without changes highlighted
See the hundreds of the multiple Criteria requirements that have been deleted from the previous version
The weather in Dubai is ideal this time of year. So please join me for one of the following three Senior Leadership seminars:
A half-day Leadership Seminar for business leaders (6 February)
A one-day Leadership Course for managers and practitioners (7 February), or
A 2-day Leadership Workshop for managers and practitioners (8-9 February 2012)
Learn more about the course agendas and benefits by clicking on this events announcement
New Zealand's Baldrige-based History of Excellence
The current New Zealand Business Excellence Award began in 1993 as the New Zealand National Quality Award (NZNQA It is now NZBEF (New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation - NZBEF) under the vision and steadfast support of Commerce and Immigration Minister Roger Maxwell. Minister Maxwell had observed the success and popularity of the Baldrige Award in the United States after it was launched in 1988. He also observed that the Europeans had launched the European Quality Award (EQA) in 1992 and that it was overwhelmingly popular. Both awards focused on achieving 'world-class' excellence and national competitiveness. These concepts appealed to New Zealand because of its remote geographical location and dependency on international trade. The top leaders of many of the largest businesses eagerly stepped forward to support the endeavor with genuine enthusiasm directed at improving both individual and national competitiveness. A search for someone to guide and train them led to me. When they learned that I was a Senior Baldrige Examiner from the beginning of the Award and that I had also served as consultant to Xerox of Europe which won the first European Quality Award, I was selected. At the time, there was some debate as to whether to use the Baldrige or the European Criteria. Selecting me gave New Zealand the option of switching which none of my competitors could match. These were exciting days with a 'Who's Who' of government and business leaders wanting to be visibly involved and a group of distinguished quality leaders from a wide variety of organizations.
Minister Roger Maxwell (far right), Errol Slyfield (far left) and Paul Steel (3rd from right) at launch of the first Business Development Quality Awards (BDQA) in 1994
The key people leading New Zealand's program included Doug Matteson (Chairman), Wayne Squires (Executive Director), and Errol Slyfield who served as deputy to Minister Maxwell in this capacity. Doug was strong in strategic planning and I remember him huddling with Wayne and I in a small conference room at the Waipuna Resort where we developed the original plan. Little did I know that this would lead to dozens more visits to New Zealand with my wife accompanying me on many.
In 1994, the Business Development Quality Award was launched in part to offer an easier version of the award process that would encourage smaller organizations to participate. this was vital due to the relative size of NZ businesses in relation to Australia and other large nations they compete with.

Photos from the first years and mid years of
NZNQA Assessor training
A new and improved approach to the old Baldrige Framework
Total Integrated Baldrige Excellence System

Each process in the Total Baldrige Integrated Excellence System is actually a core process that has been updated using knowledge gained from hundreds of assessments of public and private sector and health care and education Criteria users worldwide. These core processes are the 'best of the best'. However, the best processes in the world are useless unless you and your colleagues can accept and implement them. I have 30 years of experience in facilitating implementation of processes and systems while preserving the culture and special needs of various sizes and types of organizations. It is much easier to do than most people think. The key to success is to replace the core of your existing processes which are not capable of best-in-class performance with a best practice core processes. This allows you to preserve everything that works well, everything important to your success, your culture, and everything you are already the expert in.
The core process approach enables organizations to accelerate their overall rate of improvement beyond today's continuous improvement and Business Excellence approaches.
Replacing incapable core processes with highly capable ones causes a shift in your improvement rate from gradual to breakthrough. I can do this for you for any process or system in the graphic or I can teach you how to do it. Please contact me and I will be pleased to discuss this with you and/or visit with you.
2009 saw Kevin Riley become first Baldrige Foreign Examiner from NZBEF. It was great to reunite with Kevin at NIST after all these years since he hired me to consult Telecom NZ Yellow Pages - so many years ago.
2009 Baldrige Examiner Training: Kevin Riley is shown with Dr. Harry Hertz, head of Indian Quality Award and myself (1st photo) and with Dr. Curt Reimann (Father of Baldrige Award) in 2nd photo
The Baldrige, EFQM, Australian, Singapore and other national excellence Criteria have opened up the world to me and have allowed me to enjoy visiting and learning about many cultures. Working with many of the best organizations in these great places has allowed me to learn how much about how they have achieved world-class excellence. This webpage celebrates these wonderful experiences with photos and more importantly shares what I have learned from assessing hundreds of organizations in more than 30 countries for over 20 years and also from working with quality gurus Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Armand (Val) Feigenbaum for seven years. Paul Steel
Baldrige Training → Thousands more people trained in Self-Assessment than the Baldrige Award Program! - Click to learn more
Dr. Robin Mann and Paul Steel reminisce and discuss best practice integration strategy in Tehran and Singapore
Enjoy the photos from organizations in some of the more than 30 countries that have invited me to contribute to their pursuit of excellence
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Baldrige Excellence international - work and photo links |
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Asia |
Middle East |
Europe |
Latin America |
Australasia |
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Jordan |
Belgium |
Costa Rica |
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Germany |
North America |
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Ireland |
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South America |
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Netherlands |
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Eurasia |
AFRICA |
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Serving organizations serious about accelerating their rate of organizational improvement and cost reduction.

I am pleased to announce my reappointment as Lead Judge/Assessor for the International Asia Pacific Quality Award (IAPQA). Paul Steel