Baldrige Assessment and Organizational Learning: The Need for Change Management

Self-assessment using the Malcolm Baldrige Award Criteria for Performance Excellence (CPE) has become a widespread practice among all types of organizations. Empirical evidence suggests that Baldrige Award-based assessment typically results in improvements to managerial processes. Although the notion of process change is embedded within the CPE framework, the criteria do not explicitly address how an organization manages such change. In this article, the linkage between the criteria and change management is described. It is suggested that an effective process change management model can be derived from the framework of the criteria for performance excellence. Using concepts from the literatures on organizational change, assessment, and learning, a model for managing change in the context of the criteria is generated. The change process model parallels the model of strategic change that has been historically well specified by the CPE and refines the criteria notion of learning. These two models are linked by the exchange of information between the organizational performance review item and diagnostic self-assessment activities. Suggestions on how the organizational performance review item in the criteria can be expanded to incorporate change management as an explicit area to address are made.