Section Six
By using the Baldrige framework as a questionnaire, a
company can use the guidelines like the award examiners do to
evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in quality. This
assessment would be a first step toward adoption of TQM and
improvement of quality. Following this evaluation or
assessment, a triage process would be undertaken in which
priorities would be established for actions to be taken. One
practical suggestion is to fix first those problems that have easy
solutions or pick the “low-hanging fruit” first. Another TQM-
related suggestion is that the human resource function should
adopt a perspective that is similar to an independent contractor
providing services to a customer. When viewed from this
perspective, those in the human resource function would begin
to ask themselves whether the customer, the company, would
renew their contract. When viewed in this manner, the
importance of customer satisfaction is more evident.^85
Finally, the use of the Baldrige framework as a guide for
evaluation and its emphasis on objective data deserve
comment. Many important organizational phenomena may not
meet all parties’ definitions of objective. Dysfunctional results
occur when important phenomena are ignored because they
cannot be expressed in an objective format.