In case you missed it, on August 19, 2019, the Business Roundtable released a statement on the purpose of a corporation. This statement is probably overdue by at least a decade or two; however, it is still worthy of appreciation, as it acknowledges what many good corporations already practice and recognizes the importance of creating value for all key stakeholders, rather than focusing just on quarterly financial returns and stockholder earnings. The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and many others published articles about the change.

If you, your leadership, and/or your board of directors would like a proven, nonprescriptive tool to help you implement such an “enlightened” approach to leading, managing, and improving your organization, you are in luck!

The Baldrige Excellence Framework is Exactly What You Need!
Baldrige has been promoting and enabling such a perspective for many years. In fact, more than a dozen of the organizations whose CEO’s signed the statement have used the Baldrige framework, and each of the fundamental commitments included in the statement (on the left below) reflects a core value imbedded within the Baldrige Excellence Framework (on the right bolded):

• Delivering value to our customers: Customer-Focused Excellence
• Investing in our employees: Valuing People
• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers: Ethics and Transparency
• Supporting the communities in which we work: Societal Contributions
• Generating long-term value for shareholders: Focus on Success

Best of all, Baldrige isn’t intended to be something you do in addition to what you do. Rather, it is about improving how you do what you do, to ensure that those actions and practices are effective at accomplishing their intended purpose while also supporting and enabling optimal performance across the entire organization.

Learn More From Baldrige Award Recipient Leaders
To see and learn from role-model organizations that truly want to help your organization improve, check out the Baldrige Award recipients. I encourage you to attend the Baldrige Fall Conference, our annual Quest for Excellence® conference next spring , or other opportunities throughout the year where you can engage with and learn from a variety of different organizations and their leaders.