Reflective paper on baldridge principles, organizational issues, personal and organizational learning

Reflective Paper on the Baldridge Criteria Number The importance of the plethora of various personal and organizational lessons that I have gained over the past days’ keen discourse on the principles and organizational issues of the Baldridge criteria can only be understated. In the end, I strongly reckon that the Baldridge criteria is indeed a very crucial set of mechanisms for people that are disciplined and are engaged in disciplined thought and action in their attempts to develop exceptional organizations that yield only the best outcomes for the community, the organization and the individual employee. The Baldridge criteria are a results oriented and proven management techniques that feature on the characteristics of organizations that do very well.
Whether in the education sector, healthcare, security or business organizations, the Baldridge process importantly helps ensure that organizations that use this model are kept accountable, are managed in a sustainable manner, are properly aligned, improved, rewarded, recognized, while also immensely helping with the organization’s recruitment endeavors. In truth, there are a myriad of different approaches of organizational and personal improvement and management, but the Baldridge criteria stands solidly apart. For one, unlike other approaches, this process offers an improvement framework that is non-prescriptive. Additionally, the techniques are all-inclusive and integrated, addressing all the factors involved within the organization, its workings and outcomes. Moreover, the brilliance of the process resides in its focus on common needs of the set-up, rather than on benign aspects such as techniques, tools and procedures. The technique addresses the desires of all the stakeholders in an organization and is essentially adaptable and accommodative to various organizational and personal practices and needs.
The criteria of the Baldridge allow for organizations to conduct self-assessment and gives insightful feedback to users. The criteria also assist in enhancing the performance capabilities, practices and results while further facilitating proper communication methods/ techniques within the organization. Not only do the Baldridge criteria focus on improving the organization, but it also focuses on personal (individual) learning within these settings of application. This is significantly contributed by its core values and concepts which strongly advocate for visionary leadership (that demands the setting of proper examples from leaders so that ethical behavior, values and expectation are reinforced even as commitment and initiative are enhanced within the visible values and high expectations organizations (Parrish, 2005).
Other important values of the Baldridge organization criteria include learning centered organizations (with high expectations, progress evaluations, and self-assessment, with an understanding that different people learn at different rates and through various ways), valuing faculty/ staff/ partners (results in the positive organizational cohesion, amongst other benefits), agility (exponential measurement of all aspects of organizational management), focus on the future (considers both short and long-term issues that may impact on the organization/ individual), managing for innovation, management by fact, social responsibility (practicing good citizenship by remaining ethical and being concerned with the public and environmental health/ safety), focus on results and value creation, as well as systems perspective that enables effective organizational and key processes’ management in order to elicit better results. These values are conveniently separated into seven categories; leadership, process management, organizational performance results, strategic planning, faculty/ staff focus, stakeholder and market focus, and measurement, analysis and knowledge management (Brown, 2008).
This is but a brief reflection of what I accrued on the relevance of the Baldridge criteria to organizations and to individuals as myself in enabling sustained improvement and excellence in various aspects of organizational and self management. The Baldridge process is an all-encompassing management approach for organizations and self, and I agree with Brown (2000) who says that it conspicuously stands out from other approaches in terms of results and sustainability.
References
Brown, M. (2000). Organization & governance in higher education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Pub.
Brown, M. (2008). Baldridge award winning quality: How to interpert the Baldridge criteria for performance excellence (17th ed.). Broca Raton: CRC Press.
Parrish, W. (2005). Homeland Security Assessment Manual: An Organizational Assessment Based on Baldridge Criteria. Security Journal Secur J, 85-85.