I was awarded a six month contract in March 2008 to conduct a performance excellence assessment of a Shanghai, China-based research and development company using six of the seven categories of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria. Clearly the assessment was just as effective in China as it is in the US, Europe, Australlia, Japan, and elsewhere around the world. The project was quite successful and identified over thirty strengths and fifty opportunities for improvement or OFI's.
The six month experience in China identified the Chinese people involved to have a hardworking strong work ethic, eager to learn and thirsty for knowledge. Many organizations are just at the beginning of establishing systematic approaches to improvement. Thus, concepts like benchmarking and knowledge management are still new disciplines that they are trying to master. Yet, many still want to become excellent and many organizations in China are indeed getting better. As they progressively improve, they are beginning to reach out and learn from one another. Partnering with US-based organizations is a priority. So doing more consulting work in China will be one of my continuing areas of emphasis.
