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How can you stay relevant in a world that is always changing?

Ive got more
How can you answer to the continuously changing needs of your customers?
How can you beat your ever increasing competitors?
I guess there are no clear cut answers, but, it is possible.
Ive told you earlier that I have been 4 years at EFQM and in those last years I have had the
pleasure to travel across Europe and to visit organisations that succeed to continuously
improve, even during economically difficult situations.

Actually done, another challenge comes to my mind.

Whos needs to you answer? For whom we innovate? Or let me put it differently: who do
we work for?


Over recent years, we have seen the pace and scale of change accelerating.

25 years ago, mobile phones were a novelty; now they are normality.

10 years ago, people were still debating whether anyone would buy anything from a
website; now we dont even have to leave the house to buy groceries.

2 years ago, a market crash started in the USA and spread across the global economy at
a rate we have never experienced before.

That is why we at EFQM believe that now, more than ever, organisations cannot work in
isolation. Therefore we have created a platform to enable organisation from all sectors,
regardless of size or sector, to share their experience, to learn from each other and
develop new, innovative approaches that will enable them to achieve sustainable
excellence.

Our vision is to create a world where European organisations are recognised as the
benchmark for sustainable economic growth.

EFQMs portfolio of Products and Services is build around the EFQM Excellence Model.
- EFQM organises sharing events. EFQM Shares what works through a number of different
channels. We encourage dialogue in a nr of different ways: from grand conferences, to
one to one connections, thematic workgroups, online discussion boards, publications on
good practices, a knowledge (data)base, and so on. Our members exchange their
experiences and ideas with peers to generate innovative solutions.
- EFQM is helping to prepare the next generation of business leaders: by providing unique
training and development opportunities built on practice based learning and exchange
between organisations. Initially we focused on training for Business Excellence
professionals, however today, our portfolio includes beginner courses on performing selfassessment to leadership development programmes for high potentials and executives. To
give you an idea: throughout 2010, more than 800 people have gone through an EFQM
training (that is more than 66 per month, or 16 people per week).
- These assessments provide an organisation with external feedback and recommendations
that will assist them in effectively implementing strategies and instilling a culture of
excellence. We offer different assessment formulae depending on the scale and scope of
the analysis, from global to strategic self-assessments.
- EFQM provides different recognition schemes that motivate your people to drive result.
They create a desire to learn progress. An EFQM assessment as part of a recognition
scheme is a rigorous process, including up to 200 man hours spent on site to understand
your organisation, while providing you international recognition and acknowledgement
for your professionalism and focus on progress! To share some numbers with you, in
2010, we over 450 organisations have received recognition through EFQM!

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Welcome to the upgrade training, designed to help existing EFQM Assessors understand
the updates made to the EFQM Excellence Model and how to apply these changes when
assessing organisations.

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We have split the presentation of the updates into 3 sections, around the 3 components of
the EFQM Excellence Model.
We are not going to present the Model page by page.
We will also go through the changes made in recent years to the EFQM Excellence Awards
assessment process.
There is a test at the end of the course. You need to answer all the questions correctly to
pass. You can refer to the Model 2013 brochure during the test; all the information you
need to pass is included.

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The Fundamental Concepts of Excellence underpin the Model; the review process starts
with ensuring the key themes identified from the stakeholder dialogue are incorporated
into the concepts.
As the concepts are used to consolidate the detail of an assessment and feed the key issues
back to the management team, the needs of this audience were a priority.

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So, the revised Fundamental Concepts are:

Adding Value for Customers

Creating a Sustainable Future

Developing Organisational Capability

Harnessing Creativity & Innovation

Leading with Vision, Inspiration & Integrity

Managing with Agility

Succeeding through the Talent of People

Sustaining Outstanding Results

There had previously been some debate as whether there was any significance to the
order of the concepts, such as an indication of their importance.

Depending on the maturity, focus and objectives of the organisation, some concepts
may be more important than others but this is not consistent for all organisations and
will change over time.

To avoid this debate, in the 2013 update, the concepts are listed in alphabetical order.

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<<click>> The feedback received indicated that a number of the titles were confusing or not
well understood within the community. For example, there were many different
interpretations for Achieving Balanced Results.
The feedback also highlighted that some concepts were more action oriented than
others; could we make it more consistent?
<<click>> There was also significant debate regarding the concepts of Managing by
Processes and Building Partnerships. Whilst there was no debate about there
importance it was felt that these were established to the point of stating the obvious.
With process management, the feedback indicated that the process framework adopted by
the organisation needed to be flexible enough to enable change with appropriate speed,
allowing the organisation to be agile in responding to emerging opportunities and threats.
The feedback also indicated that Building Partnerships was only one aspect that
organisations need to consider when developing their capabilities.
Both these issues are still important; they are still included in the titles of the 9 criteria.
The concepts that they belong to have been expanded though to incorporate the feedback
received.

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You can see how the concept of Developing Organisational Capability has incorporated
some of the aspects of building partnerships but is now taking a wider view of the entire
value chain.
The focus of this concept is now on organisational development and ensuring they have the
capacity and capability to achieve their strategic goals.

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In a similar way, you can see who process management has been incorporated into
Managing with Agility. Change needs to be managed effectively to deliver the desired
benefits. The process framework adopted needs to be flexible enough to enable the
organisation to deliver the changes required, with appropriate speed.
Ultimately, excellent organisations are recognised for their ability to proactively anticipate
and lead change, rather than just reacting to the actions of others.

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The Criteria for the 9 box model, probably the most recognisable part of the EFQM
Excellence Model.
As with the 2010 updates, the bullet points from the Fundamental Concepts have been
integrated into the criteria, forming the basis for the guidance points of the framework.

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The title Key Results was causing confusion as the word key was also being used to
identify the most important results in all results criteria i.e. Key Customer Results, Key
People Results, Key Society Results and Key Key Results.
The change to Business Results is accompanied by the definition of the Business
Stakeholders e.g. owners, shareholders, investors, Head Office, Government. Previously
we had avoided the use of business in the Model as feedback from the public sector was
that this was too private sector focused. However, the feedback we received during the
consultation process was that budget pressure on the public sector was leading to a more
commercial attitude and that this change would be understood.
There are no other changes to Criterion Titles or Criterion Part Titles
Changes are restricted to the guidance points, aligned to the new concepts and using
simplified language.

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The 9 Box Model is probably the most recognised part of the EFQM
Excellence Model. There are 5 Enablers on the left hand side and 4 Results
on the right. There are lines between the boxes as the criteria cannot be
viewed in isolation; each influences the others.
At its simplest, the Model can be viewed as a cause and effect diagram.
You do something in the Enablers side and measure the impact on the
results side. Based on the impact, you learn, get creative, innovate and do
something else different.

For example, if we look at the criterion part for 1a, we can see there are fewer guidance
points. The language has also been simplied.
The Model remains a non-prescriptive framework; we are describing here what we would
expect to see in an excellent organisation. We are not trying to describe HOW they achieve
it.

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The results all have a similar definition, focused on the relevant stakeholder group for each
criterion.
Again we have tried to simplify the language used in the bullet points, which include
references to the RADAR logic.

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As with the 2010 updates, we have continued with a short list of examples of the types of
results that could be included in the criterion part.
It is not designed to be an exhaustive list as feedback in the previous review indicated that
the extended list included in the 2003 Model was sometimes being used as a checklist.
As with the 2010 Model, we are looking for the organisation to identify and track the
results within each criterion part that show their progress against their strategic objectives;
in short, to define whats really important to them and their stakeholders.

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The RADAR has 2 main applications.

For assessors, it is a key tool for analysing an organisation, producing a score for each
criterion part and ultimately determining the level of excellence achieved.
For organisation, it provides a management tool for questioning current performance levels
and a structured cycle for driving improvement.

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At the highest level, the RADAR has not changed. However, some of the most significant
updates have been made in the RADAR.
The additional bullets that were added into the RADAR in 2010 added numerous benefits
but also increased complexity.
In addition, the wording of the RADAR Scorecard used the term evidence, which many
found confusing, leading to different interpretations.
The Core Team focused on simplifying the RADAR to promote consistent understanding and
application.

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If we consider Enablers first, 2 of the elements have changed.

<<click>> The first change is structured deployment, rather than systematic
deployment.
<<click>> The second change might seems trivial but the feedback from the community
was that Improvement & Innovation was more logical, compared to the previous
Innovation & Improvement.

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The changes to the RADAR Scorecard are more fundamental.

The bullet points have been reduced to a single guidance point for each attribute of the
RADAR.
The scoring scale has been simplified to be consistent in each attribute.
The wording reflects the fact that scoring is only done after all the available evidence and
examples have been collected. It also changes the emphasis; it is now up to the applicant
to prove they are a Global Role Model to achieve the maximum score, instead of the
assessors having to prove they are not. More on that in a minute.
Finally, we are now reflecting the way assessors actually use the RADAR during
assessments; focusing on the final score for the criterion part. The boxes within the RADAR
can still be ticked during the analysis to assist in the scoring process.

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Additional guidance has been included in the brochure to ensure consistent understanding
and application of the RADAR.
Please note the final bullet point: The overall score should not exceed that of the
approaches adopted. For example, if the approaches an organisation has adopted are not
sound, no matter how well they are deployed, the overall score given should be limited to
that given to the approaches.

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How does this work?

<<click>> Well, if we think the organisation is only Able to demonstrate that the
approaches they have adopted are sound and clearly support their strategy
<<click>> it doesnt matter whether they can demonstrate the approaches are fully
deployed through a structured process and theyre assessing and refining them; the fact
remains that the approaches do not support the organisations strategy so the final score
<<click>> should be limited to that of the approaches themselves.
This is not designed to penalise organisations; its based on the logic that if youre doing the
WRONG THINGS, regardless of how well you do them, you will not achieve the RESULTS
YOU WANT.

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For Results, the final attribute has been changed to Confidence. The rationale is that the
reason we need to understand cause and effect relationships between the actions we
take and the results we achieve is because we want to be able to predict, with some degree
of confidence, what our future performance will be.

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The changes to the Results Matrix are similar to those in the Enablers Matrix:
The bullet points have been reduced to a single guidance point.
The scale for each attribute is the same, with the wording focusing on the organisations
ability to demonstrate.
Whilst the boxes can be ticked, the focus is on the final score.

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Again, guidance points are included in the Model Brochure to promote consistent
understanding and application.
Please note the final bullet: this was included in the 2010 update but not clearly
understood.

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<<click>> If the organisation is only Able to demonstrate that the Scope & Relevance of
the results they use are consistent with their strategy and the needs and expectations of
the relevant stakeholder groups, <<click>> no matter how excellent the results they have
are, the overall score should be limited to that given to the Scope & Relevance <<click>>.
Again, this is not designed to penalise organisations; the rationale is that if youre
measuring the wrong things, it doesnt matter how well youre performing in what you ARE
measuring, you are not delivering what your stakeholders expect.

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So, finally what is a Global Role Model?

One of the frequently asked questions is How do we score 100 points in a criterion part?
The answer is now that you must be able to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that
you are a global role model in this area.
There are many ways for an organisation to demonstrate this to the assessors, as they
would have to demonstrate it to their own stakeholders. The point is the organisation has
to prove it is a global role model, not the assessors have to prove they are not.

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The way we assess organisations has changed over the years. The way we train assessors is
now changing to ensure it is aligned with these changes. The new version of the EFQM
Assessor Training will be aligned to the current EFQM Excellence Award process. As you
may well be working in a team with these people in the near future in the EFQM Excellence
Awards, we thought youd like to know whats happening.

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One of the key changes that has been made to the assessment process is what happens
before we start the site visit.
The initial preparation work, both for individuals and the team, is focused on ensure you
fully understand the organisation so you can effectively plan the site visit. This starts with
what they do and what they want to achieve.
In the EFQM Excellence Awards, there is a meeting between the Assessor Team and the
applicant BEFORE the site visit to ensure the team have fully understood this.
There is NO SCORING until the site visit is complete and the strengths and areas for
improvement have been confirmed.
This approach is now being used to train new assessors.

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One of the exercises we ask the Award Assessors to do as part of the Individual Preparation
is to map strategic themes across the Model.
This helps to identify how the strategies are implemented through the key approaches and
results presented in the submission, or highlight any potential gaps they need to be
investigated during the site visit.
Preparing in this way also helps to avoid getting lost in the detail.

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As an example, lets say the leadership want to increase the profitability of the
organisation. The marketing team think this can be achieved by developing bespoke
solutions for existing customers, increasing the retention rates.
With the strategy defined, the leadership team work out how to manage this change and
motivate the people to do it. This includes developing a new bonus scheme. And a change
management program.
Meanwhile, marketing get to work developing and promoting these solutions and everyone
else works on the Customer Service Excellence initiative.
To measure progress, they have made the link between employee engagement, customer
loyalty and financial results.
And the management team have a balanced scorecard with these measures on which they
review monthly.

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The Share best practice conference will be followed by the Closing Ceremony of the Sheikh
Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) during which winners and recipients of Excellence Trophies
and Certificates should be called to the fore. Moreover, the 12th cycle of the ceremony this
year shall witness the introduction of newly introduced recognition categories as well as
the recently launched Health Care Excellence track as part of the SKEA holistic program and
overall framework

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Welcome to the upgrade training, designed to help existing EFQM Assessors understand
the updates made to the EFQM Excellence Model and how to apply these changes when
assessing organisations.

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