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Blogrige
The Official Baldrige Blog
IYKYK.* But if you don’t know why it’s beneficial to be a Baldrige examiner®, I invite you to find out what experienced Baldrige examiners have discovered about the value of this volunteer role.
Consider the reasons, shared below, of three highly experienced Baldrige examiners from a variety of sectors, namely, business, K-12 education, and health care. All three of these individuals have served in the key role of leading an examiner team in assessing an applicant organization’s performance against the Baldrige Award Criteria, both in past years and in the Baldrige Award evaluation process of 2024.
Bruce Requa
Bruce Requa is a master examiner who has served for ten years on the Board of Examiners and for three years on the Judges Panel for the Baldrige Award. In his professional life, he is a business program manager at Microsoft in Redmond, WA.
Following are thoughts he shared recently on being a Baldrige examiner.
Why being a Baldrige examiner can benefit people in the business sector:
“I highly recommend people invest their time in participating in the process. Examiners gain a better understanding of business processes, results, and the connections between them."
"They gain an understanding of the key processes and results for an organization and how the different functions are connected—a systemic view. Over time, they also gain an understanding of multiple industries and their business practices. These learnings can often be applied to their own organizations.
Also, examiners gain the opportunity to expand their professional network, which helps them continue learning and gives them a like-minded community of business excellence professionals to collaborate with.”
How key changes made to the Baldrige Award process in 2024 positively impacted examiners:
“This year’s examination process took less time and effort than previously. Whereas the previous process required a deep dive into a 50-page application responding to [the Baldrige evaluation factors Approach, Deployment, Learning, and Integration] ADLI and [Levels, Trends, Comparisons, and Integration] LeTCI, the new approach is simpler and requires less effort to accurately determine the applicant’s maturity.
The guidelines provided to examiners gave guidance on determining whether an organization has processes or activities that are role model and that could benefit other organizations.”
The value that new examiners bring to Baldrige evaluation teams (and how they benefit):
“New examiners are a team’s secret weapon. They bring a fresh perspective and their unbiased expertise to the examination process.
They can maximize their learning—and the team’s—by asking questions, providing their independent assessment of the applicant, and clearly articulating their rationales for their suggested ratings.”
JoAnn Sternke
JoAnn Sternke is a master examiner with nine years of experience on the Board of Examiners, as well as serving for three years on the Baldrige Award’s Judges Panel. Dr. Sternke is former superintendent of Pewaukee (WI) School District, who led the district to earn a Baldrige Award in 2013. She is now owner and president of Excel Leader LLC.
Following is what she shared about her experiences as an examiner—and the benefits for other examiners, too.
What examiners can learn about high-performing organizations:
“Being an examiner allows you to learn the how. You see how the organization attains the results it does by seeing the role-model processes and practices it employs. Personally, I enjoy being an examiner not only for the service it provides the applicant but also because I enjoy learning and seeing how other organizations pursue improvement."
"The evaluation process gives examiners a glimpse into best practices that transfer from sector to sector. It’s such a profound, hands-on learning experience. I improved my own organization using information I gleaned from being an examiner.”
More on what examiners learn:
“Among so many things you learn as an examiner are to be discerning, to see connections, to ask probing and insightful questions, and to write with clarity so that a Baldrige Award applicant can use your team’s evaluation report to improve its performance. You learn to do this and so much more. I know I’m a better leader today due to being an examiner.
As an examiner, you also learn to analyze an entire work system within an organization, whereas so often we look to improve an organization’s performance one piece or one part at a time. I love the holistic look at a high-performing organization that you get as an examiner. It’s invigorating, and I always complete the assessment process knowing I’ve learned as much as I’ve given.”
What she liked about the 2024 changes to the award evaluation process:
“I enjoyed how the process unfolded, like peeling an onion. First, the reduced-in-size Organizational Profile tempted examiners with foundational information, and then the applicant’s performance results revealed more about the organization. This was followed by additional information submitted by the applicant that enabled our examiner team to learn about the work processes in place in the organization.
The icing on the cake was the site visit, where we saw the organization’s role-model practices and results in action. The changes to the evaluation process in 2024 made it easier to digest information and more manageable than in past years so that we could offer valuable feedback to the applicant.”
Why she recommends being an examiner:
“Being an examiner is not only about service: you also learn so much. You work with a team of talented, caring people who only want to help another organization on its continuous improvement journey.”
Her tips for new examiners to perform well and get the most from the experience:
- “Be curious, not judgmental.”
- “Be organized and meet deadlines.”
- “Keep asking, ‘What will help the organization take the next step on its journey?’”
Eric Fletcher
Eric Fletcher is a master examiner who has served for 13 years on the Board of Examiners; he also served as a member of the Judges Panel for three years. He is employed as senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Mary Washington Healthcare in Fredericksburg, VA.
He conveyed the following thoughts about being a Baldrige examiner.
Benefits of serving as an examiner:
“Being an examiner affords you the opportunity to learn how other organizations approach common issues, problems, and opportunities. You’ll also begin to develop a better understanding of the interconnectedness of the activities of high-performing organizations."
"The learning and professional development that comes with the examiner role is remarkable. On top of that, the professional connections and relationships you can develop within the Baldrige community are incredibly rich and rewarding. As with most volunteer efforts, as an examiner, you personally benefit from helping others.”
How the Baldrige Award process helps examiners learn about role-model organizations:
“The Baldrige Award process is designed to recognize organizations whose results demonstrate consistently superior performance. For award recipients, sharing some of the ‘secret sauce’ that helps them achieve sustained, outstanding results is a source of pride.
Just attending the Quest for Excellence® conference or regional events at which Baldrige Award recipients present best practices provides attendees with ample opportunity to learn how to improve their own organizations.”
How the streamlined Baldrige Award evaluation process in 2024 made it better for examiners:
“The new process is focus-enhancing for examiners. Previously, an examiner would receive an entire 50+-page Baldrige Award application featuring an organization’s strategic context; work processes; and many, many performance results. That much material all at once can be overwhelming.
In the first stage of the new process, examiners only receive a relatively brief description of an applicant organization’s context and a limited number of key results. This allows and encourages the examiner to concentrate on the applicant’s uniqueness and most important performance outcomes.”
His advice for new examiners to perform well and benefit from the experience:
“Give yourself some grace. It can be complicated, and no one expects you to become an expert overnight. The Baldrige community is filled with people who care deeply about the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and about the excellence of American organizations, so don’t be afraid to ask questions of those who have been involved for a while.”
Become a Baldrige Examiner
Finally, here are some key points of information for those interested in volunteering as a Baldrige examiner in 2025:
- All examiners receive virtual training prior to their volunteer assignment and are also supported by peers throughout the evaluation process.
- Examiners are assigned to teams to assess an applicant organization’s performance based on their Baldrige experience levels and employment history in order to ensure sufficient experience levels and a cross-sector mix of industry expertise on each evaluation team.
- Although the annual award evaluation process and assessment criteria have been continuously improved—with major changes implemented in 2024, including an increased emphasis on organizational resilience and long-term success—the Baldrige Award is still the nation’s highest and only Presidential-level honor for U.S. businesses and other organizations that demonstrate excellence and are willing to share their non-proprietary best practices across key performance dimensions.
Key dates in the 2025 Baldrige Award process for examiners include June 17, when examiners will begin analyzing applicant organizations’ performance results (submitted via an online application); and July 30, when each examiner team will finalize and reach consensus on a collaborative evaluation of an applicant’s performance results. Examiners will work online and when it’s convenient for them individually during this period, with each team determining its own work schedule within the parameters of these two key dates.
In addition, for examiners who indicate they are available and are selected to participate in a site visit of a finalist organization, August 19 is when site visit planning between applicants and examiner teams will begin, and September 24‒October 1 is the week when examiners’ combination of virtual and on-site interviews with finalist organizations will occur.
*Note from the introduction: IYKYK = If you know, you know.
For anyone not familiar with this slang phrase—used in the kind of online memes that my Gen Z kids like—this was a sneaky attempt to get you to read to the end of this blog.
By the way, if you had to look up the acronym here, you are likely to have sufficient career experience that your sector or industry knowledge will be beneficial to have on the 2025 Board of Examiners. So why not apply? You can start completing the Examiner Application today.
