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Older News Items
Total Quality Management and Business Excellence Journal The latest edition European Society for Organisational Excellence’s official journal contains a paper ‘Business, Science, Art and the Mindset for Excellence’ by Steve Unwin. The paper originally presented in September 2004 in Abu Dhabi details the way in which our understanding of change impacts on our ability to achieve effective improvement. The paper presents an argument that change requires us not to see new things, but to see things in new ways. It outlines how this new way of seeing is analogous to the way an artist might look at a painting, contrasting this with the way we might look at a contract. Total Quality Management and Business Excellence. Volume 16 Number 8-9 October-November 2005 ISSN 1478-3363 Routledge. Taylor & French Group
6th International Conference of Quality Managers
The conference web site is www.qm-conference.com.
Writing Break As some of you will know I have been engaged in writing a book on the subject of exploration and change. The process has been a very illuminating one, helping me understand change, and myself. In a sense I’m understanding the topic of change through the experience of changing my thinking. The exercise of writing acts as a catalyst to both capturing the thinking and moving it forwards. The net result is an extremely stimulating process, but one that has yet to produce a publishable work. Instead it seems that new thinking constantly pushes completion into the future. The Result The trip to Portugal proved to be a great example of exploration. Having set out with the intention to complete the current material and finish the book, I soon discovered that the writing would take a new direction. I spent the first two weeks working on the current material, around 200,000 words and figures. The material continued to resist my efforts to finalise its shape, as attempted completion of each part led to new thought and rewrites of others. Frustration set in, and led to some long walks along the beach. At that point I sat down, disregarding the existing material I began to write a story which encapsulated some of the elements of learning. Though a complete departure from the earlier writing, and leading me into uncharted territory, the story format provides a way of capturing some of the ideas more concisely, (20,000) words and removes some of the problems of attempting to cover all of the ideas at one time. Having completed the first story I began a second and hope that this might provide a more successful route to conveying some of the thinking.
Midlands Excellence Awards Dinner 2004
The guest speaker for the evening was Steve Redgrave CBE the five times Olympic gold medal winner. Steve gave an excellent speech in which he gave a taste of the dedication and commitment required to achieve supreme levels of excellence. The focus of the evening was the recognition of organisational performance through the use of the Excellence Model and our congratulations go to all of the finalists and winners. This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and many thanks to al of the staff of Midlands Excellence for making it such a success. For more details visit their web site at www.midlandsexcellence.org.uk
World Congress for Total Quality Management September 2004 Steve spoke at the 9th World Congress for Total Quality Management held September 26 - 29 2004. Following last year’s very successful event in Dubai, this year’s congress was be held in Abu Dhabi. The conference featured over 40 speakers drawn from as far afield as India, Mexico and New Zealand speaking on a wide range of quality and improvement topics.
If you would like more details of the conference, please visit www.world-congress.ae
Midlands Excellence Conference March 2004 It was a great pleasure to speak at the Midland’s Excellence Conference on March 4. The conference held at the Aston Villa Football Ground attracted around 400 delegates to a comprehensive programme of plenary presentations and a choice of workshops themed to meet the needs of beginners, intermediate and more advanced users of continuous improvement approaches such as the Excellence Model. The conference maintained the reputation that Midlands Excellence have built in recent years for the staging of excellent events. Steve had been invited to speak on the subject of Managing Change and took the opportunity to link the work on the Explorer and Day-tripper mindsets with ideas of emergent complexity - the kind of behaviours seen for example in ant colonies. The presentation was then able to illustrate how the day-tripper management The presentation was very well received and it was good to have the opportunity to meet some old friends and catch up on their work and also to make some new friends. You may wish to note in your diaries that November 4 2004 is the date for the Midlands Excellence Awards Dinner
Exploration - The Mindset for Excellence Book now being reviewed Work on the book previously titled The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence has reached an important milestone. The material dealing with the ideas of the change journey, contrasting it as one of exploration or a day-trip has been provisionally retitled ‘Exploration - The Mindset for Excellence’. The manuscript for this book is currently undergoing a review by a panel of readers due for completion by mid-March. It is hoped that once concluded this will lead to publication later this year.
Explorer and Day-tripper Animation. Working with the Small Business Service of the UK DTI (Department of Trade and Industry)
The animation is designed to support the teaching of the use of continuous improvement tools, not simply as initiatives to be implemented but as exploration tools To support the use of the animation a facilitation guide will soon be available to help its use to stimulate organisations to question and manage their approach to continuous improvement tools to generate performance improvement. The animation was officially launched as part of a DTI event ‘Engaging Business in Performance Improvement’ held at the DTI Conference Centre in London on November 21. Attended by around 120 business professionals the event featured a number of other improvement related topics including the Benchmark Index Business Excellence Questionnaire developed by our friends at D&D Excellence.
UK Excellence Awards October 28 2003 - London
Congratulations to all award and prize winners and all participants in the 2003 awards and to the BQF for an exciting, entertaining and memorable evening.
Midlands Excellence Awards Dinner October 20 2003. The Midlands Excellence Awards Dinner is the major event recognising the achievements of organisations in the UK Midlands area. A dinner on a truly monumental scale, this years dinner was again a sell-out with 1550 business men and women attending the event at the NIA in Birmingham. Guest Speaker Sir Jackie Stewart linked the achievement of excellence in business to the experience of his career as a champion racing driver and made an impassioned plea of support for the world class contribution that the Midlands have made to motor sport. The key focus of the night was the recognition of excellent performance by organisations in the Midlands. Winners included BMW Hams Hall Motoren GmbH and The Moat House, Acton Trussell.
An added feature to the web site is the review of books that add value to the topic of change and may prove of interest to those of you facing the challenge of improving organisations. We hope to add a review each month to build a collection of books that you might find of value. The first book reviewed is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Click here to read the reviews.
8th World Congress for Total Quality Management The World Quality Congress chose the venue of Dubai for its eighth conference and it was Full details of the conference programme are still available at www.world-congress.ae In addition to the comprehensive presentation programme the conference included an evening networking dinner held on a dhow sailing vessel and a Desert Safari by four wheel drive vehicle to a desert camp where traditional food was served and the chance to sample life in the desert including a camel ride. This was a very rewarding conference and the response to the presentation was very encouraging. Dubai is a fascinating place where the drive for change appears to permeate all levels of public and private sector life and receives a great deal of support from government. It’s a place clearly committed to achieving change and success. The 9th World Quality Congress is scheduled for September 2004 in Abu Dhabi and I for one am looking forward to it already. Many thanks to John Addey for the Safari Crew picture which features fellow intrepid explorers from left to right Rolf Erilsson, myself, Paul Head, Dave Yarrow and Derek Medhurst.
Equality and Diversity Award Successes During the summer we had the great pleasure of working with two organisations on the development of their approach to equality and diversity. Each had recognised the importance of an effectively managed approach to equality and diversity if they are to maximise their ability to attract and retain key staff and each had deployed the Framework for the Evaluation of Equality and Diversity (FEED). The FEED framework includes a three tier assessment process to gauge progress in the development of equality and diversity and more importantly generate improvement opportunities. Our work with these organisations included the preparation of submission documents for FEED assessments, in one case submission for bronze assessment and the other assessment against the silver standard. Both submissions proved successful and the silver assessment ensured that the organisation became the first organisation to achieve the Silver accreditation standard anywhere in Europe. With the agreement of the organisations involved I hope to include updated news soon.
Thriving in Unpredictable Times.
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Steve gave a presentation at the 6th International Conference of Quality Managers held from July 17 to 20 2005. The conference attracted an audience of around 5,000 delegates, so many that the two day conference is repeated (17/18 and 19/20) to accommodate everyone. Steve’s presentation ‘Change-ability’ outlined some of the latest ideas on the thinking and behaviours required for effective change.
It was a great pleasure to be invited to attend the award ceremony and gala dinner held by Midlands Excellence on November 4 at the NIA in Birmingham. This event which recognises organisational performance across the region is perhaps the biggest of its kind in Europe with over 1,300 people attending.
Steve’s talk dealt with advances in the development of the mindset for effective change. In particular looking at how that mindset and the way in which we see and address continuous improvement tools determines the nature and scope of benefits we might obtain from their use. The talk presents the case that we should view these tools much more in the way we view a work of art than our current tendency to see them as a contract.
approach relied on a perhaps somewhat illusory belief in the ability to control change whilst the leadership approach of the explorer was able to truly exploit the opportunities of change.
Access to Excellence have incorporated some of the key ideas of the Explorer and Day-tripper from the forthcoming book into a short animated film. Copies of this film in format suitable for viewing via computer are available from the Small Business Service or directly from ourselves.
This five minute high quality animated film features animated characters to represent the mindset and attitudes of the day-tripper and explorer. The day-tripper, a ‘seen it all before’ desktop computer is contrasted with an energetic and questioning laptop ‘explorer’ to illustrate the shortcomings of a day-tripper approach to change and illuminate the potential advantages of exploration.
designed to liberate organisations to achieve real improvement.
It was a tremendous pleasure for Steve Unwin to attend the UK Excellence Awards as a guest of Dave Yarrow of Northumberland University. The dinner celebrated the achievements of excellent organisations in the UK and in particular the award winners TNT Post Group Information Systems, Eaton Aerospace Lakeside and AMS Operations Hillend.
thus with great pleasure that I again visited this exciting location. The conference ran from October 6 to 8 and included 60 plenary and parallel sessions on a broad range of improvement and change topics. The congress provided an opportunity to meet and share ideas with people involved in all aspects of change, meet old friends and make some new ones. It also provided an opportunity to present the ideas of the ‘mindset for excellence’ and discuss latest progress on the development of the supporting publications including ‘The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence’.
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March 2003 Quest for Excellence Conference - Dubai
It was a great privilege to be asked to speak at the Quest for Excellence Conference in Dubai. This two-day event, organised by the Government of Dubai Department of Economic Development drew over 400 delegates from across The United Arab Emirates and beyond to hear some of the latest thinking on the application of excellence ideas.
The conference was opened by Essa Kazim, Director General of the Dubai Financial Markets and also served as a platform to promote the Dubai Quality Award, based on the EFQM Business Excellence Model.
At the conference Steve Unwin was invited to present two papers. The first dealt with the mindset required to achieve change and improvement whilst a second paper provided guidance on the process of producing an effective submission document for use in an external assessment.
‘I enjoyed the opportunity to speak in Dubai immensely. The conference was excellent, well organised and the venue very impressive. Unfortunately my schedule meant that I had little time to see Dubai, but I hope to return soon and meet again some of the friends I made on this visit.’
The conference proved a great success and is planned to be repeated annually as a key element of the regions approach to excellence.
The conference received considerable interest and promotion on the local press. Click here to view English press articles relating to the conference
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Midlands Excellence Conference
‘Investing in Excellence’ - March 2003
The Midlands Excellence Conference, ‘Investing in Excellence’ was held at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham. Widely recognised as one of the best events of its kind the conference drew a wide range of speakers, many of them excellence award winners and a large number of delegates from the Midlands region and beyond.
The full day conference comprised presentations and workshops aimed to promote the use of excellence approaches and share the successes and learning gained by those who have adopted business excellence.
At this conference I had the opportunity to present ‘Excellence Uncovered’ an introduction to the topic of excellence. Having attended and spoken at previous Midlands Excellence conferences I have come to expect high quality events and this was no exception. The conference was very well attended and the presentation gave me the opportunity to speak to a broad audience and in particular those organisations who are early on, or about to embark on, their improvement journey.
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Appointment as Visiting Fellow - Northumbria University
In February 2003 I had great pleasure in accepting the position as Visiting Fellow to the business school of Northumbria University.
The University Business School has over a period of years developed a Centre for Business Excellence that have pioneered the deployment of Business Excellence thinking and tools in the North East of England. Having first met the Head of the Centre, Dave Yarrow some years ago this appointment helps cement a relationship that has built up over the intervening period. It will help us share ideas and developments and provide a link between hands on work with client organisations and the academic world.
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Early 2003
Book Publication: ‘Agility in Healthcare’
Steve Unwin has contributed to the creation of a new book ‘Agility in Healthcare’.
The book is expected to be published by May 2003. This book looks at the experience gained in manufacturing and production environments in the implementation of change and seeks to identify how this may benefit the Healthcare Sector.
The book has a large and varied range of contributors each with considerable experience in different facets of the manufacturing world and each looks at the opportunity for transfer from their different perspectives. Access to Excellence have contributed jointly with Dave Yarrow of the Centre for Business Excellence at Northumbria University on a chapter dealing with ideas relating to reducing waste and work in progress.
In addition we are particularly pleased to have contributed a chapter outlining some of the people issues associated with successful change. This of course benefits from some of the work on ‘The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence.
Agility in Healthcare: Editor Sarah Fraser.
To receive up to date publication details visit the contact us page.
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Book ‘The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence’
The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence is a major new work which takes a fresh look at how dramatic change can be achieved in organisations using the principles of Excellence.
Whilst there can be little doubt that major organisational improvement can be achieved the reality for many organisations is that much effort is expended with little impact. This book examines the key factors that differentiate the organisations successful at improvement from those that fail. In pursuing this examination the book explores how the attitudes and mind set of organisations and their people hold the key to successful change. Using the idea of change as a journey, the book develops a number of different ‘travellers’ to illustrate the different mindsets and their impact on the prospects for success. These travellers include the explorer from which the book draws its name.
True to the principles of Access to Excellence, the book takes a fresh look at a whole host of the ideas underpinning improvement to identify critical and powerful new insights that explain the failure of so many organisations and illuminate the alternate path to success. At the heart of this path is the need to forsake the day-trippers quest for the magic potion, the ultimate initiative, and instead adopt the thinking of the explorer to seek out the unique tailored route to excellence. Throughout the book illustrations, examples and analogies are used to create insights and maximise the transfer of understanding.
Unlike other books on improvement, this book avoids the trap of attempting to provide a neat packaged solution, believing that such day-trips are inevitably doomed to fail. It instead engages the reader to understand improvement and excellence, often seeing anew aspects that may have unquestioningly been assumed for years. Through these new insights readers are led to question their assumptions and are provoked to apply explorer thinking directly to their unique challenges of change. In doing so the reader has taken their first few steps on their journey towards exploration and becoming an explorer.
For more detail on The Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence use the navigation buttons to visit the Explorer’s Guide or click here.
To be kept up top date with publication details use the navigation buttons to visit the Contact Us page or click here.
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October 2002
World Quality Congress Q2002 - Harrogate
Presentation ‘The Mindset for Excellence’
Held at the Harrogate International Conference Centre by the Institution of Quality Assurance (IQA) on behalf of the European Organisation for Quality (IOQ) this was one of the leading quality and improvement conferences of 2002. With speakers and delegates from around the world the conference featured three days of presentations, seminars and networking opportunities.
Q2002 provided the opportunity to speak on the subject of ‘The Mindset for Excellence’ and share some of the ideas that are captured in the Explorer’s Guide to Business Excellence. The key thrust of the presentation was that the key to success in 
creating improvement rests as much with the mindset of those involved as it does with the selection of a particular tool or approach. The presentation was very well received with one delegate expressing their view that it was ‘elegance in simplicity’ which I took as a huge compliment in our attempts to take the complexity out of creating improvement.
As the photographs illustrate, the venue was extremely impressive and I was fortunate to share a session with an old friend John Layne of Rolls Royce and Eduardo Tolosa of Banco Bilbao Spain. The session was chaired by Joe Goasdoue, the Chief Executive of the British Quality Foundation. The organisation and management of the event was excellent and helped make participation very enjoyable and included the preparation of transcripts of each of the presentations.
If you would like to read a transcript of The Mindset for Excellence please click here.
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October 2002
EFQM Forum - Barcelona Spain.
Steve Unwin attended the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) forum in late October, which this year was held in the beautiful Spanish city of Barcelona.
The forum, which we have attended for the last seven years, is the key event in the European Business Excellence calendar. It serves as the venue for the announcement and celebration of the winners of the European Excellence Awards and provides a magnet for leading speakers and delegates from the world of excellence.
The quality of presentations was a little down on previous years as was the representation from UK delegates, however the conference was not without its valuable moments. A highlight was the presentation by Charles Handy which successfully drew together several of the conferences themes using simple language and a laid back style that proved engaging and entertaining.
For the record, the winners of the European Excellence Award were SAM Architectural Mouldings Northern Ireland. In addition a number of organisations were awarded prizes. We extend our congratulations to all at SAM Mouldings and to all of the prize winners, finalists and participants.
At the conference the results of an exercise to refresh the Excellence Model were disclosed. These changes which are all of a minor nature are outlined in the description of Business Excellence.
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Midlands Excellence Awards Ceremony and Dinner
October 24, Birmingham UK
Unfortunately at the last moment other commitments prevented me from attending the Midlands Excellence Awards ceremony. Having attended their best practice sharing events on several occasions I was particularly disappointed to miss this event which recognises the winners of the Midlands Excellence Awards.
For the record the winners of the Midlands Excellence Awards were
- Large company - Ricoh UK Products Ltd
- Small Company - Protocol Group
- Operational Unit - TPG Information Systems
- Large Public Sector - Solihull College
- Small Public Sector - Castle Vale Housing Action Trust
We extend our congratulations to all winners, finalists and participants.
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October 2002
UK Excellence Awards Presentation and Dinner
22 October, Hilton Hotel, London UK
Having experienced the thrill of receiving the UK Business Excellence Award in 1999, this is another ‘must attend’ event. Recognising the pinnacle of achievement for UK Excellence organisations, this is also a great networking event bringing together leading organisations across both the public and private sector to celebrate and share best practice.
This years awards and dinner provided the perfect platform to recognise the achievements of the winners of the UK Excellence Awards.
This years winners were:
- Private Sector - Siemens Communications
- Public Sector - Runshaw College
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August 2002
Balanced Scorecard Article for
UK North West Excellence Newsletter August
Following a very successful presentation and workshop at the UK North West Excellence Best Practice Conference in September 2001 Access to Excellence was invited to prepare a supporting article for the North West Excellence Newsletter.
The presentation aimed to dispel some of the confusion which surrounds the topic of Balanced Scorecards and provide understanding of how they can form part of a continuous improvement approach. Demand to attend the presentation and workshop was such that it was repeated four times during the day. Despite the feeling of ‘Groundhog Day’ this created for Steve, the feedback clearly showed how well received it had been.
The article summarises the key points of the presentation.
Click here to view the article.
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August 2002
ESPRC Research Programme GR/N27453/01
Access to Excellence has been one of a number of organisations to provide support to a research programme conducted by the Manchester School of Management at UMIST investigating the effectiveness of self-assessment.
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