Agreeing on Success

Recently, while addressing the five-campus kickoff meeting to celebrate the beginning of our joint student administration software implementation, I had a minor epiphany (right in mid-sentence). How had these campuses with a simple MOU (memorandum of understanding) and some previous history working together (with mixed results) been able to agree on a vendor, agree on an approach to the implementation, and agree on locations, and principles, and ideals, and on and on? How had this five-campus collaborative agreed on anything?

Answer: The same way that any group of two or more find agreement – we literally found agreement – we searched for it. Without going into great detail, we began with a common goal that we defined together. Then, throughout each step, we looked for those universal elements that bound us together. Sometimes the process was a little bumpy – even with a common goal, we had differences of opinion as to how we might reach it. Then we would refocus, not on the differences, but on those fundamental points where we agreed. With each agreement came an increasing sense of mutual success…and trust.

Not ignoring the differences, we have been able to address them by defining success as success of the whole in addition to success of each individual campus. With so much in common and so much agreement, the differences somehow seem small and manageable. I am personally proud to be a part of this collaborative and even though we are at the beginning stages of the actual implementation, we know that we will be successful. We know it because we have already been successful.

So what have I learned about working together toward success? I have learned that having a common purpose and vision provides a foundation upon which we can build agreement and mutual understanding. I have learned that agreement and mutual understanding help us recognize that differences and diversity make us stronger and provide better outcomes. I have learned that being stronger and having better outcomes defines “success” and makes us want to repeat that success over and over again.

Looking forward to all of our many successes…

FAS Celebrates Five Years of Balanced Scorecard Success

This fall, we celebrate five years of using the Balanced Scorecard in the Finance and Administrative Services division. Our campus was one of the first CSU campuses to use Balanced Scorecard and has developed it into a respected, highly effective tool as the campus moves forward with assessment and improvement activities.

FAS founded the program from a series of existing recognition events and activities that included PEER Team and Spring Fling in addition to launching new programs such as the $100,000 Grand Slam during the budget cuts, Ranch Round-Up when FAS moved to campus, MPP Award to Staff, and Monthly Reports to the VP (see www.csusm.edu/bsc for more examples). In 2004, FAS was recognized systemwide as the Quality Improvement Team of the Year for the Balanced Scorecard Core Team's achievements. This early recognition was complemented when author Paul Niven wrote about our efforts in Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies.

More recently, we have used the success of this model as one of the foundational elements in the architecture for our current campus strategic planning model. Certainly our successes in FAS serve as a model of success for the campus. As we have begun to integrate and retrofit what we’ve been doing with our Balanced Scorecard into the campus strategic planning structure, we have found that it has made our program much more purposeful and given it a focus that is campus-wide rather than having a primary emphasis on FAS.

For a peek at where we’re heading, take a look at the following websites:
CAPE™ - California Awards for Performance Excellence
http://www.calexcellence.org/cape.html
Baldrige National Quality Program (BNQP) at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
http://www.quality.nist.gov/

First we read the book; then we were in the book; now we are writing the book…our exciting future begins today.