The Boeing Perspective on Performance Excellence
By Grace C. Sorongon

Dr. David Spong, a former President of Boeing Aerospace Support delivered a speech during the 44th Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP) Annual Conference held in Cebu on September 28, 2007, on the topic “Leading an Organization to Performance Excellence.”

Dr. Spong talked about his personal experience in driving an organization of 12,300 employees with several sites across the globe, which became a world class organization recognized for its high employee satisfaction rating, excellent business results and two-time winner of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. This most-coveted and prestigious award is given to organizations which espouse quality and continuous improvement. How did this cultural transformation happen? Did it happen overnight? Did it require people to drive this transformation? Was it a question of leadership or management? So many questions to be answered and Dr. Spong illustrated all the answers with statistics and relevant examples culled from his personal experience.

Boeing Aerospace Support is one large organization that achieved the transformation it needed in five years. From a negative financial situation, it became a highly profitable operation. Attrition was at its lowest level and most of the employees expressed their interest to stay long term with the company. Likewise, their customer rating was at the 82-percent level and thus Boeing enjoyed continuous patronage from their customers.

Per Dr. Spong, to lead an organization to performance excellence requires leadership attributes such as a drive for results, a strategic mindset, interpersonal skills and personal capability. A lot of effort has to be expended by the leadership if only to drive home the seriousness of the desire to transform. It also takes consistency and persistence with passion to spur the followers of the organization and even the non-followers to achieve the desired results. In other words, driving an organization to performance excellence requires a systematic approach that involves leadership systems and operating principles; the deployment of initiatives in the areas of employee involvement, process-based management, customer satisfaction and management information; and measurement analysis and knowledge management. Leading an organization to performance excellence therefore requires leadership in action. The leader should communicate his vision, mission, values, strategy and initiatives and endeavor to get the support of the people around him to achieve the desired results. Thus, Dr. Spong converted a lot of his people into becoming believers of what he espouses. They became zealots, a term which Dr Spong defined as “a person who believes that using the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria will drive an organization to achieve world-class business results and will lead their organization in its use”. They became the champions and were committed to deliver the business results.

In summary, Dr. Spong cited that leading an organization to performance excellence requires a lot of ingredients. If driven by leadership and structured framework of continuous process improvement, this will result to motivated employees and achievement of business results. There is no room for procrastination, conservatism but only drive for and a call to action.