How Coral Springs Won the Baldrige Award — Blueprint for City Excellence | ClearPoint Strategy

Hello everyone and welcome to our February webinar. I'm Ted Jackson, one of the founders here at Clearpoint, and today I'm excited to host Nicole Giordano, the Performance Management manager from the city of Coral Springs, Florida. Our topic today is the Blueprint for City Excellence, Lessons from a Baldrige Award Winner. And while we are live today, I hope you'll introduce yourself and put any questions and comments into the chat. We'll try to get to them if we can and we'll answer any that we don't get to after the webinar. So let's jump in. Nicole, welcome. Is it fair to say that the city of Coral Springs has been focused on performance management for 30 years? Can you give me a summary and bring us up to speed?

Yeah, absolutely. So Coral Springs has been heavily involved, right. In two different organizations in Sterling and Baldrige. And actually I will go there to show you. So, yeah, we started our sterling journey in 1997 and then reapplied again in 2003. And then from there we went on to the National Performance Management, the Quality Award for Baldrick. And we were the first municipality to receive that. It's not an award, it's like an acknowledgement. Right. Back in 2007. But these are two frameworks that really focus on using a systematic approach, aligning your entire organization and then having those measurable outcomes in the back end. So it really focuses on your leadership, your customers, your operations, and then how are you documenting that process? What are the results that you're achieving? The great part about both of these frameworks is that it works across multiple industries. Right. It's not something that only works for Coral Springs. It's a set of questions for you to reflect on at your organization and how you are operating in those areas. And then how can you just continually get better? Right. I would say it's been really beneficial to us. It really speaks to how we established our business model and then how we operate as a municipality.

And if I think if I were to explain it to someone outside of Florida, we have like Baldrige is this national framework that as you said, applies to municipalities, but applies to IBM. I think one of the first award winners of Baldrige a long time ago and Sterling is like a state level equivalent in the state of Florida.

Correct.

So if we were to focus, the way I like to think about it is when I kind of first learned a lot about Baldrige, I looked at their different areas of focus and it was, and this will sound very familiar to those of you that are a balanced scorecard organization, it was finances. You have to manage your finances well. And then customers, how do you. And for. For public sector, it's your. The people you serve, your residents and others. So how do you interact with those organizations, processes? What are the things you need to do really, really well. And then people, meaning your staff. And sometimes if you're a nonprofit organization, your volunteers or your board. So those people that help make your organization run. And that sounds a lot like a balanced scorecard. But Baldrige kind of took it one step further and said, we want to see how you're executing. We want to see the results in those areas. So. So they're generally five categories. And I think those categories change a little bit depending on what type of organization you are. But for the most part, it's those categories. And if you're in the state of Florida, there's a state level organization called Sterling, but if you're in another state, there may be a different state level organization or even a Baldrige organization that operates in that state. Is that a fair way to describe it?

Yes. No, that is a very fair way to explain it. And it really focuses, like I said, internally. Those two focus internally on your operations

and in looking at your awards, like, should we be concerned that some of these awards are a really long time ago? Or like, is it more than just like an award and acknowledgement? Like, tell me how this has become part of the culture at Coral Springs.

Right. And no, I mean, obviously it's been a minute, right, since we won an award back in 2007 and 1997, but it's really, it's not, it's not about the award, it's really about the process. And that's where our focus has been, how we sustain this within our organization, how we are operating. You know, you. You have this award from so long ago. You have individuals that worked on it that aren't with the organization anymore. So we've really. We haven't necessarily taken a step back, but really worked on identifying kind of like the Mandalorian, right? Like, this is the way. And if you ask individuals, they're just like, well, this is how Coral Springs does it, but how do we do it? Right? And we do it through these frameworks. So really, you know, keeping that torch lit and continuing to carrying it and acknowledging where that. Where those successes are coming from has been our focus over the last couple of years. But we are involved, right? We are involved in Sterling still. Our city manager, she sits on the board, I was able to participate. Last year they launched their inaugural fellowship program. So I was part of the first graduating class for that, which was a really great opportunity. Cause it was really shows our continued commitment to this framework. But like I said, our focus has really been on that next. That next set of leaders, that next generation within our organization. So a lot of our emphasis has been within our leadership development program, which is your mid managers, right. Your next leaders within the organization. And one thing that I would emphasize with that is. Well, I'm saying managers, leaders can exist anywhere within your organization. They don't have to be in a management role. And that is what that program within our organization focuses on. Anybody can be a leader. But bringing them in and having them identify the processes that they're using, how they're improving them, and pointing back to this framework and how we are aligned across the organization has been really are our focus. But we do participate annually within the conference. They have a summit, they have a local summit. Sterling has a local summit down in Miami that we participate. But we've really been working to spread it out a little bit more. Like I said, get that, get that next generation in and really establish that this is where this is coming from and this is why we do things the way that we do them.

Yeah, it's really nice. I think, I think back in kind of 97, 2003, that might have been three or four city managers ago. And so seeing how this has been embedded in your organization has really allowed you to maintain consistency in performance excellence. So. So you mentioned something that I want to pull the string on a little bit, is that both Sterling and Baldrige kind of looked inside of your organization and I see there's a kind of a third pillar, you know, on your slide that you're sharing, which is this community of excellence, or sometimes known as core. Tell us a little bit more about it and how it kind of builds on top of the other ones or even just relates to them.

Yeah, absolutely. So since this PowerPoint was generated, yes, they did go through a rebranding and they now are referred to as core. So it's Communities of resilience and excellence. It is actually a subset of Baldrige. So Baldrige now recognizes communities as a award category and this is where that CORE comes in. So while Sterling and Baldrige focus internally on how your organization is operating, CORE is really focusing on externally. Right. So we have these great process improvements and we're operating at a premier level as an organization. But how is that impacting our community and how is our community involved in it? So, yes, this crossed our path in 2022. We got involved in it. They had a cohort, so we participated in the cohort. That was a three year process or a three year journey. Right. Is what they refer to it as. But it's a continuous journey. It's a path that you just continue walking. We just concluded that and we're now part of their alumni association. But core, like I said, is really focusing on the external. And then they also focus on four pillar areas. So actually, I'll go to the next slide and show you how we have that set up in our organization. So this is really the structure of communities of excellence within Coral Springs. So we are the backbone organization. We are the driving force behind that. And then we set up a second tier of a steering committee. And so core focuses on those four pillars. You have economic vitality, education, quality of life and health. The way that we set up the structure in Coral Springs is having an internal representative, so somebody from the city of Coral Springs, but also an external partner to help us in those areas. So for education, right, it's our education relationship manager, but it's also the school board of Broward County. For economic vitality, it's our director of economic development, but also our representative of a chamber of commerce. So working together and having that external kind of community partner, but also your internal representative as municipalities sometimes, right. We are. We are the red tape. So how do we work that through that together? How can we, you know, how can we get to the. Yes, how. With our community, with what they're looking for. How can we get there? And then that last. Here is our work groups and our community partners. So those are. Those are the people out there that, you know, are ideally executing our strategic plan and working towards the KPIs and the outcomes that we're looking to achieve. And we have that through our existing boards, committees and groups. So we have over 30 boards, committees and groups which are volunteers or representatives from our community that are volunteering their time in education Advisory. Right. Our principal advisory group, our multicultural. So we working with them now to see where our gaps are, where we can work together to really identify those needs in the community is how we establish core within our organization.

Yeah, it's so interesting. Like, was it easy to get other organizations like school or chamber of Commerce or others to say, like, yeah, we agree, same mission, let's all go work together and come up with KPIs to work? Because it sounds like you tend to Think of a lot of organizations as just totally internally focused. And so I know you've been at this now for, is it three and a half or four years? So, so was it easy to build those partnerships and relationships?

You know, with any partnership, any relationship you're trying to build, you're going to have some challenges. But at the end of the day, when you're looking at what core is asking and it's really about improving the lives of the community, it's hard not to back that.

Right.

Everybody wants a healthy community, they want a thriving community, you know, and we want the best for our next generation. So it's hard not to, not to get into it and not to want to get involved. But like anything, you know, it takes time. It takes time. Journey is the really proper word to be using for this. It's like I said, we're, we're on year four and we still have, you know, we still have work to do. So it definitely, it definitely takes time and it takes patience and just kind of working to build those relationships together.

Well, I imagine there are a lot like, imagine when you, when you have all these relationships, they influence your strategy and you influence their strategy. I mean, I've worked with chambers of commerce who have been talking to their cities and their regions to say we're building a lot here, but your transportation infrastructure doesn't go there. So can we partner in some sort? So I guess in some areas there's some, some natural partnerships. But this gives you a framework and the working groups to be able to, to drive those conversations.

I can, I will happily talk about how we got this ball rolling and how it, you know, you know, really aligns into our existing structure. Because it's kind of a really great segue on what you were saying.

Yeah, I would love to hear how you kind of that process and then also how you got to KPIs like, which I think this will guide us to there.

Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, we talked about our business model. Right. And our business model really starts with our strategic planning. But our overarching umbrella to that is really what is visioning. So we look at the community every 10 years and we ask what they would like to see. We changed our strategy. Under the core framework. We normally would do a two day workshop, invite the community in and gather that intel. But instead we did a year long process of listening to our community. It was at the same time that we were celebrating our success. 60th anniversary. Anniversary. We're a relatively young city, but while we celebrated Our past, we planned for our future. So we went to all these events, we engaged the resident and we did from our, you know, most senior resident to our youngest. For our youngest, we had a coloring that went out to all of our schools. For our seniors, we met them where they were at, if that was an assisted living facility. But we gathered input from everybody that was willing to give it right for an entire year. So that led us through our visioning and then we established a plan around that input. So over that year process, we heard from the community that these seven areas were areas where they wanted to see improvement. And you can see too, right? Aesthetics, education, parks, programming, economic development. There's a lot of what the community is looking for that aligns with those four pillars from core. So for us, it was really great because you could see it right there, like, all right, we're on the right track. We're going down the right path. We use this input now annually to establish our strategic plan, right? So we're looking at as we're adding new initiatives or adding new programs, does it align with what the community was looking for in this long term process? And we, and we kind of go from there, right? We establish our strategic plan for the year, then we establish our business plan, which is really the funding, the budget behind the strategic plan and those initiatives. So once we got to there, CORE has its own indicators, right? And they're, they're, they're large. They're maybe not something that, you know, a municipality is typically tracking, you know, like life expectancy from a school perspective. We, we have been tracking some of that information, but it is some things that are outside of our control. But it's great to look at because you don't know where to start if you don't know where you're at, right? So really pulling those into our process and seeing some of those KPIs that we wouldn't typically look at or, you know, isn't really within our wheelhouse. Some of these, some of these relate back to like the cdc and, you know, that's, that's not our area. But how do we establish partnerships with our local Florida Department of Health or our hospitals? I kind of always relate core, especially for my Florida peeps, to a hurricane or a natural disaster that we have. When that happens, our city boundaries don't matter. We are collectively working to restore power, clear the roadways, make sure everybody has access to water, and that's really what CORE is focused on. You're not working in those silos as you talked about. But you're working together. So what is our hospital doing from a life expectancy purpose? What are they budgeting? What are we budgeting? Is there areas where we could work together? Is it just resource sharing? Maybe sometimes it's just educating on what information already exists. I would say right now in terms of our KPIs, we've really been working with those ones established by core. So those, the high school graduation, the life expectancy, some of those really high overarching ones. And we've been using those as our lagging indicators. Right. Something that we know in the long run we will hopefully see the needle move in the areas that we want to see. But really to work on identifying the programs, the initiatives that we're currently offering and how those tie in. So a great example would actually be from an education perspective. We launched, it's called It Takes a Village. So it's a staff volunteer program where we volunteer at one of our local schools. The school that we selected was one of our C rated elementary schools. And so for the year or the school year, right. That staff dedicated time and help the teachers. We did see that school increase from a C to a B and they're actually only seven points away from an A. So we stuck with that school again because we really want to see those successes. But where we're at now is yes, we've increased the school grade, but what about those, those reading proficiencies, is there, is there an area that we could be assisting there? So really aligning those KPIs and tying them to some of those, those overarching goals that we're looking for, we do lean into our boards, committees and groups. Right. Some of them, some of them have the information they, they have the capabilities to participate from, you know, our principals, obviously, that group, but also from establishing new programs and new ideas. Right. We really pride ourselves on establishing a strategic plan that was made by the community, for the community. So we include them in the process and then have their ideas come to life. So this year our economic development advisory group proposed the idea to host a small business summit. And how can, you know, we aid our businesses in the community. So we're piloting that with them this year. You know, really kind of letting go of the reins a little bit and letting them lead this, letting them plan this and hopefully really document that process so that we can replicate it across some of our other boards and groups.

Yeah, Nicole, this is really great because I think when a lot of people think about measures, they think about inputs, processes and outputs and they Think, okay, inputs and processes are my leading indicators and outputs are my lagging indicators. And it's a great way to look at it. If you're manufacturing something, it's like, do we have the metal, do we have the molds and then the number of widgets that we create? But this adds that extra level of outcomes. So you have outputs and then you have outcomes. And I think again, trying to tie back to that Baldrige and Serling vs Core. It is important to know if you're having good outputs from the things that you're doing. There are a lot of different examples that aren't manufacturing where you still get outputs of activity, results of number of people that came to a meeting, number of people touched by different types of communications. But then the outcomes are like, is all this activity that we're doing leading to better life expectancy or better high school graduation rates? Because I think even though it's long term, you don't control it all. You might not want to do bonus compensation to some of your outcomes, but I think in five years, if all of your inputs, processes and outputs are not changing any outcomes, then you might want to relook at everything that you're doing. And so this is a, it's just a really nice way to show how Core really does fit into these other frameworks and why Baldrige is kind of adding this additional category in the next year is something to look at. So before we run out of time, I have two more things I want to cover. One is kind of how do you communicate all the work that you're doing to your residents? Like, how do they find out about the great stuff that you're doing?

A couple ways. Obviously our social media, our marketing department, amazing. They're sharing information. This year we re established an annual report. So it was Coral Springs 360. And again we tied that back to visioning and we tied that back to our strategic goals so that the community could see, you know, thank you for your input. And this is how we're utilizing it. This is how it is in fact, you know, coming to play within corporations. Coral Springs. And then of course we have our community dashboard through clearpoint that we update on a quarterly basis and that gives an overview of our, all of our KPIs within our organization, our strategic initiatives, our capital initiatives and those business. So we share that through that dashboard. And then we also have a GIS map. Right. Because everybody obtains information differently, somehow how they absorb it is different. So we make sure that we're Kind of covering all the bases on how somebody could take in this information. But definitely through our dashboard has been a really great resource for us.

Great. If you don't mind, can I share your dashboard and then a couple other Baldrige ones, see if I can grab this. So this is the city of Coral Springs and you can see these areas that I also saw on your core map as well. And you could imagine this, you know, the residents would be able to dig in and see different areas and say like, okay, how are we doing in these particular areas? And view a chart on it. It's a great way. And it's also, it's a, it's a real standard for how local governments do communicate their results. So I just wanted to quickly look at Germantown is another Baldrige Award winner, also has similar, but different areas. And if we clicked into their economic development area, you would see a similar way of viewing the world. Just a nice way to communicate to their residents, you know, what is elastic tax revenue. Like a definition and then analysis on how they've been doing this year. And then also if we were to jump to Fort Collins, another Baldrige Award winner, being able to look in their area, they have different categories. But also if we were to drill into their economic health and look at SADI measure, which is a electricity disruption measure, saying, well, how much should we expect to see an outage over the course of the year? So this is like a rolling one. And so what they're showing here is they're only seeing kind of eight minutes of power outage total over the course it's rolling. So over the course of the last 12 months. Whereas the true standards that they benchmark against locally and nationally are well up there in that 20 minute area. So let me just stop sharing and in the last minute, let me ask you one more question, which is, you know, you've been talking about like this amazing 30 year performance where it's like we get awards, we participate in these programs, we're training the next generation. I'm in a fellowship program. We've partnered with 30 different local agencies to make all this great stuff happen. What if you're just getting started in performance management or, you know, you look at this and you're a little bit intimidated by, by the choral spring success. What would you tell somebody who's, who's just getting started?

Just get started, right? I would strongly encourage you to look at the Baldrige framework, look at the application. Right. If you are in Florida or Georgia, I would encourage you to look at Sterling, find those performance based organizations and start looking at their frameworks and their questions and start answering them. Right? You don't have to apply, just start answering them. I think in really, you know, starting that self reflection for yourself as an organization will help you tremendously, you know, but, but like mom says, you put your pants on one leg at a time and you just kind of got to get it going and know that like anything else, you're gonna, you're gonna have some speed humps, you're gonna have some challenges, but really lean into it and, and just get that ball rolling.

Okay, Excellent. Any parting thoughts?

I did just want to comment on. You know, I love that we each get to have our own individuality within the dashboards, right? You saw ours, you saw Germantown, and that, you know, you still, you still get to be yourself in these dashboards that you're communicating now. And so I really love the individuality that we get in this process.

Excellent. Well, Nicole, thank you very much for sharing your story. It's great to see how performance management or even Baldrige or Sterling or Core, it's certainly not an event, it's a process. And I like the idea of even if you're not ready to apply, you can do a self reflection in those areas. So thank you so much for sharing and look forward to hearing more about your success in the future.

Thank you.

All right, everyone, thanks for joining. Have a great day.