By Marshall Tarley
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Lin Manuel Miranda (in green hat), the creator of the Tony Award-winning Broadway show In the Heights, is pictured with ASCAP staffers after a show. The employees were treated to a performance in recognition of their great work. Miranda generously met and joked with them in appreciation of their efforts. |
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ASCAP QUALITY, ASCAP SYNERGY:
ASCAP's most important assets are our 350,000 members. ASCAP's most important resource is our workers. When the two combine, it's a catalyst for powerful change. The workers pictured above are one small group, who delivered multiple projects and repeated success. At the same time, they performed their every day work and met all of their regular work goals. There's a reason ASCAP attracts such talented workers. They love music and they are dedicated to protecting the intellectual property rights of music creators - you. So, why are these people smiling? They were treated to an evening at the Tony Award winning Broadway show, In The Heights . And, that's ASCAP member, writer, star of the show and Tony Award winner Lin Manuel Miranda, generously meeting and joking with them. This is validation and appreciation of our workers by our members (the people for whom they work). This human side of business is the catalyst that ignites motivation and leads to great quality and a great ASCAP.
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Why is ASCAP the most efficient Performing Rights Organization in the world? Rigorous and continuous effort keeps ASCAP's cost of operation down. We know that every minute we save reduces costs and every dollar we save goes into the pockets of our members.
In this never-ending quest, Chief Operating Officer Al Wallace (pictured) launched ASCAP's Quality Movement. ASCAP was
already doing an optimum job. But in today's world, where business changes at light speed and technology, culture and organization gets turned upside down, there is a persistent need to innovate, to stay on top. So, he decided to raise the bar.
Wallace knew that, according to the experts, the average company has a 25% - 30% quality and efficiency gap. So he met with all of his managers and their staffs. He explained that ASCAP processes nearly 100,000,000 transactions each distribution quarter. That's on top of the research, matching, verification and documentation that goes along with those transactions. And, while ASCAP has a great track record, in order to deliver the lowest cost operation to members year after year, we have to squeeze out every efficiency we can find.
To achieve these goals, Wallace knew that he had to engage and inspire every worker in ASCAP's operating areas. He brought in a program developed by one of the world's leading gurus of business process, Tony Dottino. Tony worked with a team at IBM that developed the foundation for what later became known as Six Sigma, most popular with large corporations. He was also a major contributor to the development of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Program. The program he provided to ASCAP takes the best of process improvement and integrates it with breakthroughs in neuroscience to offer a method that taps the natural creativity of the workforce at the grassroots level - the people closest to the work who understand it best. That led to the program name – Grassroots Innovation. ASCAP's grassroots workers feed change and innovation up the line. This fuels change that delivers consistent and measurable results, something that Wallace was clear that he wanted from the start of the project.
What are the results? So far, ASCAP has trained more than 100 people to use these tools. Working in small teams, they have already designed and implemented more than 40 projects that have saved over 10,000 hours of work annually, provided wide-ranging innovation and raised the bar on the quality ASCAP gives to its members. All projects are audited by ASCAP's internal auditor to certify measurements and to ensure efficiencies are real.
