Six Sigma has become the fasting growing quality initiative and management philosophy to ever sweep this country. Developed by Motorola and nurtured by companies like General Electric and AlliedSignal over the last twenty years, Six Sigma has delivered proven results to a select few organizations looking to improve productivity, quality and bottom line performance and willing to follow the disciplined approach required by it’s methodology and processes.
As the Six Sigma initiative attracted new disciples and it’s gospel spread throughout the country many companies found that they were not able to achieve the same success that those who had pioneered the philosophy had enjoyed.
While there is no single reason for the less than optimal performance of these organizations, it has become clear that it has little to do with the tools, techniques and philosophy of Six Sigma, which are sound and effective. But, the technical elements of Six Sigma are only half of the story. The other half. The often neglected half, has to do with resistance to change and leadership. Six Sigma is not a magic wand that can be waved, creating instant success. It must become part of the organizational culture. It must be carefully woven into the fabric of each organization’s initiative. This can only be accomplished with leadership that starts with the CEO and is mirrored by the leadership of Project Champions, Master Black Belts and Black Belts throughout the organization.
Crystal Clear Concepts has developed a number of programs designed to help those individuals responsible for implementing Six Sigma to develop their leadership skills to overcome resistance to change, facilitate Six Sigma Teams and train Six Sigma programs. These programs have nothing to do with the tactics of Six Sigma. They are programs designed to help people, often highly trained in technical areas such as quality, engineering and production, work more effectively with people.
In 1987, Crystal Clear Concepts, Inc., developed a
cross-functional team problem-solving program called “Quality Development
II” or QDII for short. The intent was to provide companies with a means to
address quality issues in a systematic, cross-functional approach. While the
program is nowhere near as comprehensive the Six Sigma program, it has many of
the same goals, objectives and philosophies; just as the Six Sigma program
believes that Black Belt project teams have to be made up of the people on the
floor who actually do the work, the design people who create the process around
theory, and the manufacturing people ---- so that knowledge and actual practices
are shared. Getting people to talk to one another and share what they know (and
don’t know) is crucial to the Six Sigma methodology, so does QDII stress this
same philosophy.
Six Sigma believes that successful implementation
depends on an interaction among the following principles, among others:
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Educating
all levels of the organization. Without the necessary training, people cannot
bring breakthrough improvement.
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Champions
and Black Belts to promote the initiatives and provide the necessary planning,
teaching, coaching and consulting at all levels of the organization
QDII
trains these same principles (minus the Black Belt terminology), along with an
emphasis on the cross-functional team approach.
However, what Crystal Clear Concepts found out while working with
companies in the QDII process, over fourteen years, was that no matter how
sophisticated or simple the process and methodology, no matter how committed the
organization and its employees, much of the success of the program was in the
ability of people to communicate and work together to achieve the program goals
and objectives. And, that communication and teamwork is never automatic. It must
be trained!
To
address this problem, Crystal Clear Concepts developed a program to prepare team leaders,
project managers and supervisors to facilitate the cross-functional team problem
solving process.
As
teams grow and develop, they pass through a number of stages that are necessary
to their growth and maturity. Understanding this process can help to smooth some
of the rough spots and create an awareness that can speed up the development of
the team. These stages include:
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Stage 1
– Orientation
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Stage 2
– Dissatisfaction
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Stage 3
– Resolution
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Stage 4
– Production
Within
the four stages, team leaders need to use several different leadership styles to
achieve maximum results from
the team performance. These leadership styles are the following:
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Stage 1
– Directing
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Stage 2
– Directing moving to Coaching
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Stage 3
– Coaching moving to Supporting
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Stage 4
– Supporting
moving to Delegating
The most important of these leadership styles are the coaching and then supporting leadership styles. Unfortunately, it has been our experience, supported by research, that the coaching leadership style is one of the least understood and most underutilized leadership styles among managers, supervisors and team leaders. For this reason, Crystal Clear Concepts has developed specific training to provide these skills to team leaders.
In
reviewing the roles and responsibilities in Six Sigma, among the ten distinctive
roles that are prevalent during initialization, implementation, and deployment
(Executive Management, Senior Champion, Development Champion, Project Champion,
Master Black Belts, Project Black Belts, Process Owners, Six Sigma Green Belts
and Project Team Members), this training can most benefit the following
individuals in these specific responsibilities:
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Black Belts: In a) effectively developing and leading line-of-sight or
cross-functional process-improvement teams b) working with, mentoring and
advising middle management on the formulation and subsequent implementation of
process-improvement plans.
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Six Sigma Green Belts: Working in their specific areas, extending the reach
of Black Belts on Six Sigma projects, and taking on mini-projects of their own.
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Project Team Members: So they can provide project-specific, part-time
process and cross-functional support.
Additionally,
Master Black Belts could use parts of this training program to:
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Develop
and deliver training to various levels of the organization
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Coach and
support Black Belts in project work.
Additionally,
Black Belts and, to a lesser degree, Green Belts have traditionally performed
seven tasks in implementing Six Sigma. Five of the seven could benefit from this
training.