Category: Change Management

Organizations often have a strategy and process improvement program in place, but eventually start seeing signs of waning momentum. The organizations experience a familiar realization that it is difficult to sustain improvements. Organizations including hospitals and health systems have encountered similar challenges. It is not easy to launch a major change initiative in healthcare, and […]

Lean Six Sigma, a process-driven program to reduce defects, relies heavily on a decidedly process-free emotion: passion. A motivated, driven team can make the difference between success and failure. I know about the power of motivation – I learned to walk again with braces and crutches after a 55-foot fall that left me as a […]

There are many stories written about successful top-down change, but few about successful middle-out change – probably because the latter is much more difficult to achieve than the former. Sometimes, however, middle-out change is the only option – and with the right leader, success is possible. The following story, which took place at a North […]

A Conversation with… Gerald P. Belle, CEO of Merial, And Silke Birlenbach, Merial’s Vice President of Operational Excellence In a conservation with iSixSigma, Gerald (Jerry) P. Belle, the executive chairman of Merial, and Dr. Silke Birlenbach, vice president of Operational Excellence for Merial, offer their insights on establishing a program of organizational excellence. Merial is […]

Human resource (HR) professionals who have a background or education in basic project management have a clear advantage. Being well versed in an improvement methodology, such as Six Sigma, is even a bigger plus. An HR professional who is able to present a business case with a compelling return on investment will be respected. Having […]

“Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant.” Substitute “company” for “country,” and most people in modern organizations will nod and sigh deeply (although not many will know that the quotation is from British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli – and that it was uttered back in 1867). Change is inevitable – in pursuit of better […]

Leaders invest a significant amount of time in meetings. Whether one-on-one or in larger groups, meetings offer a chance to discuss or launch a project, share ideas, consider solutions and reach consensus. Unfortunately, much of this time may be wasted without the use of a few basic management techniques. Along with a well-designed agenda, it […]

Change happens every day. In today’s business world, it is the only thing that is consistent. But why change? And why are some people better at it than others? And in an environment where everything is changing, why is it so difficult for some companies to change? To answer these questions, it is important to […]

A Six Sigma initiative – or any change process for that matter – is only successful in the long run if the stakeholders truly adopt and sustain the change. Process and technology change cannot be implemented without a change in the hearts, souls and behaviors of the people involved in or impacted by the change. […]

The ideal approach to deploying Six Sigma is to begin by improving current processes, followed by ongoing monitoring and managing of these processes, and eventually establishing process-oriented management. However, successful deployments can vary.

Yes, it is true. Lean Six Sigma drives change in an organization. It inspires people to look at their processes differently – through the data-savvy lens of waste awareness – and to discover, characterize and control their processes. In so doing, this behavior drives process improvements, which often require changes to be communicated, deployed and […]

A powerful process improvement tool since the 1980s, Six Sigma has grown in popularity over recent years while less effective initiatives have faded away. Yet some still believe Six Sigma will ultimately share that same fate. These skeptics are people who feel burdened by the disruption Six Sigma has caused in their responsibilities and authority. […]

We are constantly hearing about change. Change in the political environment, change in the economic environment, change in our personal lives and change in the business environment. Change has become part of everyone’s life. For instance, no one uses a briefcase-sized cell phone anymore, and mimeograph machines have long been relegated to the storage room. […]

Change agents often are confronted with the need to improve immature processes. These can be processes that are undocumented, uncontrolled or highly variable. For improvement to take place, practitioners must first determine if any roadblocks, such as low employee motivation or a lack of strong leadership, are in place that can keep the process from […]

Kaizen events – concentrated meetings that are designed to bring about rapid change – are often misunderstood by those who have not completed one. From the outside, the events may simply seem like advanced all-day meetings with fanfare. What many organizations do not fully appreciate is the investment required to pull off such an orchestrated […]

Effective cultural change is not simply the result of a large group of people accepting the arguments of other influential people – it is the sum of the change of that population’s values, operational knowledge and habitual behaviors. Essentially, culture is not changed until a majority of the population is thinking and acting differently from […]

Black Belts seldom have authority to direct the teams, sponsors and leaders they work with. Therefore, as a full-time change agent, today’s Black Belt needs excellent soft skills to move things forward from their position within the team. At the top of that skills list are coaching and mentoring. By blending these two disciplines, Black […]

Turning strategic stretch goals into daily behavioral change has never been easy for big companies. While executives talk about customer focus, what passes for intimate financial interactions in a busy call center is often laden with tedious work-arounds, risk-adverse rules, hopelessly complex technical redundancies and platform interactions. At one of the world’s largest mutual fund […]

Many process improvement efforts are doing well enough, limping along with casual support from the management team, blissful ignorance from most first-line employees, some frustration from overtrained and underutilized Belts, and savings and improvement that are neither earth-shattering nor close to entitlement. Here are a few relatively simple and straightforward actions to take to turn […]

One of the participants in our Six Sigma Black Belt training program expressed concern about a lack of buy-in for Six Sigma in her organization. With little inquiry into the matter, we discovered that the means she adopted to gain buy-in were not apt for selling the philosophy. A lack of buy-in is most common […]

Time management is a common sore spot among many Six Sigma practitioners. The typical complaint: “I spend most of my time on my day-to-day responsibilities – my Six Sigma projects – and then my personal life suffers.” The question is: How can practitioners best manage all of their tasks and priorities? While time cannot be […]

In a recent speech to a local chapter of the American Society for Quality, the speaker stated that in a typical work site as many as 15 percent of the employees actively work to subvert the goals of the organization. Their activities obviously have a negative effect on the clients of the organization and the […]

The title Black Belt implies that a person carries the knowledge and experience of Six Sigma methodologies, tools and processes. These are the skills necessary for supporting an organization in implementing solutions that help streamline processes, eliminate waste or provide cost savings, to name a few. While Black Belts are technically advanced in the Six […]

Making changes in an organization, especially when embarking on a new improvement method such as Six Sigma, can be slow going – employees may see the method as “just another fad.” Because of this, leaders need to use a deployment approach that will kick-start a change program, and keep it maintained. One method to approach […]