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In This Issue
The Circle of Life
Welcome to the iSixSigma Blogosphere newsletter. This week we have a plethora of posts from our bustling brood of bloggers...
Sue sinks her teeth into a circle of life/ Lion King analogy. Get ready to feast.
Gianna is back with more W.O.W material, and Kosta preps us for Halloween with "Culture Change and Fear."
I post a few tidbits of Six Sigma tools research as well as a link to Ellen Domb planting Six Sigma TRIZ on blogtalkradio.
Have a great week.
-Michael Marx
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/
iSixSigma Live! Summit & Awards - Early Bird Registration Ending
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February's 2nd Annual iSixSigma Live! Summit & Awards is coming soon, but the deadline for early bird registration is even sooner – Wednesday, October 14!
Join 200 Lean Six Sigma and process excellence leaders in South Beach, Miami, Feb. 1-4, 2010, to learn, share and network during:
- A pre- and post-conference day of master class workshops
- Two days of general sessions and breakouts
- A pre-conference executive boot camp
- And much more!
Take advantage of our lowest registration prices while they last
- Conference Only: $1,195
- All Access Pass: $1,595
100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! iSixSigma Live! is the only Lean Six Sigma conference producer in the world that offers a satisfaction guarantee. We're that confident that we're delivering a phenomenal learning and networking environment for each attendee.
Register before October 14 to lock in these rates! |
Featured Blog Entry: It's a Circle of Life Thing! By Sue Kozlowski
I used to be really annoyed with people who took a wait-and-see approach to change. They're not resistant, exactly, and they might be classified as "late adopters." But I could understand active resistance better than passive indifference.
Now, however, I have a little different take on things. Because I have realized that if you wait long enough, you may find that whatever was changed comes back around again!
Such as...
* Centralization vs decentralization of departments or functions
* Use of consultants vs hiring internal resources
* Outsourcing vs insourcing
This reminded me about the lines from the Disney movie, "The Lion King," where young Simba gets the explanation about how the antelopes eat the grass and the lions eat the antelopes, and then the lions die and their bodies turn to grass (OK, you knew it would be a PG version) which is then eaten by the antelopes. So everything comes back to a big circle of replaying the same scenarios...
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_a_circle_of_life_thing.html
Recent Blog Entries
"Customer W.O.W. - The Time is Now!" by Gianna Clark
[October 7]
What’s Needed - On Time - With Value (W.O.W.) It’s even more relevant in today’s economy. As families struggle to make ends meet, the value provided for the dollar spent is more important than ever. What does this mean? Higher expectations from customers at a time when businesses themselves are tightening up the spending reins. What should we do? Panic? No - we don’t need to stinkin’ panic . . . we got Six Sigma!
For decades, the "excellence minded" have used Six Sigma to balance the Quality - Delivery - Cost equation. And it’s times like these that will separate the "excellence minded" from the "naysayers". For excellence is not a linear function of money rather it is a combination of passion, planning, process and people...
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/customer_wow_the_time_is_now.html
"Culture Change and Fear" by Kosta Chingas
[October 1]
There’s no doubt that fear can prevent an organization to be what it could be, but what can be done about it...how many times have you been in a situation where there were problems to solve, but no one stepped up to the plate to solve them because of fear? Piggy-backing on my previous posting, this could be another inhibitor to making 6S truly mainstream. Take for example the following:
A defect is identified, and there is no clear root cause. Short term fixes are employed. A person is nominated to handle the problem solving, and as analysis is performed, the exercise becomes one of self-protection. Groups that are involved begin to work on proving that they are NOT the root cause. The activity becomes so muddy that no clear root cause is ever found. Whatever band-aid that was put in place becomes the solution, and the cycle starts again...
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/culture_change_and_fear.html
"Research: Misused Lean Six Sigma Tools" by Michael Marx
[October 12]
The latest iSixSigma Magazine research is about to be released in the upcoming November/December issue.
For this research we surveyed over 800 Six Sigma practitioners and asked them all about the tools they use, the tools they don’t use, and what tools they think are misused...
The chart at the left is the top 10 tools that practitioners said are commonly misused. (Click for larger view.) FMEA clearly stands out, but the remaining 9 tools each bring in a fairly steady 4-5 percent of the vote...
http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/research_misused_lean_six_sigma_tools.html
"Six Sigma TRIZ" by Michael Marx
[September 29]
Tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept 30), Ellen Domb, founder of the TRIZ Journal, will be on Steve Wilson’s show Quality Conversations, hosted by blogtalkradio.
Steve has interviewed a plethora of quality professionals in the past. Guest appearances include Tom Kubiak, Forrest Breyfogle, Mark Graban, Jessica Harper, as well as yours truly.
Ellen and Steve will be talking about Six Sigma Trees. Not the kind that grow in your backyard, but rather the kind that Ellen so expertly sows into everyday business improvement thought processes...TRIZ sure has a way of growing on you. I’ve attended Ellen’s TRIZ workshops several times and always enjoy her style, method, and expertise in teaching the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving...
http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/six_sigma_triz.html
Recent Blog Comments
Culture Change and Fear
For organizational and personal acceptance of problems you are struggling with a culture of authority and punishment. Many manufacturing companies (that is where I most commonly partner with 6S projects) you are dealing with a heirachy organization that is not built on admiting mistakes, it is built on being less wrong than that guy or department...
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/culture_change_and_fear.html#2742
So how do we go about doing that? I haven't seen much if any training on how to foster culture change in a tough environment like the one you're describing. Maybe theres a gap that needs to be filled here?
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/culture_change_and_fear.html#2743
A simple statement I have found useful in to prevent this kind of fear is a the concept that the problem is almost never the people, but it is the process. by placing any perceived blame on something besides a potential individual, the fear can transform itself into cooperation.
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/culture_change_and_fear.html#2745
Is There A Place For Six Sigma As We Know It In The Future
From my perspective, your end goal would seem to be the best forward-looking approach. If my company is any indication however, it would be a vast cultural shift to entrench 6S processes and make them commonplace. As for us, our executives are keen to have the super problem solvers only. They are fine with cultural change, as long it is not they who have to change. Just my two pennies worth.
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_there_a_place_for_six_sigma_as_we_know_it_in_the_future.html#2724
What do you think the main drivers are behind your management's reluctance to change? What prevents the organization from embracing 6S processes as the way to do business in your opinion?
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_there_a_place_for_six_sigma_as_we_know_it_in_the_future.html#2726
It's a "Circle of Life" Thing!
Read "The Fifth Discipline", by Peter M. Senge. The book broadly looks at system thinking and how organizations think and evolve. Several sections on how ideas in a corporate setting can take off and grow or simply die lingering deaths...
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_a_circle_of_life_thing.html#2759
Seventh Annual iSixSigma Global Salary Survey
 Now accepting salaries! Each year iSixSigma analyzes the data from its own iSixSigma Job Shop to create a comprehensive Six Sigma Salary report available in the March/April issue of iSixSigma Magazine.
Last year data showed that the average Black Belt in the United States made an average salary of $88,438. Master Black Belts brought home an average of nearly 120K. I don’t know about you, but I am very interested to see what those numbers look like this year.
I invite you to participate this year by logging into your Job Shop Account and updating your resume. If you do not have a Job Shop account, create one for free. We will be collecting data until October 15, 2009. Thanks!
http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/seventh_annual_isixsigma_global_salary_survey.html
The Cox-Box Cartoon
http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/data_transformation.html
For more of the Cox-Box, visit the archives or the new Cox-Box Store:
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Cox-Box Archives
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