Since companies began introducing the philosophies of Lean and Six Sigma (with shout-outs to Henry Ford, Toyota and Motorola) to the Manufacturing world in the 1900s, the tools have been viewed both as a saviour to some and an abomination to others.
I’m not going to write about all the techniques and tools where Lean and/or Six Sigma can help an organization. I know others are far more versed in some of the methodologies than I am. Instead, I’m going to reflect upon the concepts and why they can cause such a huge disparity of opinions. Most of you have even heard the cynical acronym for LEAN: Less Employees Are Needed, which has made its way across many front lines over the years.
Often, both Lean and Six Sigma are used interchangeably with terms such as ‘Continuous Improvement’ (CI), ‘Process Improvement’, or TPS (Toyota Production System). Anyone who has been involved in any Lean activity or a “xxx Belt” project knows that it’s about implementing changes, trying to make something better, and identifying ‘waste’ (a word with such a bad connotation these days). This can be in the form of: extra effort, idle time, excess inventory, a poor process (to name just a few), to help deliver a better product, faster, to the customer at a reduced cost.
In my own mind for many years, right or wrong, I’ve always considered Lean projects about speed/flow and Six Sigma projects about quality (but yes, “1st time right” definitely helps speed as well). Who doesn’t want both of those?
At 1st glance, not many people would argue that providing a better product at a reduced cost isn’t a good thing. Yet, the trepidation is real with many companies’ employees. So why is that?
My own opinion is two-fold. First, it’s the old adage ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. Said another way, there is resistance to change among all of us (in some aspect of our lives, don’t get me started on some of my weekend routines) :). We need to be taught and shown why things are worth being done differently (or tried). Facts and data don’t lie (or shouldn’t). Normally, there is a very clear story to be told. In change management, we’re often asked to reflect upon the phrase “What’s In It For Me?”. Too often, the answer from CI projects is “keeping a job” or “less time needed to do the work”. That’s not a rainbow with a glorious pot of gold at the end; that’s a dark, stormy cloud to most people.
What if the message were delivered differently? “The opportunity to improve something for our customer and our company”, “the chance to grow our business more”, and “we can provide people the chance to work on new projects, train others, and meet a goal they have”. Don’t we all have goals (personal and professional) in this day and age? How one conveys a new initiative can be so key, especially when the culture is not yet firmly established. TPS is often referred to as a socio-technical system. What does the socio stand for? It represents how we deal with one another in society. This is a key element of TPS that is often overlooked in North America, doing what is right for our employees (training, development, listening, involving, satisfaction, fairness) *in conjunction* with what is right for the company. The two shouldn’t be at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Secondly, we have tended to rely more on those in Leadership positions to decide what improvements are necessary, while undervaluing the opinion of those on the shop floor/cell/work area. I’ve been guilty myself of going into a project with a fairly good idea of what the needed outcomes (ie. changes) are, and hence have shut the door on other suggestions. Regardless of the merit of those ideas, not listening to others automatically puts up a higher wall than what was likely already there in the 1st place. How often have ideas (yes, my ideas) utterly failed, or only lasted 2 weeks or 2 months, because the buy-in wasn’t there? More often than we all care to admit. We can’t audit every process, every day, to ensure 100% compliance. Talk about waste.
When building a team looking at an Improvement change, and regardless of the term used, it is purely an improvement change, let those on the team lead it (or be heavily involved). The most successful examples of improvement changes I had in my career occurred while I was at Honeywell. Here, the culture was open to new ideas, most (not all) agreed with the philosophy that they wanted to make things better *for everyone*, and before we knew it, many of them were *leading* projects successfully. The power of that culture and attitude is infinitely greater than the other “stormy” approach.
What do the tools of Lean and Six Sigma contribute to an organization? On their own, very little (you can’t measure and analyze forever). But provide people with a positive outlook and real involvement (does stewardship ring a bell)? I could use the term “Optimistic engagement” to try to give it my own spin. With this in place, change and improvement can really happen (and endure). And this is truly fun to behold and be a part of.