Page 52 - The Power to Change Anything

Find Vital Behaviors 41

With something as fuzzy as the ability to talk to others about
high-stakes issues, it’s less clear that this precariously “soft”
interpersonal skill is the primary contributor to the Six Sigma
training taking effect. Successful teams did report progress in
this area as opposed to the cynical teams, but did the ability to
talk openly actually cause the difference?
When you move from computer analysis to taking a guess
on your own, you walk precariously close to the line that sep-
arates science from everything else. Crazy superstitions live off
bogus conclusions. Whole companies can be brought to ruin
when leaders respond to hunches.
Given the inherent dangers of watching and concluding on
your own, it’s essential to immediately follow up your conclu-
sions about cause and effect with a test. Then you must teach
your newly discovered vital behaviors to the failed groups and
see if the behaviors you chose actually do cause the results
you’re trying to achieve. In the Six Sigma case, we (the authors)
taught the three vital behaviors across the 4,000-person factory
and saw immediate gains in the company’s Six Sigma invest-
ments. With the Guinea worm, The Carter Center and CDC
team has now eliminated the plague from 11 of the 20 coun-
tries that were afflicted when they began the campaign.
Worldwide infections have dropped by over 99 percent because
of an influence strategy that focused on three vital behaviors.
Evidently, they were the right ones.

TRY THIS AT HOME

How about the home version of the search game? When you’re
not dealing with Guinea worms in sub-Saharan Africa or failed
Six Sigma projects at a factory, you might wonder which search
techniques, if any, could work for you personally. Henry
Denton—our friend who is trying to lose weight—would cer-
tainly be interested in finding a handful of vital behaviors that
would make it easier for him take the weight off.