Page 51 - Six Sigma Demystified

32 Six SigMa DemystifieD

Executive Overview Training

Six Sigma training should begin with the managerial ranks of the organization so
that managers are prepared to lead the effort. Motorola’s director of training and
education estimates that the company wasted $7 million training from the bot-
tom up. General Electric (GE) learned from this mistake, to Jack Welch’s credit.
Initially, Welch required that anyone seeking promotion to a management
position be trained to at least the green belt (if not black belt) level. A year later
(effective January 1999), all professional employees should have begun green
belt or black belt training. Considering that this directive encompassed 80,000
to 90,000 employees, it sent a clear signal that all levels of management would
be leading the Six Sigma effort (Slater, 1999).
Other firms have since adopted this model as an effective way to reinforce
the Six Sigma methodology throughout the organization. Studies have shown
that employees are much more likely to use specific business tools if their direct
management uses the tools. Employees want to speak a common language.
Conversely, if management won’t use specific techniques, employees are likely
to abandon their use as well, feeling that the tools have been discredited or
misunderstood by management.
The overall objective for senior management training is an understanding of
the link between program success and business success. Managers should inte-
grate the program into the business strategy so that completion of each Six Sigma
project leads toward achievement of particular business goals. Likewise, they
need to continuously promote and sponsor projects that strive for these goals.
If all levels of management do not see the vision laid out for the Six Sigma pro-
gram, then deployment becomes stagnated or undermined. These are the hidden

signals of a doomed Six Sigma deployment. Upper levels of management can help
to overcome these problems when trained properly as Six Sigma champions.
Lower levels of management also need to clearly understand the methodol-
ogy. As first- or second- line department managers and supervisors, they have to
see how they and their personnel fit into the deployment scheme. Resource
reallocation will have perhaps the greatest impact at their level: Personnel will
be reassigned from their departments to become full- time black belts; many of
the remaining employees will be diverted for week- ong green belt training and
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then to participate as project team members; processes will be disrupted for
experimentation, data collection, or process redesign.
Departmental managers must not think of themselves as mere “victims” of
the Six Sigma deployment. In fact, their functional areas will show measurable