What on earth has Six Sigma got to do with HR? part one

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is both a philosophy and a methodology. It’s about improving the experience of customers, improving work experience for the people and improving business outcomes. Done well and widely, Six Sigma can dramatically and often radically change the culture. It is not about training masses of people and hoping for the best.

Six Sigma initiatives within organisations are results oriented. They work on process problems which are critical to the customers, to the staff or to the business. Internal people are thoroughly trained to lead those projects through to successful completion, using a wide range of both statistical and problem analysis tools. The payoff to the business is usually calculated using strict financial criteria. The people who organise and carry out this work are central to the success of the initiative. Knowledge (methodology) is transferred, applied and retained in the organisation by working on business critical issues.

The deployment of Six Sigma in an organisation is in response to a specific need, such as a loss of customers due to unacceptable product or service ‘experience’ in dealing with the firm, or a need to establish a collaborative culture of action. Different needs will result in different deployments for Six Sigma – breadth, speed of deployment and specific Six Sigma methodology application can all vary. The critical message is that there is not a ‘cookie cutter’way to introduce Six Sigma to an organisation, but HR is a key participant both in the decision to deploy and in the design.

Six Sigma roles

In a full Six Sigma project a number of roles are created and filled.

Six Sigma leaders are those senior managers who take on the responsibility for the Six Sigma initiatives (or campaigns, in Motorola language), whereas the CEO or other executive team members may act as sponsor of the whole concept. The leaders seek out and nominate ‘mission-critical projects’, and they provide the management energy and horsepower to free up resources, provide the means and integrate the Six Sigma effort into the organisational big picture. The other senior management player is the project champion – the manager who carries overall departmental or functional responsibility for the particular project, and in many cases is accountable for the project outcomes.

Traditional roles within a Six Sigma deployment include ‘Master Black Belt’, ‘Black Belt’ and ‘Green Belt’, although some companies establish their own nomenclature for these roles.

Master Black Belts are those who technically and organisationally manage and mentor the project leaders, called Black Belts. The Black Belts are the engine room of the initiative, as successful projects breed more success, enhance the reputation of the initiative and consequently lead to organisational improvement. Black Belts are usually full-time for 12–18 months, delivering between two and four projects.

Green Belts provide technical support and data gathering, often in turn leading small but still critical sub-projects as part of a wider project. They are sometimes only involved on a part-time basis.

From these brief descriptions it can be seen that well trained and motivated leaders within the Six Sigma initiative are vital. Six Sigma is all about people and outcomes. HR professionals are usually charged with accountability for the ‘right people in the right role at the right time and at the right cost’ as their organisation strategically matures through marketplace or policy environment twists and turns. The challenge over the last ten years has been for HR professionals to extend their knowledge and expertise to the recruitment, selection, career development, training and evaluation of the new breed of players on the organisational block.

A lens to spot talent and magnify the leadership experience

Six Sigma project leadership roles provide accelerated opportunities for an organisation’s future leaders, according to consultants in the Six Sigma business. Simon Wandke, a partner in Destra Consulting, which counts companies such as BHP Billiton and Telstra among its clients, says potential future leaders get to work on important business issues and fix them, with high visibility to senior management. When HR is not involved from the start of Six Sigma, or merely pays lip service, there’s a risk of parallel leadership and talent development. Early integration of HR systems and structures with the Six Sigma deployment are vital, he believes.

Whenever the high potential talent pool and the Six Sigma talent pool are seen as separate, then they’re in competition. One scavenges from the other for either orthodox leadership positions in the organisation or for Six Sigma project leaders. When the two pools substantially overlap, as they do when HR supports the Six Sigma processes, the overlap supplies synergy. New opportunities within Six Sigma open up for the high potentials, and some people chosen with Six Sigma criteria in mind suddenly reveal themselves as true high potential candidates for future leadership positions. The Six Sigma projects also give these potential leaders opportunities to showcase their talents. The Six Sigma projects test the Black Belts’mettle. Most are enhanced by the experience, but the occasional leadership hopeful falls by the wayside.

Corporate strategy, HR strategy and Six Sigma are one

According to Wandke and Garth Rymer, Motorola University’s representative in Australia, the most successful and long-lived Six Sigma implementations (GE, Dow Chemical and Motorola are in their second or third decade of Six Sigma) have the upfront involvement and active participation of the finance and HR functions. HR is centrally involved in Six Sigma people policy development, then in the selection, recruitment, training, mentoring and development of these key people.

The development of policy for Six Sigma is a subset of the development of policy for the organisation as a whole. Thus prior to Six Sigma launch, there are role profiles for the key players, key criteria identification and assessment methods for choosing the best people to fit those roles. Performance reviews for Six Sigma leaders are integrated with performance reviews for managers in the mainstream.

In the best firms there is what Wandke calls a ‘backfilling policy’, whereby the career plan for a Six Sigma ‘graduate’ extends to reintegration into the mainstream with sufficiently challenging and engaging assignments. Wandke also stresses the need for planned incentives to take on Six Sigma roles in organisations new to Six Sigma. A prospective Black Belt has to weigh up their career prospects with a known and predictable journey through the organisational mainstream, versus an unknown and unpredictable journey through the uncharted waters of Six Sigma. Again the best firms provide reassurance and social and financial ‘parachutes’ to allow the prospective Black Belt as much certainty as is possible under these unfamiliar conditions. Rymer stresses that one of the prime incentives to the high achievers is an initial challenging, mission-critical project – perhaps something they’ve wanted to sink their teeth into for some time.

Where HR may be frozen out or unwilling

Occasionally HR people who wish to become involved find themselves consciously or unconsciously ‘frozen out’ of Six Sigma initiatives. This can occur when a very strong-minded Six Sigma sponsor manages operations. This is sometimes found in operational or manufacturing environments, where the general or divisional manager onsite does their own thing, trampling over the support functions as they raid the best people for the Six Sigma projects.

Under such conditions, there is a risk of tinkering with both financial and HR systems, and taking shortcuts which will come back to haunt the organisation. Consequently, there is a need – if not an imperative – for HR to muscle into operational territory or try to influence the consultants to make sure proper HR processes are followed. This is to ensure that the bigger career and developmental picture, beyond the day-to-day requirements of the Six Sigma projects, is taken into account.

There are HR people who are unwilling to be part of Six Sigma, Wandke and Rymer have found. Both stress that these negative HR attitudes must change in order for success to prevail. Rymer believes that although some HR individuals may be personally at fault, some may be victims of ‘the Sir Humphrey syndrome’, which refers to organisational cultures which are driven by politics rather than by data and facts. Such cultures militate against smooth implementations of Six Sigma, and they straddle both the public and the private sectors.

In principle, HR represents the people outcomes of a three-legged stool with legs labelled ‘business outcomes’, ‘customer outcomes’ and ‘people outcomes’. HR is a foundation stone, far beyond a simple facilitator or enabler, Wandke believes. Key HR players are included in Six Sigma sessions which are part educative and part introspection. Participants are urged to be inquisitive, both about Six Sigma and their own mindset. They are asked to ask themselves: “Where do I stand on this initiative? Why am I passive? Why am I afraid? What do I see as the risks for me and my department? What are the rational arguments against becoming involved? What could we achieve as an organisation if HR was integrally involved from the inception of the Six Sigma launch?”

A case study in Six Sigma leadership

When prospective Black Belts were called for in a new Six Sigma initiative on one of a mining organisation’s processing sites, the CFO put forward Josie, a young accountant untried in the tough world of the plant. In checking the fit between her capacities and the Black Belt role, it was found that she excelled in the areas of problem analysis, creative thinking and decision making – all the intellectual requirements for the role. She didn’t have a formal statistical background nor did she have a lot of technical knowledge, but she was bright and she would learn.

With the three qualities required for implementation – achievement motivation, resilience and sensitivity to relationships, Josie really shone. Her boss had faith in her, but her light was hidden under a bushel, buried in finance.

Josie’s aptitude for the Black Belt role showed up in the first project, working with people who had a reputation for putting competent female superintendents under a lot of subtle and sometimes unsubtle pressure. But after an initial testing time, Josie was able get through to the people and the people were able to break the back of the problem. She made sure that they got the credit for what they had achieved, and their success became her success, as she progressed to other technically-based projects – originally seen as out of her domain and reach.

In the next issue, the step-by-step role of HR in Six Sigma. Paul Carey is a Melbourne-based consultant in organisational development and change. Tel: 03 9772 0502