Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement By Strategically Deploying Lean Six Sigma

In every organization, the work gets done by hundreds or thousands of processes. Many processes have opportunities for improvement hidden just below the surface.

Over time, serious problems can develop if these opportunities are not addressed. The impact of the problems individually may be small, but the accumulative effect can be devastating to a business.

Start With Small Successes

While starting Lean Six Sigma with a small team works well, it comes with inherent risks that cause efforts to stall and limit your ROI if a more strategic approach isn’t planned. Here are some risks of keeping Lean Six Sigma efforts small:

Limited Impact

By starting small, the overall impact on the organization may be limited. There is only so much they can do. With limited impact, the organization can lose interest, stalling progress. By contrast, the collective impact of smaller improvements can be tremendous.

Sustainability Challenges

Lean Six Sigma is a long-term, organic approach. Once improvements are made by the few that are trained, they need to move on to other projects. Sustaining the improvements then falls to the staff that is involved in the day-to-day process. Without widespread training and communications, people are not equipped to maintain improvements and process performance begins to slide.

Resistance to Change

Introducing Lean Six Sigma can encounter resistance from staff who are unfamiliar with the approach or those familiar with unsuccessful attempts in the past. That’s to be expected—it’s human nature. With a limited approach, this resistance can outweigh the supporters and diminish the impact of improvements, stalling the creation of an improvement culture. Training and communication are needed to mitigate this risk. Address past attempts and move forward with open communication and realistic expectations.

Scale Success Strategically to Drive Results

With a GLSS Membership, you can affordably create a Culture of Continuous Improvement.

If your organization was equipped as an “army” of problem solvers, then you have a prevention system in place to not only stop problems from developing but to continually improve business performance. The following are the top reasons why you should consider a broad strategic approach to Lean Six Sigma training to drive results and mitigate the risk of training a handful of individuals.

Widespread Impact

Deploying Lean Six Sigma training across the organization creates a “critical mass” of problem solvers and ensures that improvements are made consistently and uniformly. This critical mass fuels a chain reaction that amplifies engagement and results, compounding your ROI.

Fewer Mysteries

As business processes become visible and better understood, hidden opportunities become clear, enabling improvements that make a meaningful business impact.

Sustainable Results

With broad deployment, the methodology and mindset are embedded into a larger part of the organization, ensuring improvements are sustained over the long term. Consequently, once improvement projects are completed the handoff back to daily operations is seamless because the staff is equipped to manage process performance as well as make small-scale improvements over time.

Getting Real

Enabling an army of problem solvers changes the business conversation from one of opinion (“We think…”) to one of facts and data (“This is how we know”). The employees can drill deep into problems and test solutions.

Grow Business Capability

No need to hire expensive problem solvers or consultants when you have an army of problem solvers built into your business. They understand the realities of your business and can provide many eyes to see opportunities and solutions. As capability grows, so does a culture of continuous improvement. Resistance to the unfamiliar is replaced with confidence built on knowledge, skills, and results.

Agile and Responsive Organization

Engaging more people with a broad deployment of data-driven decision-making and process focus become part of the company’s DNA and permeates the day-to-day operations, creating an agile and responsive organization.

Alignment With Business Goals

A broad strategic deployment ensures that the capabilities can be aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives. Also, all managers can be depended upon to lead their teams of problem solvers toward the organization’s vision.

Greater Bench Strength

As your organization grows and people move, most of your workforce is equipped with the skills needed to continue—critical staffing vacancies become a rare event. With a workforce that understands business processes and is guided by facts and data, more of your employees will become savvy business leaders while doing their jobs. Succession planning is completely different when you have many internally qualified candidates.

More for the Money

As skilled problem solvers, employees give more than what is in their job description— this gives the organization much more for the money. Knowing the business processes well allows employees to provide more value than ever anticipated.

A GLSS Subscription Plan makes it easy for organizations to realize the benefits of a strategic deployment. With a GLSS Subscription, you get access to all our globally-recognized training and certification courses including:

• White Belt Training & Certification
• Yellow Belt Training & Certification
• Green Belt Training & Certification
• Black Belt Training & Certification
• Lean Belt Training & Certification

Access to these gives you and your organization:

• Awareness training for all employees (Yellow Belt)
• Intermediate training for project managers (Green Belt)
• Advanced training for leaders (Black Belt)
• Courses that are 100% online and self-paced/asynchronous
• Tons of easy-to-understand examples and case studies
• The ability to train your organization quicker and at a fraction of the cost of traditional training

Want to learn more about GLSS Subscriptions for your organization?