Aug
26
New Beginnings
Filed Under Leadership | Leave a Comment
Wow, the summer as I know it is over. After time in the Keys diving (fresh grouper and spiny lobster with good friends and good wine is as good as it gets), time in Canada with an ever extending family, and our annual Celebration of Life last Saturday (celebrating two births and one rebirth), 2 of our 3 kids are back in school today. Our youngest, Ali, went with great joy and Mom wept.
Which brings me to another idea that I think is right – Back to Breakthrough. I wish I were smart enough to have thought of the title, but that belongs to my friend, Mike Cyger, who centers the first ever conference help by iSixSigma around this theme. The idea is that in the beginning of this, the idea was big – to aggressively transform an entire enterprise. I have seen this happen several times in my career, most notably at Motorola, AlliedSignal, and GE.
All three were different, but had common themes –
1) All were supported from the top. At Motorola, ALL were trained and you could not hurt people who embraced the new way of working. At Allied and GE, some were trained and you could not survive as a professional if you did not embrace it.
2) All were exciting places to work. The excitement came from learning and growing a business.
3) There was no ambiguity about what to improve. At Motorola, it was everything and you were given targets of 68% reduction per year in defects, 40% reduction per year in cycle time (this was before the label of Lean existed – tools were the same). At Allied, it was all about money. The figured how much and average project would save ($125,000 later moved to $175,000), figured out how long an average project would last (4 months), figured out how many projects each belt could handle concurrently (2), and how much money they wanted to save ($680,000,000 in 95 and 96). Then they began to rotate out management that did not support the objective. At GE, it was about focus on the customer and freeing up cash flow – go read their annual reports, I cannot do those topics justice here. The point was the objectives were clear, people figure out the measures and paretos from there.
4) All had tremendous support infrastructures. By tremendous, I mean they had people that understood what it meant to be a champion (read In Search of Excellence for the definition). Some of the real legends in this realm came from these breeding grounds. I did not know them all (big enterprises) but Marty Rayl, John Lupienski, Mike Carnell, Richard Schroeder, Jim Lambert, and Craig Morton would all sacrifice their careers to move organizations. Some even thought I did okay on both teaching and supporting and I definitely have put my career on the line many times.
Point is, you don’t see this kind of thing lately.
I think Mike Cyger is on to something. It’s January 13 - 16, 2008 in Miami. Maybe we can even dive for some lobster, I know some great spots just 20 miles south of Miami Beach.
Be there of be square.
Gary
PS – My other new beginning is to start posting 3 – 4 time a week. Stay tuned.