A survey by IIBM Institute of more than 1,300 business
professionals whose companies are using Six Sigma revealed that leadership
development programs which involve Six Sigma training are six times more likely
to be called “highly successful” than those without. Many of these leadership
development programs involve a Black Belt track for future leaders.
Modern Leadership Competencies
It is becoming more fully recognized that only
half of the knowledge and skills a successful leader needs are business and
functional know-how. At least as important as these skills for modern leaders
in a rapidly changing environment, are strong competencies in leading change
and in improving, designing and managing processes.
How can a Six Sigma program help to prepare
leaders for facing these problems? The fact is that change leadership and
process skills are best learned on the job, i.e., through project work. This
hands-on experience is emphasized in the certification requirements for
becoming a Black Belt, which typically include:
·
Successfully completing
multiple major improvement projects in different functional areas.
·
Working in their Six
Sigma position for three years.
·
Helping Champions in
project selection.
·
Leading, training and
mentoring multiple Green Belts in the use of Six Sigma tools and techniques.
Having met these requirements, Black Belts
should normally have gathered a wide range of insights into the general
leadership competencies:
Business Knowledge
Through their process improvement projects,
Black Belts accumulate important understandings of their company. They gather
knowledge about the products/services offered by their company, business
strategies and objectives, relevant markets, customers and their requirements
and, of course, about many core and enabling processes. They also know a lot
about roles and responsibilities within their organization – who does what, who
makes what decisions, who is an expert on what subject, etc. This gives them
the advantage of a broader-than- usual perspective of the business, not to
mention a large informal network of contacts.
In addition, Black Belts have proven that they
can achieve measurable business results. They have learned to select projects
with high leverage, which means they know how to concentrate on business- and
strategy-related issues. They are less apt to be distracted by low-priority
issues.
Functional Know-How
Black Belt-trained leaders learn the value of
staying close to processes – the “nuts and bolts” of how work gets done.
Through analyzing and improving multiple processes, Black Belts also gain a
deep understanding of the procedures their associates are working in and with.
Associates, in turn, are most apt to have confidence in and trust leaders who
“know the way it is” on the shop floor or in the backroom.
Process Improvement, Design and Management
Know-How
Probably the most important lesson a Black Belt
learns is causal thinking. Thinking in cause-and-effect relationships and
focusing on the vital few root causes not only helps in day-to-day problem
solving, it also is the basis for breaking down strategic or business
objectives (so called lagging indicators) into their most contributing
influence factors (leading indicators). This is critical when selecting the
appropriate projects and improvement activities in the area of their
responsibility, and when setting performance goals for their associates. A
Black Belt-experienced leader uses dashboards showing the most important
leading and lagging indicators to continuously monitor and, if necessary,
improve a business unit.
No less important, Black Belts get used to
making sound and solid decisions based on data. This means they use facts to
validate cause-and-effect relationships, e.g., when verifying whether an
investment will significantly improve a given situation and thereby will pay
off. A Black Belt in a leading role therefore asks associates for data when
they have to make a decision, and they teach associates that they themselves
should not rely on gut feelings when doing their daily work. Black Belt-trained
leaders ask the right questions…and keep asking questions.
Last, but not least, Black Belts learn to think
cross-functionally, i.e., in a process-oriented way with not only external but
also internal supplier-customer relationships. In a leading position, former
Black Belts therefore structure their area of responsibility along key
processes. They design the jobs in their department according to these processes.
And, of course, they are eager to continuously improve the processes and, if
necessary, redesign the processes they own, always driven by the internal and
external customer requirements. Process management charts help them to
pro-actively manage these processes.
Change Leadership Ability
Having completed multiple process improvement
projects, Black Belts have experience in facilitating change. Normally, they
are asked to start on a small scale – in their small project
environment – to drive change. They learn, on a manageable scale, how to
deal with and overcome resistance to change. They are trained in such “soft
skills” as active listening, influencing and communication. After their tenure
as a Black Belt, they should have developed appropriate means to deal with
people’s natural resistance towards change, to solve interper-sonal and
structural conflicts, and to successfully guide people through the difficult
and emotional rollercoaster-like transition phase. And, in particular, trained
Black Belt leaders learn to identify and to influence the important
stakeholders in order to gain their commitment.
Conclusion: A Tool for Growing Leaders
Six Sigma is a results-oriented, hands-on approach for developing
critical leadership competencies such as influencing without formal authority,
making decisions based on facts, managing change and leading teams of
associates. Six Sigma has a “self-financing” nature since Black Belts must
complete several projects with significant impact on bottom-line results. Thus,
the return on (leadership development) investment is much higher than for many
other leadership programs. When supported by a rigorous selection and career
planning process, the Six Sigma Black Belt experience is a tremendous vehicle
for growing a company’s pool of leadership talent.
Established in 2008, IIBM
began its mission with the sole purpose of imparting professional education to
career aspirants even in the remotest corners of India and the world.
Thousands of IIBM alumni are working with leading companies like
Citibank, Wipro, Dell, Honeywell, and HCL & Convergys.
