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Title: Making Six Sigma Last : Managing the Balance Between Cultural and Technical Change by George Eckes ISBN: 0-471-41548-0 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 20 April, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.9 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Continuing the Success
Comment: George Eckes has followed his Six Sigma Revolution with a clear, insightful look at how to take the successes from Six Sigma training into the entire company. The culture of the company and the attitudes of the managers are what ultimately cause any performance initiative to falter, no matter how invested the participants are in the process.
Resistance to change is inevitable, Making Six Sigma Last accepts that fact and shows the reader how to overcome the resistance and win over the resisters. The method of addressing objections on a point-by-point basis with responses was particularly helpful. Most members of Six Sigma teams will recognize these objections from coworkers or supervisors.
Humorous and full of interesting examples drawn from his experiences as a consultant and lecturer, his book is the next best thing to hearing him speak!
Rating: 4
Summary: Tools and Teams are Not Enough
Comment: In this companion text to The Six Sigma Revolution, Eckes provides a convincing (and data-driven) argument that Six Sigma success as a management philosophy that will embed itself within an organization can be described by the simple function Q x A = E. While short-term cost savings and temporary process modifications can be achieved by the imposition of the strategic and tactical elements of Six Sigma ("Q"), these successes cannot be sustained with significant attention to the cultural acceptance ("A") of these elements within a company.
In Making Six Sigma Last, Eckes draws on his 20+ years of consulting experience to provide a handbook of tools and strategies to define, measure, analyze, and implement the changes needed to create a corporate culture that supports its Six Sigma efforts. Topics addressed include a.) how to identify and to deal with the types of resistance commonly found in organizations undergoing change; b.) how company leaders can create the vision, mold Six Sigma sustaining behaviors, and must be held accountable for the success of their efforts; c.) what it takes to create cultural acceptance of Six Sigma in terms of people, training, and attention; and d.) how to measure cultural acceptance. Eckes provides numerous anecdotes about companies, and their leaders, that exhibit both pluses and deltas in the implementation of a Six Sigma management philosophy.
Well-written, well-organized, with helpful summaries and key learnings, and enough stories and measurement tools to keep both your "people" and "technical" managers intrigued, I strongly recommend Making Six Sigma Last for any company that is considering adopting Six Sigma or that wants to sustain the short-term successes it has achieved thus far.
Eugene J. Nuccio, Ph.D. S4-Six Sigma Strategic Solutions
Rating: 5
Summary: Starting is Much Easier Than Staying the Course: Here's How
Comment: There are several outstanding books on the general subject of Six Sigma and Eckes has written two of the best. Previously in The Six Sigma Revolution, he examined major corporations such as Motorola and GE in which Six Sigma programs really did create revolutions which continue as I compose this review. These are properly acclaimed successes. Of course, little (if any) attention has as yet been devoted to those organizations which initiated and then later abandoned Six Sigma programs. The reasons for doing so vary, of course, but most can be classified within two categories of resistance to change: cultural and technical. As O'Toole brilliantly explains in Leading Change, it is a formidable task to overcome what he characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." In this volume, Eckes suggests all manner of strategies and tactics by which to overcome resistance and then sustain Six Sigma programs, once launched. Correctly, he stresses the importance to an organization of achieving a "balance" between its culture and its technology. Moreover, at a time when change is (literally) the only constant and occurring at an ever-increasing velocity, its is also a formidable challenge to maintain the proper balance of the two. For many years, I believed that most people fear change. I no longer believe that. Rather, I have become convinced that most people fear the unfamiliar. Hence the importance of constant and effective communication between and among everyone involved. Eckes suggests that this book will show his reader how to "Create the need for Six Sigma" but, in fact, the need probably exists already so there is a need to help everyone recognize that need and appreciate the importance of responding to it. Therefore, Eckes also shows his reader how to "Shape a vision of Six Sigma so that employees understand the desired results and new behaviors of a Six Sigma organization." Also, he shows the reader how to "Mobilize commitment to Six Sigma and overcome resistance" which is inevitable. Only then can any organization change its systems and structures "to support the new Six Sigma culture." Next: "Measure Six Sigma cultural acceptance" and "Develop Six Sigma leadership." All of these components are absolutely essential, difficult to integrate, and even more difficult to sustain in appropriate balance. In this volume, Eckes explains how and he does so with precision and eloquence.
In recent years, I have become more involved in Six Sigma or process improvement programs which vary somewhat in terms of their design and scope but all of which encountered several of the "pitfalls" which Eckes discusses in Chapter 8:
1. Feeling obligated to achieve quick success
2. Clogging up agendas with competing distractions
3. Having unrealistic time frames
4. Ignoring previous quality efforts
5. Conducting poor Six Sigma cultural planning and follow-through
6. Delegating (i.e. dumping) cultural development or seeing it as a one-time event
7. Not having appropriate cultural goals or objectives
8. Not allowing for unexpected interruptions
9. Allowing false or cosmetic positive readings to suggest authentic cultural transformation has been achieved
10. Underestimating resource allocation
Of course, whether or not involved with Six Sigma initiatives, any organization can experience some or even all of these "pitfalls." In this book, Eckes offers sound, street-smart advice on how to avoid them. Time and again, he places great emphasis on the importance of cultural values by which everyone involved in a Six Sigma can be guided and, when under duress, sustained. Herb Kelleher has this in mind whenever he explains what Southwest Airlines competitive advantage is: "Maintaining excellent customer service involves a process of getting people to understand the importance of it to them in their daily lives as well as in others'. We were a little concerned as we go bigger that maybe some of our early culture might be lost so we set up a culture committee whose only purpose is to keep the Southwest Airlines culture alive. Before people knew how to make fire, there was a fire watcher. Cave dwellers may have found a tree hit by lightning and brought fire back to the cave. Somebody had to make sure it kept going because if it went out, there would be serious problems. That cave dweller was the most important person in the tribe. I said to our culture committee, 'You are our fire watchers, who make sure the fire does not go out. I think you are the most important committee at Southwest Airlines.' I really do believe that to be the case." This is precisely what Eckes means by "culture" in this book. For everyone in any organization already embarked on a Six Sigma program or now considering one, this is a "must read."
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Title: General Electric's Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others Turned Process Into Profits by George Eckes ISBN: 047138822X Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 10 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Six Sigma for Everyone by George Eckes, George Eckes ISBN: 0471281565 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 22 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Six Sigma Team Dynamics: The Elusive Key to Project Success by George Eckes, Sandra Derickson ISBN: 0471222771 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 18 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Lean Six Sigma for Service : How to Use Lean Speed and Six Sigma Quality to Improve Services and Transactions by Mike George, Michael L. George ISBN: 0071418210 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies Pub. Date: 27 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Implementing Six Sigma: Smarter Solutions Using Statistical Methods, Second Edition by Forrest W. Breyfogle III ISBN: 0471265721 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 24 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $100.00 |
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