How to Develop and Nurture a Six Sigma Culture?

Introduced in 1980 by Motorola, the Six Sigma concept gained immense popularity in 1990 when General Electric showed its positive impact on their performance. The main purpose of Six Sigma is to reduce defects or errors in different processes and improve product quality. Every process has some level of variability, and to get rid of it, you first need to identify the noise in a system. To do that, your focus must be on the data−driven facts instead of your gut feeling.

Why Embrace Six Sigma Culture?

Most businesses have embraced Six Sigma in their business processes in order to bring efficiency to their performance. They have also developed employee training programs to introduce people to the Six Sigma culture. To ensure their employees do not get back to following the old and traditional practices, they have adapted to this reliable and effective strategy that has shown excellent results.

There’s no denying that both methodologies used in Six Sigma can bring a tremendous change in the way a business is conducted. Employees are highly likely to go back to their old problem−solving procedures in the absence of a Six Sigma culture. That’s why it’s important to not only train your employees to embrace this change but build your business’ culture around Six Sigma.

How is Six Sigma Better than Traditional Culture?

If you haven’t adopted a Six Sigma culture yet, you might be relying on traditional approaches for dealing with different organizational challenges. While there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s a more effective and advanced way to make your business operations smoother. Besides, if you want to keep up−to−date with the growing business demands and current customer trends, it’s important to embrace change.

And Six Sigma culture is just the right way to do that. In a traditional culture, the department managers are responsible for developing a long−term business strategy that could help businesses achieve organizational goals. Six Sigma is different. In this culture, businesses include each team member when brainstorming new ideas or finding the most reliable solutions to challenges. In addition to the project managers and leaders, they involve team members, as it’s believed no one can provide better insights into the project than someone who’s actively participating in it. Six Sigma is all about cutting−edge technology and smart solutions that help cut costs, produce better output and make processes manageable.

Six Sigma consists of five levels − white belt, yellow belt, green belt, black belt, and master black belt. You need to rise from one level to another to gain knowledge in this industry and become a proficient part of the company.

How to Improve Your Business Culture?

Bringing a cultural change to your business can greatly impact your company’s performance. There are several steps to achieving that, but we have mentioned the most crucial ways below.

Supporting Six Sigma

You need to understand the processes, levels, and purpose of Six Sigma before you embrace this culture. Having a sound knowledge of the concept is important to ensure that every team member or your business associate implements it correctly. Once you understand the culture, it will be easier to incorporate it into your business and make effective management decisions that promote your company’s growth in the long run.

Practice Improves Your Performance

Introducing your employees to Six Sigma and making them ready to adapt to this change is the first step toward changing your business’ culture. Once you have done that, you can focus on the implementation. This should start with employee training. You can customize the training to your employees’ skills, performances, and goals. Remember, the more employees sign up for the Six Sigma training and certification courses, the easier to bring a cultural change to your organization.

Be Ready for Anything

Implementing a new culture, especially when your entire workforce is new to the change, can be very tricky. You are bound to face challenges at each stage, and many employees and even supervisors will want to switch to the traditional approaches so that they can deal with the difficulties effortlessly. An important part of accepting a cultural change is staying on the right track. You must be prepared for all obstacles and ready to deal with whatever comes your way.

Reward Your Team

An important part of implementing a Six Sigma culture is encouraging or motivating your employees to understand it. One way to do that is by rewarding your workforce. Reward each employee who puts effort into bringing this cultural change to your organization. You should reward them in teams and on individual levels.

Leaders of Six Sigma

You will become a leader of Six Sigma once you finish the initial levels. A candidate who has achieved the Green Belt in this program can take part in group projects that require efficiency, dedication, and a problem−solving approach to deal with basic challenges. Those with a black belt certification are considered the Six Sigma leaders, and they gain the ability to lead their teams and guide them in the right direction. The skills and abilities you gain from finishing Six Sigma are basically the abilities you need to succeed in today’s business world as leaders. Here’s what you’ll learn.

• How to achieve your objectives (both long−term and short−term) without any authority and by using your influence or convincing power instead.

• How to deal with difficult problems following a systematic and practical approach.

• How to communicate a vision to your team and guide your workforce to achieve the goals, even when you can see a lot of obstacles coming your way.

• How to deal positively with disagreements, conflicts, disputes, and other problems.

Most businesses want to adapt to the Six Sigma culture and bring this cultural transformation into their organization to streamline management, reduce waste, and make processes more efficient. This can bring a powerful change in your business, output, and overall performance when implemented correctly and supported by your entire team.