Leadership and team development for Six Sigma Six Sigma as a best practice is more than a set of metric-based problem solving and process improvement tools. At the highest level, Six-Sigma has been developed into a practical management system for continuous business improvement that focuses management and the organization on four key areas:
Understanding and managing customer requirements. Aligning key processes to achieve those requirements. Utilizing rigorous data analysis to understand and minimize variation in key processes. Driving rapid and sustainable improvement to the business processes.
As such, the Six Sigma Management System encompasses both the Six Sigma metric and the Six Sigma methodology. It is when Six Sigma is implemented as a management system that organizations see the greatest impact. These organizations are among those that have demonstrated that breakthrough improvements occur when senior leadership adopts Six Sigma as a management system paradigm and everyone works as a team. The Six Sigma Management System Model of Team Development Over many years of experience of deploying process improvement teams, Motorola's Six Sigma leaders have informally adopted Dr. Bruce Tuckman's 1965 model of the four stages of team development. Every team is expected to go through the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing. Six Sigma leadership watched teams go through these stages many times and began to understand the impact of these stages on the ability of a team to do its job of process performance improvement.
Performing
Norming
Storming
Forming
The Forming Team In the forming stage, Six Sigma teams show a high dependence on leadership for guidance and direction. The team's purpose, objectives, and scope of work must be clearly communicated by the leader. A true team does not yet exist. In their own minds, team members are clarifying what the task assignment is and what it means to them personally and individually. Team roles and responsibilities are unclear and members may participate reluctantly. Leaders must be prepared to work closely with the team to get the elements of the Six Sigma Team Charter in place. Leaders should expect to do a lot of explaining about the strategic "why's" of the team's assignment. The Storming Team In the storming stage, the Six Sigma team's internal structure is born. Individuals try out team roles and responsibilities. In the storming process, they struggle to adjust to working together as teammates, and clash with each other's personal habits and working styles. Storming is an emotional adjustment and various teams will experience this stage with very different intensity levels. The primary issue is how the team will function to accomplish its objectives. Among team members, there may be significant disagreement and conflict about how everything should be accomplished. Cliques and factions can form, and there may be power struggles. Members may
Leadership and team development for Six Sigma ignore internal team procedures and test the tolerance of their leaders. Decisions do not come easily within the storming group. The team needs to be focused on its assigned objectives to balance the distraction of its internal relationship struggles. Leaders take on a coaching role, generating ideas for the team to debate, and suggesting and encouraging compromise decision-making to enable progress toward the team's primary performance improvement objective. The Norming Team In the norming stage, group identity and cohesiveness among members is established. Members achieve a sense of belonging and become comfortable sharing ideas and feelings, and giving and receiving feedback. The Six Sigma team builds a shared commitment to their assignment and their internally developed goals. Team roles and responsibilities are clear and accepted. The team discusses and develops its internal processes and working style. Big decisions are made by group agreement. Win-win agreements and consensus displaces compromise decision-making. Smaller decisions may be delegated to individuals or small teams within group. The sense of team unity is strong, and the team may engage in fun and social activities. The team leader becomes a facilitator and enabler. The team shares some of the leadership. The Performing Team In the performing stage, the Six Sigma team becomes an interpersonal force of interlocked roles and shared commitments that will support rather than hinder task performance. Performing teams have the esprit to deal with obstacles, setbacks, and complex problem-solving challenges. The focus of the team shifts to achieving its process performance improvement objectives. There is a shared commitment to over-achieving strategic objectives. The team makes most of its decisions independently while considering the criteria agreed to with their sponsor and the leadership. The team attains a high degree of autonomy in pursuing their DMAIC tasks and is able to function without direct participation of the sponsor. Disagreements occur but can be positively resolved within the team. The team is able to adjust its internal processes for itself and redefine roles as needed. The performing team takes on more delegated tasks and assignments from the team Black Belt leader. Team members recognize when to seek assistance or instruction from their internal leader or outside resources. The sponsor delegates and governs through regular progress reviews. The Six Sigma Management System Transactional Leadership Styles In practice, Six Sigma companies expect their performance improvement teams to go through these four stages of development. Experience has shown that when teams achieve the performing stage, they are also more often successful in accomplishing their assignments. Therefore, the Six Sigma Management System looks to leaders, team leaders, sponsors, process owners, and champions to practice leadership behaviour’s that promote the development of performing (stage four) teams. The team development practices for leaders in Six
Leadership and team development for Six Sigma Sigma companies also apply to developing the same Six Sigma work ethos in the many operational teams that run, maintain, and continuously improve existing business processes. Roots of the Six Sigma Leadership Styles Model The School of Behavioral Management Theory has influenced thinking about leadership practices for the Six Sigma Management System. These theories prescribe behavioral styles for leaders based on correlated patterns of work performance that various leadership behaviors engender in individuals and teams. The Managerial Grid Blake and Mouton originally identified two metrics for measuring manager behaviour: a scale rating the manager's concern for people, and a scale rating the manager's concern for production. Combining these two scales into a 10 by 10 grid, they coined names for each five "styles" of management behaviour based on a manager's ratings on the two metrics. The Situational Leadership Model Paul Hersey and Blanchard developed their Situational Leadership Model that suggested that leadership styles built on the two dimensions of task focus and people focus should be matched to the situation. As Paul Hersey describes it, "Situational Leadership is about being effective as a leader. This involves matching your leader behaviors (those behaviors you use when attempting to influence someone else) with the needs of the individual or group that you are working with. It is adapting the combination of directive behaviors and supportive behaviors appropriately to the readiness of others to perform specific tasks or functions. The Six Sigma Transactional Leadership Styles Applied Evolving from this history, there are four styles of leadership behavior - Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating - that are commonly expected of Six Sigma leaders. The Directive Leader When leading DMAIC or other process improvement teams, the Directive leader is needed to get the stage one (forming) team to understand and accept their assignments and build their Team Charter. A Directive leader is entirely in charge of what is happening now and dictates where the team is going. This leader provides clear, action-oriented directions for people to follow and explains why. The Leader as Coach For the stage two process improvement team in the storming mode, a leader who is a strong and stable coach is most effective. A Coaching leader is a recognized expert who is involved with the details of team activity but acts as a teacher and constructive critic. The coach leads with knowledge and encourages team members to develop their own understanding and perspective. Leadership coaching behavior is also called "selling" by some behavioral management theorists. At the storming stage in Six Sigma team development, the "selling" leader encourages
Leadership and team development for Six Sigma people to adjust some of their individual expectations, to learn about and accept other team members' perspectives, and to discover the mutual interests that they share around the team assignment and charter. This Coach helps team members develop their own emotional attachment to the team itself, to the charter of the team, and to the quest of the campaign. Make decisions and complete their tasks, the leader play the role of team member. When the team struggles, the leader "participates" with ideas and suggestions for the team to discuss and make decisions. The leader also participates as the team's external representative to get needed resources or outside help. The Delegating Leader Finally, in the last stage, the performing team works best with a Delegating leader. The role of the leader becomes one of providing high level direction about what should be accomplished strategically, and then reviewing progress and providing feedback to the team on its accomplishments. Norms and Variability in Six Sigma Team and Leadership Behavior Six Sigma is a statistical methodology at its base and all Belt-level practitioners are trained in the statistical concepts of averages and standard deviations. This makes it possible for Six Sigma practitioners to understand the four stage team development model as a statistical abstraction of variable team behavior. At each stage of team development, the "modal" or typical behavior is surrounded by variation in team behavior that falls into the other stages. The same statistical view of the four Six Sigma leadership styles also applies. At any point in time in managing teams, leaders will use a mix of behavioural styles appropriate to the varying complexity and clarity of the task and problem at hand, and modes of behavior of the team. One can gather data and create a metric shown as histogram distribution of leader behaviors in a time period or stage of team development. The leader behaviors can be classified into four histogram categories, one for each of the four styles of leadership behavior. In the forming stage, for example, one would expect a distribution of leader behavior to look something like that in the figure to the left. Some critics of all behavioral management theories argue that many, if not most, people lack the personality flexibility to adopt radically different styles of leadership in varying circumstances. That position is arguable since no hard data exist to support or contradict it. On the other hand, Six Sigma is based on the belief that people, leaders, and team members are able to do exceptional things. Six Sigma companies recruit and develop talent as a top priority and assign their most talented performers into their Six Sigma programs.
Leadership and team development for Six Sigma Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership in Six Sigma Six Sigma thinking about the four leadership styles is only one dimension of the leadership role needed from campaign leaders. Leaders must create the ideal cultural environment where the process improvement work ethos can thrive and generate breakthrough changes. The "Direct-Coach- ParticipateDelegate" styles of leadership have been called a "transactional" model of Other People’s Views (OPV) leadership. Transactional models focus on leading people through the performance of routine tasks and activities that are the stuff of everyday work. Contrasted with transactional models, there are "transformational" models of leadership. These are the models that describe and analyse the need for, and the impact of, charismatic leadership, and change leadership. The Six Sigma Management System looks at leadership as a multidimensional complex, where both transactional and transformational leadership are critical dimensions of leadership performance. Leadership Behaviors looks extensively at the transformational dimension of leadership that is needed to engage an organization of people in the quest to create, drive, and direct a breakthrough campaign and then sustain Six Sigma results in the world of constant change. Six Sigma as a management system evolved as a blend of applied science and engineering, practical business experience gained in more than fifty years in both Japanese and American industry, established theories of leadership, and proven team based methods of organizing into productive work units.
OPV is a technique that can be used to identify all the stakeholders of a relationship (including future generations) and to imagine their views on the relationship. It can be used to consider all sides of a relationship. Two questions that you can ask yourself (or another stakeholder) of a relationship are:
Who is affected by this relationship? What are the viewpoints of those affected by this relationship?
These questions may help you get a better feel for the different views of the relationship you should consider when trying to improve it. For example, a team is experiencing disruptions caused by a difficult team member. So, the team leader asks, “What is the viewpoint of the difficult team member, OPV?” The team members recognized that the difficult team member’s boss is putting tremendous pressure on her to meet a target. Fear of the target is causing the team member to be stressed and resentful of any activity that takes her away from generating new sales. The team members recognize and empathize with her problem and help her meet her goal by pointing out sales opportunities she had not thought of due to her stressed condition. She makes some sales and is appreciative of her team members. She begins to be a positive source of energy for the team.
The Six Sigma Management System is a unique way of thinking, combined with a set of management tools and practices that can be very valuable to companies engaged in Six Sigma and other process performance improvement initiatives.
