It’s Time to Dump ‘Management Commitment’

And finally embrace leadership

A rough draft of this column had been sitting in the “drafts” folder on my computer for several weeks. Rip Stauffer’s recent commentary, “Is Six Sigma Dead?” prompted me to dust it off and finish it.

In my not-so-humble opinion, Six Sigma is not dead but “management commitment” sure is—or maybe it never had much life at all.

As I get closer to retirement after a 35-year struggle to break the chains of college statistics courses, properly educate myself by studying W. Edwards Deming, Walter Shewhart, and others, and then to properly use the tools and philosophies of continuous improvement in industry, I’m sure I’ve gotten a bit cynical. So, if a bit cynicism offends you, then read no further....

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Comments

Cynic!!

Sometimes it just seems too easy to blame everything on management. Sometimes it seems to me like a cop out excuse for employees failing to embrace the new program. Organizational inertia is a powerful thing and is one of management's main obstacles to effectively implementing new programs.

Cynicism

A cynic... yes... but then he warned of that early on in the article.

Statisticians created the means to ferret information from data, Shewhart applied their methods to production consistency, Deming introduced that tool and others to corporate management, Juran made clear the benefit of quality products and services to the bottom line, Crosby used cost of quality to make the linkage of profit to quality simple enough for even corporate management to understand, and Harry packaged it all in the bottom line focused plug and play Six Sigma package. Even with all this horsepower at work corporate heads still stay buried in the sand.

It isn’t about “commitment” or “leadership”, and it certainly isn’t explained by the inertia of people... that’s just another element that those in charge need to recognize and consider in their plans. The problem is near-sighted, short-term, bottom line management, but the root cause is the system that selects those making the decisions.

I’ve been in the working world now for over 45 years; my experience includes everything from global corporations to small local shops, from high tech to no tech, and from doer to director. When I started Crosby had just published “Quality is Free”, Juran was predicting (accurately) when the Japanese car makers would outperform the Americans, and Quality Circles was just entering the English language. From then to now the problems have stayed the same… just the faces and places have changed.

Unless and until a way is found to bias our economic system to select those who lead and manage for long term value we will be, as we have been, stuck with the inevitable results. Good luck with that one.

near-sighted, a 'deadly disease'

Deming's 2nd deadly disease of management: "Emphasis on short-term profits: short-term thinking ". It's (all the problems) all about the system - the set of inter-related processes that produces anything. Two quotes come to mind: “The right process produces the right results” – Dr J Liker. “The surest foundation of an enterprise is Quality. After, far after, comes Cost.” – Andrew Carnegie

Agreed.

I'm afraid I fully agree with you and not the comment. I'm not sure that changing terminology will matter. I have seen very few true leaders in the corporate environment, especially when it comes to quality. And even corporate examples from the past have seriously stumbled. Only two CEOs personally come to mind in over 40 years in industry (and government and military). I've (and others) have used the term "flavor of the month" to describe the changing short term goals of sr. mgmt. to satisfy quarterlies / stockmarket / bonusus. And it's only getting worse. Most employees are already cynical. And much "training" only reinforces the lack of management commitment, since those selected or hired to train, often have no clue as to their subject matter, company culture being dealt with, and the reasons behind the requirements.

Dumping 'management commitment' is irrelevant

Years back, in analyzing why roughly two-thirds of Software Quality Assurance (SQA) groups failed, ‘lack of management commitment’ was high on the list of blamed causes. However, I found that more often lack of management commitment was an effect, rather than a cause, of SQA group failure. I don’t disagree that poor leadership is the norm, but simply declaring that better leadership is needed does nothing to make it happen. Referring to those in powerful position as the organization’s ‘leadership’ rather than ‘management’ further obscures the facts that leadership is earned by leading, whereas positions are managerial; and those in said positions often lack needed leadership skills.