Iin other words: what messages or information file or throw in the trash bin first? But the truth is still in the eyes of the beholder: when one's head's hammered with ever increasing number & intensity of messages, sooner or later one'll get to believe them. We are not so far from our pets, in this, too. I've myself pushed forward the idea of quality, if not "ethical" communication: Maria Teresa Giannelli, lecturer of Groups' Techniques at Rome University, published in 2006 with Raffaello Cortina, italian leader in Humanistic Sciences, her book "How to communicate ethically - and effectively". Years before, I argued with a friend of mine working in the ads business, how would the billions-budgets yearly spent in ads be evaluated for effectiveness. For instance, why does the automotive industry make pay the car buyers tenths of the car sales price, when every year this industry turns out a new, or apparently new "model year", to keep sales alive?  Something really doesn't sound right. Thank you.

Great article.

With reference to:

"Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, could have been talking about quality management today when he said, “If everyone is thinking the same thing, then no one is thinking.” ''

and:

"Business consultant Margaret Wheatley calls this “disturbance,” and points out that “much more is possible if we can be together and consciously look for the differences, those ideas and perspectives we find disturbing. What if, at least occasionally, we came together in order to change our mind?”

I believe we don't do it because we don't have a tool with which to do it. Back in the 1980s, while working for Bell Northern Research and Nothern Telecom, a tool was developed and it was surprisingly effective and simple. Ironically it was based on one of the main causes of group think, namely Brainstorming, which despite its intention of 'breaking the mold', often would fall far short. The twist was that after the generation of ideas, regardless of how obtuse, followed by a polling of candidates to take forward to the next step, the facilitator asked then each of the protagonists for the ideas not selected to explain their reason for the idea before discarding it. The logic here was that conventional wisdom, (probably and oxy-moron) would invariably dismiss new ideas and keep them suppresses (a la Galileo), so why not go look in the 'rejects' pile rather than in the 'popular vote' pile. - Brilliant! and in my own experience it led to several very significant breakthrough technologies that helped fuel Nortel's success in that period.

Similar ideas were also expressed by Edward de Bono - his 'po' (provocative operator) concept was to intentionally steer 'thinkers' off the well-trodden path in order to create breakthrough ideas by what he termed 'Lateral Thinking'.

Google it for more.

Serial change-agents (Ford, Jobs etc..) all knew and practiced this kind of contrarianism.

Keep up the good work!

John

A good article. However I find it to be a generic attack. Replace the six sigma specific terms of the article with any concept you hate, it will still make sense. Six sigma is a simple problem solving methodology and why one should bother much about the hype created around it. It is just like a language spoken and understood by many. When an entire organization is able to understand or reciprocate to a common systematic problem solving methodology it becomes easy for the organization to control and direct actions towards common objectives. I think the article would have been more mature if it had raised awareness about the right way of using a methodology and alerted people not to fall for the hype around it rather than calling the methodology as simply foolish.

Regards,

Uma V