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A Powerful Strategy for Sustained Success
THE MOST CHALLENGING
question confronting business leaders and managers in
the new millennium is not “How do we succeed?” It is:
“How do we stay successful?”
Business today offers
the spectacle of a succession of companies, leaders,
products, and even industries getting their “15 minutes
of fame” and then fading away. Even corporate
powerhouses – the IBMs, Fords, Apples, Kodaks and many
others – go through dramatic cycles of near-death and
rebirth. It is like riding the wheel of fortune as
consumer tastes, technologies, financial conditions and
competitive playing fields change ever-more-quickly. In
this high-risk environment, the clamor for ideas on how
to get the edge, stop the wheel (while on top, of
course), or anticipate the next change gets louder and
louder. Hot new answers are almost as common as hot new
companies.
Six Sigma can seem
like another “hot new answer.” But looking closer, you
will find there is a significant difference: Six Sigma
is not a business fad tied to a single method or
strategy, but rather a flexible system for improved
business leadership and performance. It builds on many
of the most important management ideas and best
practices of the past century, creating a new formula
for 21st century business success. It is not about
theory, it is about action. Evidence of the power of the
Six Sigma Way is already visible in the huge gains
tallied by some very high-profile companies and some
not-so-high-profile ones, which we will examine in a
moment. Just as important, through, is the role Six
Sigma plays in building new structures and practices to
support sustained success.
The goal of The Six
Sigma Way is to enable you to understand what Six Sigma
is (both a simple and a complex question), why it is
probably the best answer to improved business
performance in years, and how to put it to work in the
unique environment of your organization. In our mission
to demystify Six Sigma for the executive and
professional we hope to show you that it is just as much
about a passion for serving customers and a drive for
great new ideas as it is about statistics and
number-crunching; that the value of Six Sigma applies
just as much to marketing, service, human resources,
finance, and sales as it does to manufacturing and
engineering. In the end we hope to give you a clearer
picture of how Six Sigma – the system – can dramatically
raise your odds for staying successful, even as you
watch other companies ride one wave of good times only
to wipe out on the next. (Our first and last surfing
analogy!)
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