Creating a Culture of Sustainability the DNA of Any Company

Ask yourself this question does my company have the right culture to ensure its viability and sustainability for the next 100 years? Do we understand the impact of what we do – such as quality improvement, operational effectiveness, efficiency and customer satisfaction? Today’s corporate leaders tend to talk a great deal about what skills, knowledge base, and tools are necessary to improve  performance within their organizations, but do we just go through the motions? Finally, do we really take the time to listen, to evaluate, and to implement the strategies that are necessary for sustainable improvement?

Every year corporate officers outline what they believe to be the priorities of the upcoming year as means to understand the level of investment required to receive a level of profit in return for this investment. Over the last several years, initiatives/strategies such as Lean and Six Sigma have become the tools that most companies around the world have embraced as part of their improvement plans. The literature in the field suggests there have been both successes and failures implementing these transformational philosophies. Using a combination of the two approaches of Lean and Six-Sigma does provide organizations with an array of process management tools to assist the organization to improve operating efficiency and quality improvement, while maintaining compliance with a myriad of regulations including the FDA and safety. The key element that separates a world class organization from a mediocre one is the culture it builds around these process tools. Building a culture of engaging people, creating the right processes, to create great products and services is critical for doing business in the future.

GE’s Jack Welch built a culture of “zero-variation” by using the Six-sigma methodologies of Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) which revolutionized how GE did business day to day and in the future. Moreover, Toyota Motor exemplifies as the Best- in- Class Company with the Toyota Production System, that uses Lean thinking to cut waste, improve quality, improve cycle times, improve costs and improve resource allocation and so much more. Each company, as with many others, has changed how they do business in the future by using these tools while changing their culture.

As the pharmaceutical industry strives to improve costs, while maintaining compliance to regulation, it is important to provide constant vision and engage employees at all levels of the organization about how these tools impact the workplace. The culture in which Lean and Six Sigma tools are used is a vital component of any company. Companies are always striving for an edge, and culture remains a key factor to get organizations to the next level of performance.

Many organizations think that providing the skills, training, and sponsorship is all that is necessary to get the organization to the next level. However the behaviors associated with the interaction of the people who have this knowledge is critical to the ongoing success and continuous sustainable improvement. Executives, managers, supervisors, and employees, all need to understand why the change is important, and how this type of change will impact their work. Executive leadership inevitably sets the tone necessary to transform the organization into a proactive and prevention-oriented culture. The process tools of Lean and Six Sigma are only as good as the environment in which these tools are implemented.

The power of a Lean Six Sigma Culture in many organizations can be a difficult challenge to understand and change. Often this initiative is left to the quality or engineering organization because they are involved with correcting problems or the human resource organization because they often deal with human performance inside a company. But embracing a Lean Six Sigma mentality will take more than just a department to roll out this improvement strategy. The degree of effort and the speed at which the organization evolves is critical. It will take the leadership of the company and the engagement of all employees to embrace, interpret, and commit to this new culture within the company.

There are several key factors that can help any organization achieve success with the implementation of a Lean Six Sigma program to create a culture of sustainable improvement. Some factors to consider are the commitment of leadership to assure the vision aligns with the organization, a communication plan, skills and education that will be necessary to drive improvement, profitability and return on investment (ROI), evaluation of the organizational structure to support the realignment of resources and functions. Nonetheless, for all these reasons, the new culture for the organization and the new internal structure does not emerge at the moment of thought or creation. Instead they all need to be deliberately and carefully orchestrated to assure alignment of resources, which will allow for human development to take place, as a learning enterprise evolves, while trying to incur minimal risk to the organization.
The formal elements of strategy, structure, systems and infrastructure coupled with the informal elements of people, competencies, behaviors, relationships, and culture must move in harmony over the long haul if companies are to create a new culture of sustainability through the use of Lean Six Sigma tools. The primary reason for doing this is so that the architecture behind the Lean Six Sigma initiative supports the new culture for the organization of ongoing continuous improvement.

So let’s explore in further detail some of the key factors and questions necessary for creating a new Culture of sustainable improvement in your company.

Commitment of Leadership
Kouzes and Posner declare in their book The Leadership Challenge Planner (1999) “Leaders cannot command commitment they can only inspire it.” Leaders need to be committed to the entire process of the new culture they desire to create. Leaders cannot merely enable the process, they must lead by example and inspire the rest of those in their organization to believe they are up to the challenge.

Key Factors
• Champion the vision process that aligns the organization and Culture on why the change is necessary and the impact Lean Six Sigma process tools will have on the people, process, service and products produced.
• Serve as active role models of the desired behaviors required.
• Create a forum of “real talk” for the leadership team to maintain an on-going focus and dialogue across the enterprise.
• Develop a management review process based upon key process indicators (KPI) to assure progress is being made and issues are being handled.

Questions
• What goals and objectives do not support the new vision and strategy?
• What Strategies and goals are translatable into executable projects?
• What behaviors are really necessary for leaders to be role models?
• What would the makeup of a quarterly management review look like?

Structure and Infrastructure
Structures are important to evaluate and determine how the resources are organized to assure the success of the organizational change. Infrastructures are critical and should be examined as to what systems are necessary for tracking and control.

Key Factors
• Create infrastructures that support the cultural change created by the Lean and Six Sigma processes.
• Assess the organizational structure to understand the impact the new structure will have on the organization.
• Alignment of the resources is critical for execution and implementation.

Questions
• How can human and financial resources be reallocated to better align the organization for the change?
• What infrastructure changes will be impacted or needed to be put in place to compliment the changes and Culture change? (The infrastructure in this case is the control, planning, information, human resource, operations, communication, and business processes).    
• What will it take to institutionalize the effort?
• What are the defined roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and behaviors required?

Communication
Communication and feedback mechanisms are important to convey an understanding of the potential challenges that lie ahead, and to clarify the purpose of each effort.

Key Factors
• Develop a communication plan for helping the organization understand the gaps and challenges faced inside and outside the enterprise and how often the communication will be done.
• Clarify the purpose in communicating up, down, and across the organization.
Questions
• What are the feedback mechanisms?
• Does the current environment convey “Real Talk” mentality?
• How does communication occur today in the organization?
• Why and what messages will you want to communicate?

Skills and Competencies: selecting the right people
The right people will need to be selected based upon their ability to execute the change management and undergo training in the skills required to initiate the Lean Six Sigma program objectives.

Key Factors
• Create the right criteria for what skills and competencies are necessary for selecting the right resources and candidates
• Leading Change is a key component in the transformation

Questions
• What skills are necessary for leaders and Black belts?
• Who are Change Agents?
• What types of resources are required to be trained in the methodologies and tools of Lean and Six Sigma?
• What competencies will need to change?
• What core competencies will be required?
• What leadership skills are important?
• What behaviors drive positive change inside the organization?
• Do we have the right behaviors to produce the right results?
• What behaviors will be learned and developed with the new routines and perspectives?

Training and Development
Training and education must be performed at all levels of the organization to achieve a higher level of effectiveness.

Key Factor
• Training and education mechanisms must be created to enable all employees at all levels of the organization to gain the ability, understanding, and motivation to modify their own perceived notions of the change and behaviors needed.

Questions
• How much Investment will be required for training and development?
• Will we do the traditional Lean Six Sigma programs?
• Will we outsource the initial training or target hire?

Team Empowerment
Leaders need to coach and empower the employees in the new culture for the benefit of the entire organization. Moreover, teams need to be the drivers of change.

Key Factor
• As the organization evolves and more participation is employed, Team roles, structure, composition and responsibilities are critically important.

Questions
• What roles within the organization will be contributing to the success of Teams?
• What contributing factors are important for teams?
• What leadership qualities are important to lead teams?

Rewards and Recognition
Organizations must have clear standards that are linked to performance objectives.

Key Factors
• Rewards and Recognition programs are important to assure the retention and recruitment of resources trained and developed within the new organization.
• Performance objectives need to set articulated.

Questions
• How will compensation be structured to assure talent can be acquired and retained?
• What is the career path of a Lean Six Sigma/Continuous Improvement candidate?
• What companies can be benchmarked for R&R?

The list of factors and questions listed above are not all-encompassing, but they do demonstrate the importance of how critical culture is in implementing a successful Lean Six Sigma program.

So what does this all mean? Why is creating a culture of sustainability important? Culture is what creates the momentum necessary to move forward and, over time, builds sustainability longer than anything else within an organization. Building a culture of engaging people, creating the right processes, to create great products and services is essential for doing business in the future. Building the right culture does not happen in a day or a week. It is a journey that takes place over time with many valleys and peaks to climb. It is the road less travelled but travelled by many with experience and knowledge. Can you imagine your company a few years from now after you’ve taken on the challenge to improve what people do, how they do it and what growth has occurred? Many companies are recognizing the importance of creating a culture of sustainability; will you see yours on the most admired list?