Some authors say at least 60% of change efforts fail to achieve lasting results.
In “Why Process Improvement Projects Go Wrong,” Professor Satya Chokravorty shares how and why a majority of Six Sigma implementations fail.
Professor Chokravorty found:
…that when confronted with increasing stress over time, these programs react in much the same way a metal spring does when it is pulled with increasing force—that is, they progress though “stretching” and “yielding” phases before failing entirely. In engineering, this is known as the “stress-strain curve,” and the length of each stage varies widely by material.
After explaining a typical story of stretching, yielding and failing, Professor Chokravorty provides four actions managers or executives could take to eliminate the failure of the change initiative.
- Keep an expert embedded in the change longer.
- Tie all team member pay to the success of the change effort.
- Teams should have no more than six to nine members and project timelines must be no longer than six to nine weeks.
- Executives need to directly participate in team projects not just “support” them.
While, as an engineer who studied stress-strain curves, I’m entertained to read a business article applying the curves to change management, Professor Chokravorty’s suggested steps to eliminate Six Sigma failures leave me disappointed.
All the actions offered are versions of coercion (e.g., orders, fear of negative consequences, removal of positive consequences) to externally compel someone to change. I’ve previously defined these as driving people to change actions.
Why not try driving change instead?
Driving change is choosing a change for yourself and clearing the obstacles for others to internally choose the change too.
Read below the fold for how I’d translate the four actions above into driving change actions.
