Winning - Jack Welch [87]
The second application is different. It involves a sophisticated level of training and statistical analysis. I myself have never had this kind of training, but I know from GE’s very positive experience with jet engines and turbines that it works.
Make no mistake: Six Sigma is not for every corner of a company. Jamming it into creative activities, such as writing advertising copy, new marketing initiatives, or one-off transactions like investment banking, makes little sense and causes a lot of wheel-spinning. Six Sigma is meant for and has its most meaningful impact on repetitive internal processes and complex new product designs.
SO WHY THE PANIC?
At this point, you might be wondering: if Six Sigma is so straight-forward, why does it cause so much anxiety and confusion?*
Probably because of the way it is initially presented to people. In many cases, senior management hires outside experts—scientists, statisticians, engineers, or Six Sigma consultants—to preach the new gospel. These experts, well-intentioned though they are, proceed to freak everyone out with complex PowerPoint slides that only an MIT professor could love. To make matters worse, they often present Six Sigma as a cure-all for every nook and cranny of a company. No activity is spared.
Several years ago, the CEO of a well-known consumer goods company visited me to get my take on Six Sigma. “We’re off to a good start,” he said. “We’ve hired several statisticians from places like Carnegie Mellon, and we’re looking for more.”
I thought to myself: This poor guy has really drunk the Kool-Aid!
Not using those words, I told him as much. The statisticians might be great, I said, but for the relatively straightforward projects he was looking at, he needed everyone in the company to understand Six Sigma. The brand-new experts were only going to scare people.
He said he’d think that over, but I think he was just being polite. He saw Six Sigma as the purview of experts, not in the blood of his company.
In time, most people come to understand Six Sigma and where to use it—and not use it—in an organization. Most of all, they also come to appreciate its competitive power after they’ve seen it in action for a few months. At which point, they usually become Six Sigma missionaries themselves.
So next time you hear Six Sigma mentioned, don’t run for cover. Once you understand the simple maxim “variation is evil,” you’re 60 percent of the way to becoming a Six Sigma expert yourself.
The other 40 percent is getting the evil out.
YOUR CAREER
* * *
16. THE RIGHT JOB
Find It and You’ll Never Really Work Again
17. GETTING PROMOTED
Sorry, No Shortcuts
18. HARD SPOTS
That Damn Boss
19. WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Having It All (But Were Afraid to Hear)
16
The Right Job
* * *
FIND IT AND YOU’LL NEVER REALLY WORK AGAIN
IT’S SAID that you can only live life forward and understand it backward. The exact same thing is true about careers.
Every time I ask successful people about their first few jobs, the immediate reaction is almost always laughter. The chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, A. G. Lafley, thought he was going to be a professor of Renaissance history. That career plan evaporated when he dropped out of grad school to join the navy for two years, and then spent six more running grocery and specialty stores near a navy base in Tokyo.
Or take Meg Whitman. She started her career as a management consultant, then joined Disney to open its first stores in Japan, then moved to Stride Rite to revive its Keds brand, then took over the ailing floral company FTD, and then moved to Hasbro to run its PlaySkool and Mr. Potato Head divisions.
It makes perfect sense that Meg Whitman would end up as the CEO of eBay, the retailer of absolutely everything, doesn’t it? But you know there was nothing specifically planned about her career. EBay didn