Six Sigma & Change Management

It has been said and proven repeatedly that change is the order of the world. When it comes to business, everything from its growth and expansion to its dissolution is continuous change. Changes happen because of new work conditions, work pressure caused by customer feedback, implementation of new processes or perhaps due to seasonal conditions among numerous other conditions. Whether it is for the company or its workers, if change is done positively, companies can overtake their counterparts and excel as a whole while giving their customers satisfactory service.

Workers Opposition

When it comes to change, the company should be ready for the after effects. Opposition from different and importantly the most unexpected corners should be expected. Workers should be given time, if they haven?t been able to adapt to the change. This negativity can be seen through their resistance to work and comprehending changes. The workers could also delay work and resort to tantrums, besides the ignoring of work and not cooperating.

How To Manage Change In Six Sigma

? Sometimes people are opposed to change only because they don?t want one. By adapting to the change, workers show their willingness to future change; therefore denying any kind of change could discourage the future ones.

? Project leaders could opt to explain the change and the benefits to the workers. This could make them aware of the possibilities and simplify things. Project leaders could use additional sessions with the workers explaining through one-on-one meeting, mails or even over a lunch.

? Workers sometimes resort to mocking and ridiculing the change to show their opposition. In this case, the Black Belt must anticipate the nature of the workers and should formulate reports derived from independent sources to prove the effectiveness of the change.

? If change takes a longer period to take effect, it could also force the leaders to adopt different means to add momentum to the change. Besides, the change proposed should be speedier and permanent in nature.

? The profit obtained after putting a proposed change to practice has a positive effect on not only the company, but also the workers involved. Shareholders vouch for the financial benefits acquired from the change.

? Leaders could prove to the workers the effectiveness of their change through the profit reports, which have been enhanced after the implementation of the change.

? The foundation of a change has a major impact on its future, therefore managers or team leaders should formulate the correct implementation of the change.

? The flexibility of the application or the software involved in the change should be cited. This could increase the participation level and a consistent rate of improvement, giving the workers a feeling of contribution and satisfaction.

? Besides the given remedies and options available, to change the resistance to change leaders could keep their workers updated about the forthcoming changes to avoid surprising them.

? Leaders and team members should share a good and healthy rapport, because of this communicating the different changes and new additions to the process can be intimated to the workers very effectively.

All said and done, change management is done on a broader scale and aimed basically to succeed in changing the mindset of the workers to adapt to change from time. Leaders should be ready for any kind of resistance to work, by the workers. They could identify the root cause of the resistance and explain its benefits to the workers. In addition, working hand-in-hand, team leaders and workers could be responsible for the profit of the company and their own progress.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.