Here’s the Deal – Lean Six Sigma and Behavior
Dr. Aubrey Daniels Presents at American Strategic Management Institute’s 2007 Lean Six Sigma Excellence Summit
Aubrey Daniels, Ph.D, founder and chairman of Aubrey Daniels International (ADI), brought his expertise to American Strategic Management Institute’s 2007 Lean Six Sigma Excellence Summit to deliver the keynote address on Lean Six Sigma and behavior – “A Process Without Behavior, Is No Process At All.” Dr. Daniels works with organizations on behavioral science to optimize performance and achieve lasting results. His straight forward talking of, “here’s the deal,” captivated the audience and brought insight into the importance of understanding workforce behavior when implementing new process improvement initiatives.
“Here’s the deal…unless you are going to implement Lean Six Sigma systems by yourself, managing the behavior of others is crucial to success.” There are many presentations, books, webinars, websites, etc. which discuss implementing Lean Six Sigma but few that discuss what differentiates one organizations success from another. Dr. Daniels’ answer: behavior.
Dr. Daniels launched into how you define behavior and the steps in a behavior management process. He defined behavior as the action of a person that is at a minimum – observable, measurable and reliable, and outlined the five step management process as: 1. Pinpoint, 2. Measure, 3. Feedback, 4. Reinforce, 5. Evaluate. He emphasizes that to improve a process you must look at your results first, and then, pinpoint the behavior associated with the results to improve the process. After going through the behavior management process, if results do not change, the wrong behavior was pinpointed and a new one must be identified.
Next, the audience learned to clearly understand reinforcement and its consequences. Is the reinforcement positive or negative? Were the consequences immediate or in the future? Were the consequences certain or uncertain? And how does this affect the organization’s culture and enthusiasm behind a new initiative? Simple exercises of answering these questions can prove very useful to help determine how the workforce will react to a new initiative, especially Lean Six Sigma.
Continuing the discussion, Dr. Daniels stressed the importance of consequences. He says “behavior is a function of consequences,” and consequences must happen immediately after an action to gain the most impact and change behavior. He suggested consequences which are positive or negative, that have immediate impact on an employee, and which provide certain forecasted change for the employee are the most effective in changing behavior.
Concluding his presentation, Dr. Daniels left the audience with stating “addressing behavior in a scientific way, the power of Lean Six Sigma methodology can be multiplied, sustained and become a primary value in every organization.” His ideas and thoughts around behavior resonated with the delegates and helped them gain an appreciation for behavior when implementing new process improvement initiatives.
