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They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the danger. But if you put a frog in a kettle that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant and then gradually start heating the kettle until the water starts boiling, the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late. The frog's survival instincts are geared towards detecting sudden changes. Don’t most of us suffer from this short-sightedness? Aren’t we always obsessing over short-term events and not taking cognizance of the bigger picture? This could be a major Six Sigma hindrance.

As Uday and I were in the final year of our graduation, everyone around us was sure of Uday's future. They said Uday could sell anything. Others spoke highly of his emotional intelligence. Sounds like an instant marketing hit, doesn’t he? Well, so he was! Filled with the indomitable energy of a sales newbie and exuding charm he sped his way to step into the shoes of a Area Sales Manager after 5 years of introductory sales engineer experience. Although he surmounted every problem that came his way, human errors made by subordinates served as regular bottle-necks. He’d ensure the avoidance of billing errors on his own but communication gaps would result in one. He would often suffer the embarrassment of differential pricing quotes for the same offering. And his team's efficiency was blotched with documentation errors, material dispatch errors, poor after-sales service etcetera all along the way. These debacles soon earned him the ire of his clients and he began to invest substantial time in resolving issues with them. What came to his rescue during such delicate times were his soft-skills. His juniors hero-worshiped him. They all said that Uday had his way with the clients and had to be seen tackling them to be believed. His success prevailed. The changing times soon saw him as GM Sales and in his stewardship saw the automation of many processes. Just when he was expecting technology to result in perfection, errors persisted due to a high rate of attrition amongst sales professionals. Uday sought help in sales counselling sessions but the organization was still infested by errors, reactive measures and rework. One hadn’t an option but to become complacent in the current situation of mediocrity. Majority of Uday’s energy was directed towards client conflicts and retaining business. Still exuded charm, our man, but perfection still eluded him. 15 years into the job and following a linear trend, Uday was now the Vice President of the sales department. Towering now over a fleet of GMs and reporting only to the CEO, he collaborated with the New Product Development Team and the Hiring/Training Team. Banking still on his insight into the customer psyche and high emotional intelligence and his reputation as the best Sales Workshop Facilitator, Uday now became the direct contact for strategic high value clients. But what sounds like a success story had a bitter glitch. With all he had accomplished in his 18 years long stint, Uday still couldn’t bask in the glory of his success without disturbance. He convinced himself that he had stuck to the same organization too long. It was now time for him to shift his allegiance. He flowed with the trend of his time and joined a multinational organization. This is where Uday had the greatest revelation of his life! The skill set he had acquired over the past prolific 18 years of his life seemed redundant now. The processes here were highly streamlined; devoid of quotation disputes, erroneous and delayed invoices, shipment delays and other organizational inefficiencies. It was there and then that the great truth had dawned on him; his coveted moment of corporate enlightenment; the great organizational consciousness that he had come in terms with: his new organization swore by and soared with Six Sigma- the ultimate organizational truth and saviour. Six Sigma had his creative juices flowing. He no longer felt contained or restricted. His approach was futuristic; prevention was the thumb-rule not mitigation. He soon collaborated with the Leadership Team and formulated a new sales model which heralded in astronomical revenues. Uday realized that he could never enjoy such potency of thought in his previous organization where he wasted much of his energy tackling trivialities. Much like Buddha, he attained the great consciousness the hard way. But it needn’t be so tough, does it? One can only imagine the greatness he and his organization could’ve scaled had he stumbled upon Six Sigma earlier.

Dear All, To explain how Six Sigma impacts career and organizational focus, let me give you a real life example. One of my friends is an extremely successful sales professional with wonderful selling skills with little Six Sigma knowledge. In his previous job, he was leading Sales in an IT products (computers and IT hardware) company. His job profile rotated mainly around closing corporate deals initiated by junior Sales Executives. He spent a lot of time in resolving quotation related issues with clients. Issues arose almost everyday because clients used to call different sales persons in the company and used to get different pricing or discount offers. These different quotes for the same models to clients were within the discount authority available to Salespersons. Even after lot of counselling sessions, these issues continued and were accepted as a way of life. My friend, as a Sales Head had a challenging job comprising of the following Reaching each disillusioned client (some of them feigned it to get an advantage) Explaining why the difference in quotations arose. Doing some jugglery with numbers and terms, and finally, getting the Order. He used to get most Orders as he was too good with his Sales pitch and relation building abilities and the product was good. This sequence of tasks also provided him a feeling that he was doing a really worthwhile job resolving some big issues and an achievement feeling almost every day. He was made to feel special by juniors who honestly respected and admired him for his special abilities that succeeded in bringing them out of troubles so many times. He had several other similar work flows which started due to invoicing errors, order and delivery mismatches, and the like. He recently joined a process driven (Six Sigma implementing) company where some good Six Sigma projects had been done. One Six Sigma project had ensured that there was absolutely no possibility of different quotes landing up with a clients for the same model, even if different Sales persons are reached by the client. He found the new job boring as the entire fascination in his previous job was due to troubleshooting and fire-fighting which was a daily affair. Here the scope was little as he found the working to be quite streamlined. There were no quotation disputes, no erroneous invoices, no delayed invoicing, lesser delays in shipments, rare mismatches between order and delivery to name some of the areas. (All this was achieved through persistent Six Sigma efforts project by project). After some time with this new company, this person realized that the only way he could use his creative energies was by working on some futuristic tasks. This led him to work and succeed with some big deals which were reached with collaborative efforts with associate companies. He had to spend very little time here with juniors. And whatever time he spent went into discussions about strategic clients and deals. He realized that this was impossible in his previous job as his creativity was being utilized in fire-fighting issues (those issues did need a lot of creativity as each case had to be managed in a unique fashion). This brings us to some important questions Are we using our creative energies in futuristic tasks (like worthwhile projects and improvement activities)? or are we losing ourselves in repetitive work? Are their ways by which we can spend more of our time in futuristic tasks that can bring success and laurels for self/ company/ nation? Six Sigma concepts and tools provide you with the right philosophy and roadmap to achieve more (results, profits, output) with less (inputs, cost, time) Coming back to my friend's example, can you visualize how many benefits he and his company could have realized if they had utilized the power behind Six Sigma early? (To share with you, the company he left still continues to provide the same job profile to Sales leaders and they derive the same kind of daily appreciation from juniors on same issues repetitively) Warm Regards, Vishwadeep Khatri, Lead Facilitator Benchmark Six Sigma

What would you prefer in your process - a false alarm or a missed alert? I am assuming that you are collecting data from your process and viewing it to judge abnormal behaviour so that corrective action can be taken. I am also assuming that the data you are collecting is continuous data, each value is independent of others and the data is normally distributed. False Alarm - A false alarm occasionally may be okay or you may never want it. It depends. However, too many false alarms can lead to the assumption that something is wrong leading to an unwarranted change in a well behaving process. Missed Alert - A missed alert may never be acceptable or may be sometimes okay. It depends. The text in bold requires a discussion and convergence to a logical conclusion. What do you think are the factors on which "it depends".

Vishwadeep Khatri from Benchmark Six Sigma recently interviewed Tina Arora who is an AVP in Kotak Securities to find out how Six Sigma training has been shaping her career. BSS : Tina, can you share with us details of your career journey? I have been working for 11 years in Marketing, Advertising, Customer Service and Financial Services (in that order) with companies like Intercraft Training, Falcon Advertising, Orange, Prudential, Kotak Securities. I started with Six Sigma in 2007 - Prudential GB (life Policies). Reducing TAT for customer queries. BSS: You have undergone GB, BB and MBB training from Benchmark. How has been your experience? Green Belt - Extremely enriching experience and that was my first brush with Six Sigma. Found BSS through web search. Found lot of reviews and blog comments. Felt very safe when I heard the introduction of the trainer. By the end of the course, I was very confident as I got good examples relevant to my situation. There was a lot of involvement, cross exchange of ideas in the session. One of the really amazing elements that was I did not feel rushed and a large curriculum got covered in a very interesting manner within four days. Black Belt - I had decided that I shall be completing my journey with Benchmark Six Sigma. I did my Black Belt with Benchmark Six Sigma in 2008. With the trainer, I discovered lots of statistical concepts. The course material was wonderful. The trainer allowed time for questions and the sessions were wonderful learning. At the end of the course, I felt that I was in an authoritative position. After Black Belt, I trained my managers on Six Sigma topics. MBB - The program makes me feel complete with tools, techniques methodology and implementation. I am confident of mentoring at least 5 GB projects. The session was full of knowledge sharing, excellent examples. It was like a close knit group enjoying and learning well at the same time. Topics like DOE, Simulations got covered in detail. I am confident of improving yield, reducing waste, reduce defects. BSS: Which Six Sigma tools have you applied more often? We are using most of the tools covered in Benchmark training. I have been making use of MSA, RCA, hypothesis testing, FMEA. Fishbone and Pareto analyses. BSS: What kind of benefits have you derived due to Six Sigma knowledge? I can say that Six Sigma knowledge has been instrumental in my career growth. I joined as a senior manager in Kotak Securities. It has helped me in identifying areas to pick up a projects. I have measured my processes with Sigma Levels. BSS: How has your job profile been impacted by Six Sigma expertise? There have been monetary benefits through process improvements and FTE benefits. BSS:- What career direction do you see for yourself in the coming period? I plan to grow in operations area. There are bottlenecks in operations. I can visualise myself growing well. With professional networking and experience sharing, we can all even faster. Driving change is easier being in operations. My next step is to do Lean through Benchmark. BSS: Do you have any improvement suggestion for Benchmark Six Sigma? More examples related to customer service should be added. There should be more MBB sessions in one year. BSS: Thank you for your feedback and time & willingness to share your experience with the Six Sigma community.