With the free consultation services I provided, I have had lots of opportunities to discuss various solutions to challenges people have within a Lean Six Sigma project. One of these discussions was about leveraging different communication tools to get people throughout the organization engaged in Lean Six Sigma.
In a Lean Six Sigma engagement, we typically conduct working sessions with employees to identify root causes, map value streams, and so forth. Right after these sessions, participants normally get very motivated and excited; however, it is not long after they return to their regular day-to-day functions that this motivation and excitement fades. The hard way to keep the momentum going is by continuing to do workshops, lunch and learns, educational series, standard communication, and so on, which may not be realistic to most organizations. In this short article, I am going to explain some methods that you can use to get your Lean Six Sigma word out to the most people in an organization and get them engaged and excited about it with the least amount of effort.
Leverage your communication tools
In your next working session, you may want to consider creating a series of communication products by videotaping, recording, or podcasting some of the highlights of the events, e.g., employees’ presentations, testimonies (with their consent!). You can also use a tool like Dragon Naturally Speaking converting speech to text to easily create a few different articles. These communication products can be shared on the organization’s internal website, distributed through email, etc., so that more employees can acquire this information. Ensure that you make the content easy to share so that employees can share it with their colleagues
Leverage popular people within the organization
When conducting Lean Six Sigma engagements, I like to create what is called the “The Change Agent Committee.” This committee is composed of 5-6 of the most “popular” people within the organization or part of the organization in which the Lean Six Sigma initiative is being deployed. With their “popularity,” they can easily act as an advocate/supporter of the initiative by getting people engaged, and by educating their peers or superiors about the project. Get the committee to share all the communication that you produce during the Lean Six Sigma initiative such as videos, articles, events, etc., and get the committee involved in your working sessions.
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Integrate Lean Six Sigma into something larger within the organization
If you want maximum exposure for your Lean Six Sigma engagement, align your initiative with a bigger and broader strategic initiative within the organization. Then take every opportunity to integrate your communications, events and even resources used in the Lean Six Sigma with other initiatives under the broader strategy. Doing this will raise the profile of the initiative to a new level that has a bigger and broader audience and more exposure.
Concluding Thoughts
This short article provides some ideas to raises the awareness of your Lean Six Sigma Initiative. If my ideas are deployed properly, then you can soon have everyone in the organization engaged about your Lean Six Sigma project, much like a video that has gone viral.
