Six Sigma?The Present

six sigma basics

In the first years of the 21st century, leaders face a new reality. We must consistently generate positive, month-to-month financial results while continuously building a business that will sustain those results over the longer term. While balancing short term and long term has always concerned executives, today's environment demands performance along both dimensions. Fierce new competitors, demanding customers, tight talent supplies, and wildly fluctuating markets are a reality in almost every industry; meanwhile, investors show no willingness to wait for returns on their investments.

Executives attempting to chart a course through these waters feel schizophrenic and myopic. They work to answer weekly demands for an improved financial picture while trying to communicate a long-term vision and roadmap to customers, suppliers, and employees. Management approaches that have been successful in the past are no longer effective. Fortunately, in every industry there are executives who outperform their peers.

For the past few years, Motorola University has worked to understand what differentiates top-performing executive teams, both inside Motorola and across many industries. Remarkably, we've discovered important parallels between our findings and lessons from Six Sigma's past. Top-performing leadership teams demonstrate a keen sense of daily priorities. They also possess the ability to effectively execute those priorities while still maintaining a compelling vision for the future, and this enables others to act on that vision. Furthermore, top teams always operate ethically. To leverage these personal attributes, many executives have adopted common best practices that give them an edge in creating a vision, establishing priorities, enabling people to take action, and driving execution in a way that satisfies short-term demands while building capability for future growth. These best practices have been documented and incorporated into an approach to executive management and leadership that is the New Six Sigma.

The old Six Sigma was just a standard measure of goodness.

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