Creating a Six Sigma Culture

By Tracy Thurkow, Ph.D.

Six Sigma is about creating a culture of customer focus and internal precision.  How do you help people embrace Six Sigma?  The key is to treat your efforts as a culture change.

Organizational culture is a pattern of behavior that gets encouraged or discouraged by people and/or systems over time.  Cultural trends such as role definition, stakeholder engagement, talent allocation, process fluency can support – or discourage – Six Sigma success.

So, how do you shape a culture to support Six Sigma?  It means changing the pattern of behaviors that is reinforced and punished.  Start by asking these questions:

1. What behaviors are needed to support Six Sigma?
2. How will we consciously reinforce those behaviors via personal interactions and formal systems?
3. How will we consciously discourage behaviors that don’t support a Six Sigma culture via personal interactions and formal systems?

Creating a Six Sigma culture requires big things, like incorporating Six Sigma goals into performance reviews.  But, creating a Six Sigma culture also requires little things, like people having conversations about what they need from each other.

When it comes to creating a Six Sigma culture, little things can make a big difference.

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