Chapter 17: Sample Plans for Getting Buy-in

Reality Check

Todd was leading a Six Sigma project that seemed to have come to a halt in the Measure phase. Joe, the team member responsible for gathering data from Jane, the department manager, just couldn’t seem to get what he needed from her. He’d tried various approaches, using e-mail reminders, voice mail messages, attempts at face-to-face meetings. Nothing worked. The manager made promises ... weeks passed ... still no data. At this rate, Todd thought, the project could take a year or more!

Then another team member, Sylvia, suggested that they stop bemoaning the lack of data and instead apply Six Sigma principles to the problem. “We say we’ve tried everything,” she said to the team, “but don’t we need to know the root cause of this problem before we identify the solution?” Somewhat embarrassed at not having thought of this himself, Todd suggested that the team devote a meeting to analyzing the problem in detail.

The team’s first question: were they seeing resistance or just good intentions gone awry? Using the Checklist: Recognizing Resistance to Your Six Sigma Project, the team saw two kinds of behavior that fit their situation. When Joe first spoke to Jane about what data the team would need, he barely got the words out before she said, “Hey, no problem! Anything you need—just ask and it’s yours. I know you Belts will be able to fix all our problems.” Oddly, she hadn’t asked Joe a single question—not even what he planned to do with the data. But when Joe followed up with a detailed list of what he wanted, somehow Jane could just never get around to it. Nor was she available for calls or meetings. This sounded very much like compliance followed by avoidance. The team concluded that they were indeed up against resistance.

Next, the team consulted the Checklist: Identifying Reasons People May Resist Your Six Sigma Project to help them figure out why Jane might be resisting. The item about fear of being viewed as incompetent jumped out at them, as did the one on concerns about not being the “expert.” They recalled that Jane had been part of the company’s TQM effort five years earlier. In fact, she’d been trained in many of the same tools they were using in Six Sigma, yet she hadn’t been trained as a Black Belt or Green Belt. When the TQM initiative fell apart, Jane ended up in a line job. Todd recalled hearing that she wanted to get out of that job and had been hurt and annoyed about being passed over for a Belt position, as she much preferred that kind of role. Joe recalled Jane’s remark about “you Belts” fixing all her department’s problems. In retrospect, this sounded less like a show of faith and more like resentment—with a bit of fear underneath. After all, shouldn’t a department run by a former quality expert have solved its own quality problems already?

Armed with this new perspective on the situation with Jane, Todd and the team were able to create a “stakeholder plan” that incorporated a targeted influence strategy and set of tactics. Finally they began to make some progress on getting the latest data.