"Very good gentlemen, these are our objectives for the following year" - Says one of the directors of a company. "We must do our best to reach them":
And all the directors and / or managers leave the meeting happy and excited. They are committed to these goals because with what is proposed, they will be generating thousands and millions of dollars in a very short period of time. They immediately assign those responsible to work on this and do not meet until the following year, when the next meeting to present the results would be.
The year of objectives arrives and begins with the hiring of new personnel, consultants, coaches, experts and inexperienced. In short, people of all kinds enter and leave the company.
It is time to present the results and surprise: We did not achieve anything!
This situation is very common in organizations. The objectives are established in terms of activities and tools and not in terms of results. The purpose of strategies, tools and methodologies (such as Six Sigma), is to support the achievement of the organization's objectives. If we are not clear about the results we want to achieve, it is impossible to know what tools we should use.
But it is also necessary to know how tools and methodologies can help us, just as we must know what hammers and screwdrivers are for. If we want to drive a nail there is no point in using a screwdriver, but there is also no point in using a mallet.
Many companies want to solve simple problems with very robust tools like Six Sigma, and likewise solve very complex problems just by implementing ISO 9001 in the organization. We must understand that it is necessary to use the appropriate tool for the desired result.
This lack of understanding is the reason why many companies have generated losses instead of profits, as has been the case of Six Sigma which has not achieved the results that many expected when using this methodology for the radical improvement of processes (Weeks, 2011).
But this has not only happened to Six Sigma, but also to ISO 9001. In 2009, certifications were lost throughout the American continent (ISO, 2010) and experience says that it is due to the lack of strategic alignment and having a vision in short-term earnings. Not having a clear vision towards the implementation of this regulation can generate more problems than results. The same standard tells us that the adoption of a Quality Management System must be a strategic decision of the organization (ISO, 2008), that is, it must be a "like" to the objectives that are to be achieved.
Another strategy that has been abused is outsourcing, causing high costs in companies, instead of reducing them, due to quality problems in products due to not having a robust chain between supplier-organization-client. A study determined that the more an organization subcontracts the processes, the more problems it brings, so they resort to “Insourcing” again (Seibert & Schiemann, 2011).
And why are all these tools and methodologies so famous? There are several reasons, one of them is for the success stories. The fact that these tools are not giving the expected results does not mean that they are bad, it simply means that the organizations do not know what they are for and they do not know how to use them properly. Another reason, and in my opinion the main one, is the deceptive advertising carried out by many companies that provide these services, promising great results in a short time. Similar to promising a skyscraper for a couple of weeks.
It is interesting to see how Dr. Edwards Deming commented many years ago on eliminating the vision of short-term profits and focusing on the product and customer satisfaction. Achieving quality and competitiveness takes time and effort. There are no magic wands. The results are achieved with a good definition of objectives and determination of customer needs, supported by the proper use of tools, methodologies and strategies.
Bibliography
ISO. (2008). ISO 9001: 2008. Geneva, Switzerland: ISO.
ISO. (2010). ISO Survey of Certifications 2010. Geneva: ISO.
Seibert, JH, & Schiemann, WA (2011). Reversing Course? Quality Progress, 44 (7), 36-43.
Weeks, JB (2011). Is Six Sigma dead? Quality Progress, 44 (10), 22-28.
