{"id":1125,"date":"2011-12-03T13:08:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T20:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2011-12-03T13:08:35","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T20:08:35","slug":"brilliantly-stupid-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=1125","title":{"rendered":"BRILLIANTLY STUPID!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent debate Newt Gingrich made reference to the use of Six Sigma as part of his governing philosophy.\u00a0 It brought back a lot of memories.\u00a0 Six Sigma was developed by Motorola in the 1986 and according to supporters it saved billions of dollars. I observed the results when Six Sigma was implemented at some major insurance carriers. The process includes \u201cChampions\u201d \u201cMasterBlackBelts\u201d \u201cBlackBelts\u201d and \u201cGreenbelts\u201d.\u00a0 These are people specially trained in Six Sigma who create kind of a separate infrastructure within the company.\u00a0 I have sat through several briefings where the Six Sigma process was explained in detail.\u00a0 The closest thing I have seen to this is \u201cMoney Ball\u201d where Billy Beane used data and statistics to build the Oakland A team that competed successfully with very little money.\u00a0 In theory, the Six Sigma approach uses data and analysis to make everything better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that is not the whole story.\u00a0 In every case were I saw Six Sigma implemented a clear pattern evolved.\u00a0 At first people were mostly bewildered.\u00a0 They were cautiously optimistic that Six Sigma will help their company grow and prosper.\u00a0 Then lucky people were chosen for \u201cSix Sigma\u201d training.\u00a0 Most of them appear to be younger people more willing to fully embrace the concept.\u00a0 These people then come out of their training on a mission to change the world.\u00a0 They descended dramatically on the remaining workforce with a mandate to change things.\u00a0 As you can imagine, this is not necessarily welcome.\u00a0 In one particular case the company was actually doing really well, before Six Sigma. But after Six Sigma, that changed.\u00a0 Suddenly the people I counted on were unable to get their jobs done because they were constantly providing reports and data to be discussed at Six Sigma meetings.\u00a0 One person told me he was so exhausted by the Six Sigma process that he had trouble doing his normal job.\u00a0 I asked him if thought Six Sigma was worth the effort.\u00a0 He gave me a very interesting response.\u00a0 He said if you don\u2019t believe in Six Sigma, you don\u2019t have much of a future at this company.\u00a0 He thought the process sounded good in theory, but in reality they sometimes wasted a lot of time and energy trying to find the perfect solution to something that could be resolved in about five minutes by a competent manager blessed with ordinary common sense.\u00a0 He also said at least some of the Six Sigma \u201cChampions\u201d were brilliantly stupid, too blinded by data and statistics to see what was obvious to people with many years of experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also remember meeting having lunch with the new CEO of a major insurance company.\u00a0 That company had fully embraced Six Sigma about 18 months earlier, before he was CEO.\u00a0 He had been on the job about 3 months when I met him.\u00a0 I asked him what he thought about Six Sigma.\u00a0 Now CEO\u2019s of major companies tend to be very reserved people, but he lit up like a Christmas Tree.\u00a0 He said\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI am proud to consider myself the Darth Vader that killed Six Sigma.\u201d\u00a0 Obviously, he wasn\u2019t impressed.<\/p>\n

The point is that if Newt Gingrich really wants to use Six Sigma to find efficiencies in Government that is a major concern for me.\u00a0 I\u00a0would prefer a less brilliant candidate who\u00a0cuts costs by\u00a0restricting government agencies to doing what really matters and stop trying to micro-manage the universe.<\/p>\n

The following article by George Will shows that he has noticed the same thing:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/romney-and-gingrich-from-bad-to-worse\/2011\/12\/02\/gIQArsM3LO_story.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Newt Gingrich believes he is the smartest guy in the room, which may be true.\u00a0 But the one of the most intelligent people ever elected Presidnet was\u00a0Jimmy Carter.\u00a0 He was, after all, an officer on a nuclear submarine.\u00a0 He was chosen as the officer in charge of the U.S. Team assisting in the shutdown of the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor.\u00a0 The point is that Jimmy Carter was very intelligent and he was a skilled manager.\u00a0 But when he tried to micro-manage the government he was a miserable failure.\u00a0 I guarantee you Jimmy Carter was the kind of guy who would embrace Six Sigma.\u00a0 Jimmy Carter was also the classic example of someone who was brilliantly stupid.<\/p>\n

TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent debate Newt Gingrich made reference to the use of Six Sigma as part of his governing philosophy.\u00a0 It brought back a lot of memories.\u00a0 Six Sigma was developed by Motorola in the 1986 and according to supporters … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nBRILLIANTLY STUPID! - SCOTS HONOR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=1125\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BRILLIANTLY STUPID! 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