The Four-Hour Black Belt

If we want quality methods to spread, we should simplify and streamline the learning process

Published: Thursday, February 27, 2014 - 15:37

Let’s face it: Everyone isn’t cut out to be a belted Six Sigma guru, but everyone should know how to use key tools in the right order to solve the problems facing businesses. And they can’t wait months or years to get results; the marketplace moves too quickly.

During the early 1990s, I attended one of W. Edwards Deming’s workshops here in Denver. It was great to see the grand master at work. But at the end of those four days, I knew that we could have covered the same material with greater comprehension in one day or less. I knew because of a learning experience in 1990.

I began my training in total quality management (TQM) at the same time that I began learning neurolinguistic programming (NLP). The TQM training was about improving processes; the NLP training was about brief therapy—i.e., improving mental processes. Two methods of training were used, and they couldn’t have been more different.

My weeklong training to become a TQM team leader followed the know-show-do model of teaching used in classrooms everywhere. First you learn the material, then you are shown how to do it, and finally you do it. I considered it some of the best training I’d ever had in a corporate environment.

The NLP training followed a show-do-know model. First you are shown the pattern of how to do something multiple times in a short time frame; next, you do an exercise to practice the pattern; then, and only then, are you told the knowledge behind it.

I’ll be honest. I was comfortable in the TQM classes because the teaching method was the same as what I’d experienced since grade school. In the NLP classes I was very uncomfortable—until I noticed how quickly I was acquiring the skills being taught.

I still remember the first day of NLP class. The instructor told us a story of going fishing with his grandfather and pulling up old cans and shoes, and finally a fish. I kept thinking, “When are we going to get to the ‘know’ part of this material?” Eventually he told a story about working with a client on a process. He brought a class member up on stage and demonstrated how to do the process. Then he had us do it. The instructor and coaches helped us refine our budding skills. Then, and only then, did he reveal what we had learned, the knowledge embedded in the skill. In a surprisingly short time, we all became competent therapists.

I had thought the TQM training was excellent, but our class of TQM team leaders proved sadly incompetent. More than 100 TQM team leaders were trained using the know-show-do model, and those leaders all started teams. A year later, only three teams had successfully completed projects, which had taken most of the year. Despite top leadership support and what I considered excellent training, we had failed.

NLP training

NLP training is designed to turn you into a competent therapist. The final exam was a bit unusual: People were brought into the class who needed therapy but couldn’t afford it. The instructors had the class work with these people.

My “exam” was a young woman about 20 years old. “I used to be a heroin addict, and now I’m a methadone addict,” she told me. “A few years back I was diagnosed with HIV, so I went back on heroin. But recently I was retested and don’t have HIV, so I went back on methadone.” At the beginning of my NLP training, working with her would have been frightening, but during the exam, it wasn’t. I simply asked her what she would like help with, and I guided her through some personal change work.

I’d wanted to learn the NLP teaching methodology, and my training for it changed, forever, how I teach people—in any subject, including Six Sigma.

What’s wrong with traditional Six Sigma training?

I also completed Six Sigma training, after which I realized that the big three-ring binders and weeklong training sessions telegraphed a message to participants that this was complex and took a long time. People knew this before they walked into class. The course work was spread out over five days, so there was no way to get the “marrow” of Six Sigma into your head in a short period of time. And it covered all of the methods and tools the team leaders “might” need, not just the ones they would use most of the time. The training took too long and covered too many tools. The same was true of 10-day Green Belt and 20-day Black Belt training.

So I decided to apply the NLP teaching methods to TQM.

A new way of training

Having finally completed some successful Six Sigma projects, I learned what methods and tools I needed to solve most problems in my company. To teach a course on these newly discovered processes, I created a 16-page quality improvement coloring book. This simple workbook became the course material. It signaled to the participants that the material was easy to learn and apply. You can download the current version of this workbook here.

I have experimented with how to teach the material. Here’s the process:

1. Only teams that have specific problems to solve are trained. I require the teams to find data about their problem before we meet.

2. I also describe the three silent killers of productivity and profitability: delay, defects, and deviation. I ask teams to describe problems and slot them into one of these three categories. This helps them imagine many other places to apply the skills they will learn.

3. I tell them an improvement story that features “the magnificent seven tools” I use to solve a problem and save time and money. Over the years, I’ve collected a variety of stories, such as the time I helped one healthcare company save $5 million in denied claims in an afternoon. (Note: This is the first repetition of the improvement pattern.)

4. Then I ask for a volunteer to help me demonstrate how I’d put the team’s problem into an improvement story using the seven tools. I ask what the defect rate might be and draw it as a control chart. I ask what the most common cause of the defect might be and draw it as a Pareto chart. I take the “big bar” of the Pareto chart and put it into the head of a fishbone diagram. And I do this all on one sheet of flipchart paper because I want them to see the pattern again (repetition No. 2).

5. I have them break up into small groups and use the lean Six Sigma action plan to develop the basic structure of an improvement story: control chart, Pareto chart, and fishbone diagram. I tell them not to worry about the data because I just want them to become comfortable with casting their problem as an improvement story. I help them to fine-tune their story so they know what data they need to refine the focus (repetition No. 3).

I do three repetitions of the improvement pattern in less than an hour because the speed of presentation is essential to the pattern-detection and learning style of the human mind.

Not surprisingly, this method makes participants more comfortable, which accelerates learning. I’ve also found that teams immediately begin finding solutions to problems they thought were simply unsolvable. And they do it in the class, often before lunch. Nothing hooks participants like succeeding at learning how to solve problems quickly, especially problems that previously seemed too complex.

I continue to run into students from my TQM accelerated learning workshops who are still using the methods and tools to solve operational problems wherever they work.

After I developed the QI Macros for Excel, I used the same teaching method to help people learn to use the software. I’d tell a story using data and the QI Macros. I’d demonstrate using their data. I’d ask them to practice with test data and then try again using their own data. They begin by drawing control charts, Pareto charts, and histograms in minutes. I leap them over their fear of math, statistics, and computers and get them comfortable with a radical new tool set in an hour. In four hours or less, most teams end up with an improvement story ready for root cause analysis.

Can you imagine teaching Six Sigma using the show-do-know model of accelerated learning? Probably not. It may seem too strange, too unfamiliar. It’s not how we’ve always done it. How can it possibly work? (And yet isn’t that what most people say about process improvements?)

Simpling up vs. dumbing down

Does this kind of accelerated learning method turn people into Black Belts in four hours? No, of course not, but it does lay the foundation for them to learn all the methods and tools in the Six Sigma body of knowledge in four hours or less. They learn the seven tools they will need to solve most problems involving delay, defects, and deviation. This “vital few, trivial many” approach prevents overload. Most Green Belt and Black Belt training covers so many methods and tools that participants can become overwhelmed and paralyzed.

Some say I’m trying to “dumb down” Six Sigma. I disagree. I’m trying to “simple it up,” which is a much more difficult task. I’m trying to make lean Six Sigma accessible to anyone who wants it. I want everyone to know and use the vital few methods and tools, but to accomplish that objective they shouldn’t overload them with the trivial many.

Deming taught thousands of people how to use quality tools, but he may never have considered improving his teaching method to accelerate learning and comprehension. Current trainers follow in his footsteps, dragging out training time and teaching too many tools.

The 10- to 20-day Six Sigma training classes spread over one to six months still telegraph the message that the methodology is complex and time-consuming. If we want quality methods and tools to spread, we have to find ways to simplify, streamline, and optimize the learning process.

Isn’t it time to reevaluate your training methods to accelerate learning and shorten the time to results?

About The Author

Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man

Jay Arthur, speaker, trainer, founder of KnowWare International Inc., and developer of QI Macros for Excel, understands how to pinpoint areas for improvement in processes, people, and technology. He uses data to pinpoint broken processes and helps teams understand their communication styles and restore broken connections. Arthur is the author of Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals (McGraw-Hill, 2011), and Lean Six Sigma Demystified (McGraw-Hill, 2010), and QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. He has 30 years experience developing software. Located in Denver, KnowWare International helps service and manufacturing businesses use lean Six Sigma tools to drive dramatic performance improvements.