Enhancing Leadership Support for Your Lean Six Sigma Deployment

Kimberly Watson-Hemphill, MBB, President, Firefly Consulting, Austin, TX, USA

Keywords: Leadership, Deployment, Engagement

Industry: All

Level: Intermediate

ABSTRACT

“I don’t know any other way to lead but by example.”—Don Shula, coach of the only perfect season in NFL history

Review the literature on leadership. Talk to experts. Think about any corporate initiative you’ve been involved in. Every source will tell you that the single most important success factor for any major operational excellence deployment is leadership support. That’s why no matter how well or poorly your deployment is going, looking for ways to further engage and support leaders is always going to be a step you should consider if you want to improve results.

This presentation will include (1) an approach to conducting a leadership assessment to improve alignment and support, (2) results from our interviews with leaders of successful deployments, and (3) techniques for improving project sponsorship.

This presentation will share our learning on how to engage business leaders, based on successful deployments in multiple industries, including one that had over $1 billion in savings. We will provide practical tools, takeaways, and case studies that every participant can use to take their deployment’s leadership engagement to the next level.