{"id":12396,"date":"2017-10-11T13:22:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T17:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/lean-six-sigma-methodologies-insurance-companies\/"},"modified":"2024-07-15T10:14:34","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T14:14:34","slug":"lean-six-sigma-methodologies-insurance-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/blog\/lean-six-sigma-methodologies-insurance-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don\u2019t Like Black Belts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kurt Kohorst serves as Senior Vice President of Operations Advisory at ReSource Pro. A change agent with a track record of success, he leads our team of Operations Consultants who help clients align their operations to drive profitable growth.<\/em><\/p>\n

WHY I DON’T LIKE BLACK BELTS<\/h2>\n

Black belts are great when it comes to martial arts, or you just need to keep your pants from falling off…but I\u2019m not talking about judo or fashion choices here. I\u2019m talking about Six Sigma Black Belts and why I don\u2019t like them. It\u2019s nothing personal, I myself have a Six Sigma Black Belt certification. My problem with black belts is that there are no uniform standards that define what a Six Sigma Black Belt should know or what practical work experience they have. So, when “Black Belt” is listed on someone\u2019s resume or on their LinkedIn profile, it could mean a lot\u2026 or nothing\u2026 as it relates to their expertise.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t experts in operations management that hold this designation and can provide tremendous benefit \u2013 there are. The point I\u2019m trying to make is that organizations are better served by spreading the practices of the Lean Management System throughout the business and to the front line, rather than focusing on certifying Six Sigma \u2018experts\u2019 and having them rigidly enforce the methodology. My experience at two different insurance companies sheds a little light on this:<\/p>\n

Insurance Carrier #1<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first company was ramping up a Six Sigma program, a lot of time and resources were spent on formal training and prioritizing projects. If a project got through the \u2018Analyze\u2019 phase of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control), but was projected to return less than $250K in hard dollar benefit, it was canceled. For some projects this took months to get this far and unfortunately, those same cancelled projects left business leaders with an unsolved problem!<\/p>\n

Insurance Carrier #2<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At another carrier, their approach was a bit different and Lean oriented. They focused on equipping frontline Underwriting managers and their teams with the structure, tools and daily practices to drive continuous improvement. At the same time leaders at all levels of the company were taught to manage differently to encourage those in the organization to build their problem solving \u2018muscles\u2019, managers roles changed from \u2018firefighter to coach\u2019. Results were faster, longer lasting and it enlisted everyone in the effort.<\/p>\n

DEVELOP A CULTURE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT<\/h2>\n

Lean and Six Sigma methodologies are most effective when they become a part of a culture of continuous improvement. At ReSource Pro, we have a program call AdvanceIt! to promote innovation and improvement. Throughout the organization, employees are encouraged to come up with process improvements and innovations. And they are recognized and rewarded for it. Front line staff, those that execute daily processes and workflows and face the challenges they bring, are often the best people to come up with solutions. It\u2019s also a great way to engage employees and identify those with great potential.<\/p>\n

HOW DO YOU START<\/h2>\n

I recommend starting small and from where you are currently at – once you have achieved some wins you can consider expanding the effort to other teams, and getting broader leadership support. If you want to learn more, a fun read that illustrates the basic concepts is \u201cEverything I Know About Lean I Learned in First Grade\u201d by Robert Martichenko. You can also find many other books, blogs and information about in-person learning opportunities online. Maybe you decide you need help from an experienced consultant – select one that focuses on providing your firm the experience, knowledge, tools, change management and improvement plans for immediate and longer-term benefit.<\/p>\n

Improvement generally means change, and change is difficult even when it leads to improvement. It\u2019s not just leaders that should be involved in this process, frontline employees also need to have ownership…and not just to get them on board. They\u2019re the ones doing the executing and they\u2019ll have significant input on how things are done, what isn’t working and how to fix it. Continuous improvement is about culture and enlisting everyone in the process \u2013 not about credentials and titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black belts are great when it comes to martial arts but I don\u2019t like them when it comes to \u2018Six Sigma Black Belts\u2019. Here is why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"news-category":[],"insurance-segment":[],"services":[],"type-of-content":[38],"resource-type":[],"class_list":["post-12396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","type-of-content-blogs"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 16:05:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13696,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions\/13696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"news-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-category?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"insurance-segment","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insurance-segment?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/services?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-content?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resourcepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-type?post=12396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}