Integrating Lean Six Sigma and High-Performance Organizations: Leading the Charge Toward Dramatic, Rapid, and Sustainable Improvement (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Tom Devane has provided a straightforward, practical guide for leaders striving to improve their business results. Moving quickly from the theory to pragmatic tips and time proven tools, Devane offers a leader's roadmap for performance improvements in today's rapidly changing business environment."
— Karl Schmidt, vice president process excellence, Johnson & Johnson

"This is the book that I've been looking for until now! Why? Because it exactly guide us to the practical methodology and concepts that any business enterprises and firms would seek for. From my experience of the business practitioner and quality trainer, it is highly vital to integrate and harmonize 'the hard part,' which helps to improve the current processes and products, tackling the vital few causes of the problems, and 'the soft part,' which helps to obtain the buy-in form the key stakeholders and the employees for a change. This book is a wonderful roadmap to innovate a company dynamically in terms of the productivity, the interactive comm unication and the customer satisfaction."
— Takashi Masumoto, regional Six Sigma Leader and Six Sigma trainer, General Electric, Japan (As of June 30, 2003)

"This is a breakthrough synthesis of the best of cutting-edge practices for improving organizational performance. Tom Devane has developed a practical handbook for leaders, internal change agents, and consultants, clearly laying out the key principles and methods for achieving improvements that are both dramatic and sustainable. He describes an integrated, comprehensive approach that achieves greater results by building ownership for the change throughout the organization, while implementing process improvement methods and tools, and building the core competencies required for implementation. The result is a roadmap for successful change that will work the first time around, start producing results quickly, and continue to work reliably into the future of the organization."
— Saul Eisen, coordinator, Psychology Master's Program in Organization Development at Sonoma State University

"Development of high potential organization requires dedication, innovation and a set of proven processes. Tom Devane has given the tools to any company that wants to become a high quality and performance organization."
— Gary Hunt, vice president human resources, administration, and MIS, Operational Management International, Inc. (Baldrige Award Winner in 2000)

Product Description

You know that great improvement initiatives abound. What you may not know is how to implement them effectively; get fast, dramatic improvement; and sustain those results for the long term. It's a common problem. But take heart: The next wave of performance excellence is here-- the seamless integration of today's leading improvement methods. This integration, described thoroughly in this book, builds upon the strengths and addresses the shortcomings of each discipline. For example:

• While Six Sigma provides a disciplined, quantitative approach, many efforts fail because they don't address the people side of performance improvement and change management. Plus, Six Sigma efforts are expensive and take too long to produce results.
• Lean Manufacturing techniques can provide quick results, but they lack quantitative tools to reduce variation, and, as a result, are incapable of addressing numerous high-dollar improvement opportunities.
• Though High-Performance Organizations (HPO) create conditions for great motivation, improve intra-organizational interactions, and lower employee turnover, many HPO interventions fail to produce solid business results because members lack a disciplined approach and the tools for improvement.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer (December 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787969737
• ISBN-13: 978-0787969738
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #786,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great blending of pragmatic application and underlying theor, January 28, 2004

By A Customer

I like the way the book devotes time up front talking about the theory aspects of Lean, Six Sigma, and High-Performance Organizations and how they fit together. Knowing the theory and principles in the first part of the book helped me understand the "why" and "when" to implement tactics presented in the second part of the book. I found the book's organization to be a clear, logical way to introduce this complex topic. The table of contents is:

Part 1. Practical Foundations
1. Introduction to Lean Six Sigma
2. Introduction to High-Performance Organizations
3. Lean Six Sigma and High-Performance Organizations Combined

Part 2. Pragmatic Practice
Section 1. The Fundamentals
1. Lessons Learned from Integrating Lean Six Sigma and HPO
2. Leadership Fundamentals
3. Useful Distinctions
4. Leader's Basic Toolkit
Section 2. The Leader's Stage-by-Stage Guide
1. Initiation
2. Direction Setting
3. Design
4. Implementation
5. Operations & Continuous Improvement
Each of the five chapters in Section 2 contains the chapter topics: Activity Map and Leader To Do List, Tools Application, and Pragmatic Tips.

Appendix
Glossary of terms
Large-group interventions
References

This is definitely not a book to be read in one sitting. However, its comprehensive treatment about how leaders can blend "hard" improvement approaches like Six Sigma and Lean with "soft" aspects such as change management and intrinsic motivation make it a worthwhile book to have in any leader's library.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Practical Information, April 15, 2009

By	Edward J. Barton (Mill Creek, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

A very good nuts and bolts book on the approach, pitfalls and challenges of a Lean Six Sigma implementation, along with a High Performance Organization change. HPO is an approach that embraces distributed and action oriented management, decentralized control, and increased visibility into strategy and performance. The book certainly provides a good framework for the environemnt I would like to create as a manager, and is practical enough for a manager to use in implementing these changes. A good read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Breakthrough book for leading large scale improvement, November 3, 2004

By	Dennis Mayhew (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Devane does it again! Co-author of the popular: "The Change Handbook"; he now provides us with a roadmap of breakthrough thinking in the areas of Lean Six Sigma and High Performance Organizations!
From the opening lines in the Preview we are invited into examining the crisis of improvement programs that face organizations today. The story concludes having introduced the reader into a unique journey examining the combinations and possibilities of these methods and what is fundamentally required of leadership. This book is masterfully written offering a balanced blend of theory, practicality and insightful breakthroughs, cracking the puzzle of achieving sustainable organizational results. The skilled OD practitioner will readily see the author's depth of expertise and scholarship displayed in the fields of change and leadership. He comfortably ties together the soft and hard skills necessary to accomplish what so many efforts fail to achieve and overlook in their improvement programs.
His main divisions of the book entitled, Practical Foundations and Pragmatic Practice, allow the novice to understand their working intentions and how to effectively apply them. The seasoned person will be able to jump in where they are most comfortable. His creative literary style, with a liberal combination of tables, charts, exhibits, figures, and war stories makes reading a pleasure and captures your attention. The repetitive structure within the Leader's Guide includes activity maps, leader to do lists, tool applications and pragmatic tips, allowing the reader to develop a rhythm in learning the principles and applications being discussed. The generous glossary and reference materials will greatly assist in allowing you to deepen your understanding or expand your resources in the field.
In addition, the book's companion website, www.LeanSixSigmaHPO.com, provides helpful supporting information for leaders serious about simultaneously addressing technical tool deployment and cultural aspects of large-scale process improvement efforts.