Developing Black Belt Change Agents
"Surviving Pity City And The Valley Of Despair"

Managing Change
The first stage in managing change should be as natural to a Black Belt as breathing. It begins with planning a change and the accompanying metrics and includes:

1. a problem statement,
2. an objective,
3. a baseline metric, and
4. the secondary metrics for a project.

The next two stages are executed as we progress through the project during which time the team is being trained, mentored, and coached through the process. These steps are not indigenous to Six Sigma; they effect any initiative such as Work Place Organization, TQM, or whatever organizational alteration is being effected at the time.

At this point you begin to launch the change process. The team, whether or not it is acceptant of the change, now puts itself on the curve and soon heads for the very natural drop into the "Valley of Despair." Expect this. This is normal. Why? Because the old way has ended; people are not used to dealing with the ambiguity of the new unknown. They have no recognizable patterns of acting that tell them the "correct" way to do their job. They need time and help to find their way. As a change agent it may also be a point where you receive valuable feedback on potential flaws in the change.

The individual team members are also on their own individual curves. Some will be in the Valley of Despair by the end of the first team meeting. Don't worry about it as, again, this is natural. You must, however, take the time with the various team members to become aware of who went over the cliff and when.

Emotional Turning Point
The conclusion of the Six Sigma project will bring you to a significant emotional event--the end of the old way. There are those companies that do this well: it is built into the company DNA that when the decision-maker says, "turn right," everyone turns right. There are also those companies where, when someone suggests that they consider a right turn, the team gets a cup of herbal tea and discusses it.

This is not meant to be some treatise on which is more effective. There are plenty of examples of both styles working effectively within their culture. You can be fairly sure, however, that you won't be successful if you try to mix the two styles. The end of the old way initiates the beginning of change and the trip into the Valley of Despair. For some, it is a pothole in the road to something better; for others, this is a crisis and a threat to their very existence.

As the Change Agent there are two issues: First: you are on this curve yourself, so you had better deal with your own insecurities and inner demons. The second is that you have to deal with the various individual curves. It is the individual curves (think of it as a rational subgroup) that will determine the group curve (the overall process capability).

Arriving At Pity City
The curve bottoms out in Pity City. Here the organization will see much recreational griping. That's okay; people need this, and it can be therapeutic as they swap war stores about the ambiguity and difficulty they face. The important thing to remember is that the Black Belt's (or any change agent's) key contribution is shortening the duration of the change and minimizing the severity of the drop into the Valley of Despair. Nothing guarantees the climb to productivity other than the skill sets of the facilitator, which may be the Black Belt and/or the Team Leader, and that person's ability to build and execute a plan that shortens duration and minimizes severity.

Pity City will occur, but it requires attention. Ignoring Pity City will only increase the duration and cause increased pain to the organization and the bottom line. A common tactic for refocusing the team and starting the ascent is to initiate activity. Training, in particular, is key to implementing refocusing. The change will initiate various levels of action. If you are an ISO or QS certified system, the changes require documentation. The activity around making documentation changes may help them adjust. Training actions can be focused around familiarization with the documentation. If, however, new skills are required, then the training can focus on those skills. In either case, it is the effort and the change of focus that initiates the departure from Pity City and the climb to new levels of productivity.

As an agent of change, it is critical to remember that your main objective is to lessen the severity and shorten the duration of a team, department, or organization's fall into the Valley of Despair. Although it is natural because of human behavior to go through this change curve, any disturbance of "the old way, the known way" can cause disruption and organizational pain. Organizational pain eats up focus that could otherwise bring profits and growth. The Black Belt's skillful execution of the plan, which includes specific change activities, will go a long way to shorten that trip through the Valley of Despair.

Working On Different Timetables
Various groups in the organization will feel the pain of Pity City at different times, with the senior levels typically arriving there many months before the rest of the organization. With their executives in the valley, the rest of the organization is wondering, "what is wrong with these people?" Once the executives climb out and the rest of the organization begins its descent, the executives are wondering what is wrong with them? This variation in timing is an important point to manage for any change agent.

Much organizational confusion can be saved and energy refocused if change agents/Black Belts account for this potential in their plan and manage it well. With a disciplined approach to implementation that uses a tool such as tollgates, the change process can be relatively simple to measure.

A tollgate at the end of the control phase can be used to signal the end of the analytical work and the beginning of the implementation. The end of the cycle can be measured when the metric crosses the goal that was set for the project. This would give you the total time that was spent in the actual trip through the Valley of Despair and the attainment of the goal. This time, however, has a cost associated with it. As long as the solution to the original problem has not been implemented, then the savings are not being realized.

Agility As A Competitive Advantage
The financial advantage to understanding the implementation curve is that the more we quantify and understand it, the greater the probability that we can institute tools and methods to deal more efficiently with the time.

The more efficiently we learn to deal with change, the more profitably we can operate. Changes can be instituted more quickly and with greater ease, but the larger advantage is the company's increased agility. That agility is the company's ability to respond to changes in technology and changes the marketplace.

A company's agility is the company's competitive advantage.

About The Authors
Val Larson is an organizational development, change management professional with over 14 years of experience. She uses tools like Six Sigma as corner stones to lead high impact culture change within organizations like: