Becoming a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt – and to a certain degree a Green Belt – is a major career move and should be considered carefully. There are not only the Pros; there are plenty of Cons. For you, it will definitely mean putting in more time. On top of someone’s normal job, the Black Belt is required to spend a considerable amount of time on the new commitment. Your additional time will not be rewarded financially at the outset. Your organisation will not be willing to put much money in something that is new and has not paid back yet.
Why not Becoming a Black Belt?
You have no Power – You need People Skills
You will work with teams whom you – most likely – have no power over. If you cannot convince them with your knowledge, skills and especially your attitude, you will be running your Lean Six Sigma projects on your own. The same applies for the stakeholders, i.e. the process owners you want to help to improve their processes. If you think they need you, think again. When you appear in their office, you, basically, convey the message that there is something wrong with their processes. They will not be overly enthusiastic to see you … until you show that you are worth spending precious time with and lending scarce resources to. Interacting with, influencing and communicating with all levels in your organisation will be one of your key responsibilities. If your best friend is your computer whom you prefer to interact with, this job is not for you.
It is not only about Statistics, but there is Statistics
Although there is no need to be or become a statistician in order to do the Black Belt job, it is still about dealing with data, about data analytics. Collecting, plotting and analysing them – sometimes with advanced statistical tools – in order to draw conclusions for improvements is one of your foremost tasks. If you already get scared when your boss asks you to produce a histogram, you should consider giving this Black Belt adventure a miss.
You will be required to learn continuously
As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, you will not be able to show results short-term. Be prepared that you – and your stakeholders – need to have some patience until you, with your team, get to the real root cause of problems, develop effective solutions and enough data to back them up. If it would be easy to do this, it would essentially mean that the process owner does not know what he is doing. Fortunately, we do not have many of those. Unfortunately for you, you need to learn about the process, catch up with the process owner’s and stakeholder’s knowledge before you can be of any help. You will need time to study what you want to improve.
If you are frustrated now, do not give up yet. There are some benefits, too.
Why Becoming a Black Belt
You will have endless opportunities for learning
Being a Black Belt is one of the most interesting tasks you can think of. You learn more about a virtually unlimited variety of processes and issues in your organisation than anyone else. This demanding job rotation, i.e. rotation from one project to the next, has numerous rewards. One of them is the growing familiarity with your organisation, with your colleagues at all levels, with customers and their needs and with your suppliers and partners.
Contrary to an induction programme, you will learn “at the heart” of the processes. You will learn what makes your organisation tick – or struggle.
You will be doing things that really matter
By doing so, you will be able to contribute to the organisation’s strategy – if they take it seriously. You will do what matters and you will help moving your organisation to the next level, to prepare them for tomorrow. This makes your new job highly visible. More people in the organisation will know about you and what you do. Especially your management will recognise and challenge you. From time to time, you will get the limelight you can use for your personal development. Before these occasions, you will be honing your proficiency in presenting to the management. You will learn how to understand and speak their language and you will grow to be convincing in your pitch.
Even though learning will become your daily bread, it is just a means to an end. The ultimate goal is improving your organisation’s performance to satisfy customer needs profitably. The skills you learn in theory and especially by practising are not only applicable to your Lean Six Sigma projects. Over time, you will make use of them in all facets of your professional and even your private life. Who says that powerful influencing skills cannot be useful when dealing with your teen kids? It works for me.
We need a robust and systematic tool to select and train future leaders for our company. Personally, I do not know that much about Six Sigma, but what I have read so far was about focusing on customer requirements, managing and improving processes, changing the company’s culture, encouraging people and, last but not least, making money. This is exactly the job of our leaders.
Michael Malaghan. President, Learning Technologies
It will be rewarding for you
Although, there is usually no pay rise or other monetary award at the beginning, you certainly increase your own value over time. Your organisation will definitely recognise and reward you for this – or another organisation will. Your Black Belt certificate adds more value to your CV than many other papers you used to attach. This certificate is not only about theoretically mastering new skills. More importantly, this certificate testifies the application of these skills to generate value to the business and your customers. You will not only be seen as someone who has studied a new theory. You will be seen as someone “who has done it”.
In many organisations who practise Lean Six Sigma, previous Black Belts and especially Master Black Belts have taken over key positions. If you were able to deliver results as a Black Belt, you should not be surprised to find your name well positioned in the succession plan of your organisation.
Conclusion
Becoming a Black Belt is not for everyone. More important than statistical knowledge are personal traits such as openness and conscientiousness combined with some degree of extroversion. If you decide that you fit the bill and you go for it you should do it wholeheartedly and you will certainly benefit a great deal from it.
If someone asked you to join the Black Belt training and take over a project, it is usually a good thing. It usually means someone cares about you, wants to develop you and trusts that you are worth it. Do not forgo this opportunity; it may not come again so soon.
Your decision to become a Black Belt has the potential to change your life … as it did for me.
