Introducing an innovation named Six Sigma to an operating manufacturing corporation and convincing the individuals in the top management team to adopt it is very difficult—it is more than just pointing out a flaw and fixing it. Company politics heavily impact how successful your strategy plan is. In class I was able to use the Change Pro Simulation, which allowed me to go through different realistic scenarios and see how my strategy will work. I must find a strong strategy to convince these individuals in top management because it requires big changes that are not easily made. Thus, I must come up with a plan that will go through the four stages of adoption: awareness, interest, evaluation and adoption.
To successfully convince individuals of Six Sigma, I knew I had to cater each message towards each person. However, to do so I figured I would need to get approval from the CEO to do some research. Once I received approval, I knew the CEO would be able to reach out to his members and get them to work with me. I concluded the Executive Assistant would be the best person to reach out to first since he is the person who works closely with the CEO on top of having the credibility to give advice since he is about to come to an end of his leadership program and has more knowledge and experience in managing individuals—I assume the CEO would think highly of his opinion since he has no managing experience and would need some guidance. After meeting with the Executive Assistant, I went ahead and met with the other VPs because I thought the best method to persuade the CEO was to get his VPs on my side to help me convince him of Six Sigma. I knew once I had all the top management on my side, the interest would have a trickle-down effect on the business and others would follow suit. I would have the CEO send out a memo to his employees to support me as much as possible, I would gather information about each team, observe the informal networks to come up with a plan to convince the members of Six Sigma, meet with at least one person from each group, persuade each member from a group to believe in Six Sigma, utilize them to reach out to their friends, and send email updates and company newsletter out about what is happening to all top managers. Implementing the above plan would allow me to increase awareness and interest. On the other hand, bringing in external speakers, hiring experts, holding a training program while holding meetings to update top managers what is going on, and creating a website about Six Sigma will allow people who want to find out more information about this innovation accessible. Unfortunately, my first attempt to introduce Six Sigma did not work out as planned. It seemed that many decisions that was made had a significant impact on how successful you were—one politically wrong decision will have consequences.
After getting into the groove of how the simulation worked and refreshing my memory of the four stages of adoption, I had to come up with an alternative plan based on my first attempt on what I would need to do to strengthen my argument to convince top management. I knew I would need to gather informal network information, so I discretely asked around and observed all members—I knew that before I could convince anyone of Six Sigma, I needed to know more about them. In order to do that, I knew I needed to meet with the individuals who have a strong influence amongst the peers. To do that, I needed to gather information and see who hung out with each other and utilize those people who have an influence in each group to reach out to the other members in those groups. First, I met with the Executive Assistant because he seemed to have more experience than the CEO and I assumed had a lot of respect from his peers, especially since he is ending his leadership program and has experience in managing people. Next, I met with each Vice Presidents and the CEO. I then utilized each top manager to meet with each other to increase their interests in Six Sigma. Once I won them all over it had a trickle-down effect to the company, which made convincing the organization easier. Then, I met with HR who I know deals with the employees and the IT man because I wanted him to understand Six Sigma so that he can make an intranet site including all the other mass communication media types—I knew if I could get him to understand Six Sigma then the mass communication methods used would be more convincing to others. After getting top management to believe in Six Sigma, I would have external speakers come to speak about Six Sigma so other employees can understand it better. I then would have continuous meetings throughout each week with individuals based on their connection with each other to get the awareness out there. I would send out newsletter updates to the company, so everyone can find out what is happening at all times. What also helped was hiring experts with extensive experience of implementing Six Sigma, which received more attention and increased interest. People in the company perceived Six Sigma better when they knew “capable” people in that field came to help. For more difficult individuals I would seek advice from them to show that I value what they have to say which was perceived well. I also convinced 4 managers to go to a training program in hopes that it will help them understand the perks of Six Sigma and then other employees working under them will slowly perceive the new innovation higher and will be more open to implementing it. In do the above plan I was able to get 17 adopters and 93% approval. For future implementation or an innovation, I believe I would need to utilize the learned information of each individual more before meeting with them and be more tactical when deciding who to speak with first.
All in all, I feel that in order to make the most impact you would have to collect as much information as possible—it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense at the moment because it will make sense later. Additionally, find out who hangs out with who and get acquainted with at least one person in each group. You can then utilize these people to increase interest and acceptance in their friend group—at the same time you are able to gather information from these individuals about their friends which will help you persuade those people! Must make sure to follow-up meetings with people weekly—this will stop people from forgetting about you and you will be more convincing to them because it shows that you value their opinion and want to make this work. It is important to convince the top management because it will make your time convincing others easier due to the trickle-down effect.