Customer Reviews

The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance

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From livejournal notrealnews

Jack Welch, the retired CEO of General Electric, has hailed his recent affair with Harvard Business Review reporter Suzy Wetlaufer as a breakthrough in the business concept of "Boundaryless Thinking". "I could have easily spent the rest of my life trapped in the narrow view that my marriage meant lifelong monogamy," said Welch, a smug look on his face, "but with boundaryless thinking, I was able to take the concept of marriage in a whole new direction. Just like the things I did at GE."

Boundaryless thinking was one of the tenants that allowed Welch to get GE out of the failing appliances business and into the credit business, which now comprises more than half of GE's corporate makeup. It was a concept Welch highly stressed and touted in his autobiography "Jack: Straight from the Gut." He intends to follow it up with a new book, "Cheating on your wife the Six Sigma Way: How CEO's of GE, Motorola, and Other Top Companies are Honing Their Extramarital Performance".

I never read the book, but the CD is such a masterfully "abridged" version of the book that it manages to tell you for hour HOW WONDERFUL six sigma is, while totally neglecting to tell you WHAT SIX SIGMA ACTUALLY IS, or HOW IT IS IMPLEMENTED. In short, the CD contains nothing but self-marketing bull. If you have money to waste, go buy it.

The book was very easy to follow. I found it especially helpful that the Six Sigma Way gave tips as to which chapters should be read for each level of Six Sigma implementation. Since my company already had it implemented and I was only reading the book for an understanding of what my company was doing, I was able to skip the unneeded portions about implementation. This was a big time saver.

I invested over a year researching the best way to manage processes in my company before coming to the following conclusion. Six Sigma is worth implementing but only in conjunction with Optimal Thinking. Six Sigma without Optimal Thinking can produce suboptimal results. Put "Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self" in the hands of all employees and this book, train them in the concepts, follow up with coaching, and you will have the best of the best. If you can't do it all, just get the books in the hands of those that matter.

If you're looking for the definative guide to Six Sigma, you've just found it. From fundamentals to advanced program management, its all here. I first read Pande and Holpp's little 87-page book "What is Six Sigma." The impressive guide convinced me that I needed to pick up a copy of their "The Six Sigma Way." I'm really glad that I did. As a management consultant, I can say without reservation that the ideas expressed in this book are applicable to almost every manager -- regardless of whether or not they are currently involved in a formal Six Sigma program. In addition to enhancing quality, the Six Sigma framework is very useful in identifying and removing irrelevant processes from your product or service operations. Saving your Company both time and money... and freeing up your employees for more value-added work. In addition, I would also recommend Hammer and Champy's "Reengineering the Corporation" and Ashkenas, Kerr, and Ulrich's "The GE Work-Out." Overall Grade: B+/A.

This book is a must have for anyone that uses Six Sigma, is learning Six Sigma, or wants to advance their Quality career.

This book gives insight into the "why". Why Six Sigma is being implemented, Why it's so "hot", Why it can turn any company around, and Why it's better than TQM.

While the book is mainly aimed at those in leadership positions, I believe that anyone that has a thirst for knowledge on Six Sigma should pick up this book. For those of you who need to implement Six Sigma buy it in conjunction with The Six Sigma Way Team Field Book. Everything you ever wanted to know about Six Sigma can be found in these two books.

I've been reading this book off and on for the last couple of weeks. It really brings clarity to any management job that you might have. I have already re-evaluated most of the processes my department uses. While I haven't applied 6 sigma to them yet I more thoroughly understand them and what I can do to improve them.

This should be standard reading for anyone aspiring to management.

I was one of those slick-hair 80's Wall Street mofos until I lost everything in the '87 crash. After spending 10 years in a k-hole deep in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, I happened upon a Six Sigma Chapel and saw the light. Now I'm a ninth-degree Blackbelt taking care of business for a small research and development firm in Phoenix, AZ. I also can't eat anything but management training books and I can see through walls. Would you like to borrow my Tracy Chapman record? THANK YOU TONY ROBBINS!

An excellent overview of Six Sigma, this book provides insight into how to get started with the methodology. Not too technical, not too light.

Continual improvement is the key to survival in today's business climate, and as companies like GE and Motorola have proven, Six Sigma is a useful tool for ingraining the quest for perfection in an organization. After reading The Six Sigma Way, you'll probably be ready to jump out of your chair and immediately follow in these companies' footsteps by launching a Six Sigma initiative of your own. The authors, three consultants who teach firms to implement Six Sigma efforts, convincingly extol the money-saving and efficiency-enhancing virtues of the holistic approach. This book offers a lot of jargon and complex concepts, but the material is presented in easily understood charts and lists, and there are plenty of concrete examples. We [...] recommend The Six Sigma Way to managers who have heard wondrous tales of Six Sigma, but would like a more down-to-earth explanation of how it can be used and the benefits it offers.