It’s become leadership mantra “What matters, gets measured,” and in today’s world demanding innovation at hyper speeds, is it any wonder that the focus of most senior operations and general management leaders is how to integrate the Holy Grail of Six Sigma into every crevice of profitable operations. But isn’t the question of which comes first: the productive operation or the cultural change really at the heart of predicting success?

The members of this community face this question every day. Is driving vision and values the most important thing you do every day?  We’d love to hear examples from the group about how you’ve tackled this very real dilemma – is it cultural change first or is it the power of Six Sigma/LEAN operations that propels your business forward in innovation?

Great tools are available to measure cultures of innovation. For a look at how Google’s analytical approach benefits the vision read A dark art no more on Economist.com.

One of my fellow ExecuNet members pointed out in a lively discussion the other day that she hadn’t yet experienced an organization where the leadership stayed the course aligning culture and performance.  “In my opinion,” this insurance executive said, “only leading-edge and financially-fit organizations are not so focused on the short-term financial gains of abandoning Six Sigma commitments, but on how Six Sigma better positions them for the future.”

It takes solid financial performance BEFORE you can have the culture and the operations in sync? Do you agree?

Research finds that China is poised to replace the United States as the most frequent international relocation assignment destination; meanwhile Singapore drops off the list and Germany emerges.

In a presentation at a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) regional conference, Sue Evens, director of Cartus Consulting Services, identified the top three global mobility policy and program trends—assignment volume and destinations; demand for flexibility and emerging policy approaches; and talent management—and underscored the shift toward China as the primary location for international assignments.

Driven by robust business growth and activity, China will outpace the United States in 2009 as the most frequented location, capturing 31 percent of international assignments, however the HR practitioners who responded to the Cartus survey indicated that China would present the biggest challenge for them. Among the chief concerns: infrastructure and security; living conditions; compensation and high costs; compliance; and cultural adaptation/language.

2004
1. United States.......34%
2. United Kingdom....28%
3. China...................19%
4. Singapore.............19%


2007
5. United States.......30%
6. China...................23%
7. United Kingdom......8%
8. Germany................5%


2009 Projected
9. China..................31%
10. United States.......25%
11. United Kingdom.....4%
12. India.....................4%

Source: Cartus, 2007

No phone, email, Internet or visitors. What would occur during your period of solitude?

Last month, Starbucks closed all their U.S. stores for three hours for an employee training session. In our 24/7/365 world, this seems almost unthinkable, especially for an establishment that sells coffee — the fuel that enables us to live with little downtime.

This retail stoppage got me thinking about what life would be like if I were to shut down my operations for three hours. What could I accomplish in that time period without email, phone and visitors? Internet service would have to be suspended too, lest I become tempted to spend the time reading or watching videos.