A presentation I made to a group of students minoring in Continuous Improvement at Ball State University. I was asked to speak about the transitions a person may fear while changing roles of a student to professional as well as transitions that may take place while a person is pursuing their career.

1. Career Transitions Presented to BSU Six Sigma Student Organization Speaker Series 2/16/2010

2. You Process improvement minor? Name Major What year? fresh, soph, jr, sr Plan to be a six sigma practitioner?

3. Me 1993 (5 year plan) Hurst Hall 3rd floor, wife 6th floor Mysch Hall 10th place in Bike-a-thon 1991; the year of the mud 6 Sigma Black Belt Training 2001 Certification 2003 LSSB student mentor 2010-2011

4. Career Transitions Student to work Role to role Company to Company New Career

5. That’s you, why should I care? Studies show ~20-55% people plan to change careers when the economy recovers. 7 primary reasons employees leave: The job or workplace was not as expected Mismatch between job and person Too little coaching and feedback Too few growth and advancement opportunities Feeling devalued and unrecognized Stress from overwork and work-life imbalance Loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders “The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave” (2005), Leigh Branham

6. Types of transitions Your plan Their plan

7. Keys to success Technical – DMAIC, Subject Matter Expert Specialty (SME), generality, blend Strive to be the expert Process driven Management Exude confidence; practice humility Genuine sincerity, respect for people Quality

8. Quality Perspective Definition of quality Adhere to spec Minimize variation Achieve expected outcome Applied to everything Technical (specs) Customer, operator, stakeholder Deadlines Usability Why that introduces stress – unmet self expectations Why it reduces stress

9. 1. student to engineer Pre-work Co-op, intern At work Build rapport: sincerity, respect Be positive, helpful, open to learn from their experience (leaders and front line) Improve continuously Be flexible Share knowledge openly (abundance mentality) Look for what’s right about resistance – develop countermeasures Know it all? NOT!

10. 1. Co-op value Dip toes in the water, make relationships Get some experience Networking – networking – networking Receive job offers from someone at every organization I worked – even after they moved to a different org

11. 1. Newbie example Angry supervisor – respect for what’s working and how it got that way Mold makers and maintenance people -both can fix your mistakes. No respect - they will do exactly what you ask them to (right or wrong) Show respect - they will help make you right

12. 2. Plastics to everything else Experienced people recognize your true capability (often before you do) Be open to change Be prepared to work hard (90 hrs/wk) Be process-oriented (fwPASS, NYE party) Small increments of learning and implementation Train/mentor someone to replace you (leverage) Black Belts – use DMAIC

13. 2. Plastics to everything else mentor replacement Shannon, my shadow Process oriented fwPASS NYE party Machine quoting SEO CRM process

14. 3. Plastics to Value Stream mgr Improve collaboration Equip people for self-service Push decisions to the lowest level Delay decisions until adequate info available Don’t be afraid to fail, but fix quickly

15. 3. Improve collaboration, self serve Web-based pacing chart Productivity tracking Process yield Process journalism Dashboard, graphs, charts

16. 4. Career change Plan ahead Prepare Independent study Back to school Dabble at work, if related Verify Volunteer Moonlight Subcontract

17. Other Examples Kitchen Nightmares: people on the verge of losing their restaurant business and they hadn’t even been to the kitchen (lean principles) Undercover Boss: GTE Sylvania – work in each department for a day: molding, coating, aluminizing, assembly

18. Keys to success Process driven – DMAIC, lean, PDCA People centered Trust yourself* Utilize others - Everyone has something to contribute

19. Two types of problems Science problems DMAIC OFAT (one factor at a time) Business problems DMAIC Go to the activity Collaborate

20. Questions? Blogs dean-o.blogspot.com practicalhoshin.blogspot.com Twitter @deanwillson Email dean@systemental.com LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/deanwillson