How to Foster the Adoption of Lean and Six Sigma in the Sharing Economy?

1. Share your purpose: Think long term. Define long term objectives, communicate them to the employees and provide resources to meet them. That is, if you plan to improve the quality of your products, you need to provide your employees with training and allow time off production to do them! This is the first step also in the DMAIC methodology in six Sigma. Projects need to be defined based on long term priorities and availability pf resources.

2. Share your tasks: Work in teams.  Focus on a “we” instead of “me” thinking by promoting team working and defining team objectives instead of individual ones so that everyone understand what is that the company values. Lean and six sigma are only successful if everyone is entitled to make and propose improvements. Every employee is part of a company process, and the best candidate to improve a task is to work with whom is doing the task every single day.  Aristotle would said that, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

3. Share your rewards. Reward all of them: reward people based on team performance to help them meet the team objectives. Many companies are moving from an individual performance ranking towards a profit sharing model where everyone knows how the company is doing and feel responsible for it. Tips sharing is a simple example of this. Other incentives that are very common are bonuses based on participation in continuous improvement projects, or rewards for the best ideas. Any of these money incentives provide focus to the employees on improving performance, thinking outside of the box and sharing ideas. 

4. Share your passion: Motivate your people. Based on Maslow’s theory of needs, once people are paid fairly, respecting their Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose will motivate them to do their best. Deciding what to work on or when to do it by setting objectives in teams; implementing flex time schedules; requesting tasks neither too difficult nor too easy for their ability; and connecting work to values like socially responsible activities are examples of good practices that motivate people. If you share the purpose of the company by defining long term objectives with your employees, you are not only planning the work schedule but you are also providing your people with a clear understanding of what you are expecting from them, therefore they can be more autonomous (they already know what they need to do), they learn to master their skills so as to complete tasks on time and align their purpose with the company’s purpose (objectives have been set together considering not only company needs but also their own).

5. Share your ideas: Let them innovate. Every employee knows how to do their job better, so just help them do it. Listen to their ideas and provide then with the required tools. Improving project by project is the lean and six sigma mantra. Many companies organize monthly meeting to review ideas organize projects teams to accomplish those ideas. Other companies just capture suggestions during operational meetings, perform periodic brainstorming sessions or organize Kaizen events.