ABSTRACT
Today, most organizations are still dealing with the repercussions from the largest recession since the Great Depression. The recent meltdown and tortoise-speed recovery have created a disturbing trend in which leaders have their organizations stuck in short-term survival mode. Granted, many of these immediate survival tactics were necessary as the ¥nancial crisis unfolded before our very eyes. However, too many executives are continuing to drive their businesses in this short-term, reactionary survival mode as the new cultural norm. These respective inconsistent leadership behaviors are a major contributor to recent benchmarking data indicating that over 80% of Lean Six Sigma and other formal improvement initiatives are derailed and repeating the same familiar birth-death cycle of continuous improvement programs since the 1980s. At the beginning of each of these life cycles, the early successes have a hundred fathers, but when improvement fails, it becomes an orphan. With each of these cycles, the word continuous keeps falling out of continuous improvement. Today, many organizations could add more to their ¥nancial statements through successful continuous improvement initiatives than they will add via their wavering and reactionary hot lists of actions.
