This week’s Guest Author is Ken Bruss, Ed.D. Ken has extensive experience managing the implications of Organizational and Political Savvy inherent in quality and process improvement initiatives. A primary area of focus has been New Product Development processes. Ken will be contributing a few blog entries based upon his experience.

Why is Political Savvy Critical for Six Sigma Success? It seems every day we read about another company reporting amazing financial results attributable to a Six Sigma initiative. Led by Black Belt masters religiously deploying statistical methods these companies are successfully eliminating variability from their processes and defects from their products.

On occasion, the same business journals report on companies failing to experience anticipated benefits from their Six Sigma initiatives. Post mortem data indicates that frequently the root cause for disappointing results is failure to achieve company-wide buy-in. This is surprising, since unlike many other process improvement initiatives, Six Sigma heavily focuses on securing active senior and middle management support. One of the fundamentals is creating a robust infrastructure (e.g., green belts, black belts…).

Kissing the Frog. In other instances we read about a perceived struggle between achieving efficiency and  fostering innovation. For companies whose lifeblood is new products, complaints that Six Sigma stifles creativity can’t easily be ignored. Inherent in the front end of New Product Development is risk. As technologists push the envelope and explore unknowns, failures will occur. The slogan “you need to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince” hangs in many Silicon Valley cubicles. Six Sigma data analysis would  have recommended killing many development efforts which subsequently resulted in profitable, breakthrough products. As software companies attempt to manage risks by implementing “lean” and “agile” approaches to development their goal isn’t to eliminate failure, but simply surface it sooner.

How Does Political Savvy Address This Innovation versus Efficiency Challenge? Brandon Partners’ Political Styles model teaches about two distinct organizational influencing styles with contrasting world views about true Power, Politics, the role of Perception in idea approval, and Promotion of yourself and your results. On a very basic level Six Sigma is totally consistent with the less political style’s (Power of Idea’s) approach to work and organizational politics–– which is to put faith in “Substance Power” and count of the data and results speaking for themselves. In organizations where a Power of Idea’s orientation is the cultural norm, this posture will experience smooth sailing. These are organizations, after all, where power resides in facts, logic and analysis, not hierarchical status; where decisions are based on meritocracy, not relationships.

Many organizations, however, don’t operate this way. While they may not suffer from being “Overly Political,” a slightly more political, but still highly ethical political style (Power of Person) is also very active and appropriate. Here, for Six Sigma initiatives to take hold, dazzling statistical analysis isn’t sufficient. In such company cultures, decisions and resource commitments have already been informally made before the official “decision-making” meeting is held. To be effective, Six Sigma practitioners need to lift their head from the data and become politically savvy, engaging in what Brandon and Seldman in Survival of the Savvy (Free Press, 2004) call “Ethical Lobbying.” This doesn’t mean that Power of Person Six Sigma leaders need to compromise their methods or principles, but simple sell them more effectively to stakeholders across the enterprise. In up-coming Blogs we’ll explore how being Politically Savvy can contribute to Six Sigma success.

Why is Political Savvy Vital in the Economic Downturn?

My recent discussions with clients confirm an unavoidable truth–-in these economically uncertain times, maintaining a resilient and productive corporate environment demands a healthy political landscape. A climate of fear and scarcity can trigger destructive and resource-draining internal competition within companies at the very time we must collectively align against external competition. In 2009, Brandon Partners clients have renewed or even expanded their Organizational Savvy offerings, viewing ethical leadership, positive politics, and strategic influence as mission-critical. Others have asked for ways to validate their training choices to stakeholders, so I’m sharing these talking points for HR, learning, or training managers/directors who serve as stewards of company resources, reputation, and welfare: “Why is organizational savvy a must-learn competency in these hard times?”

Preventing Destructive Politics

It’s human nature for fearful people to jockey for position, practice deception, sabotage, or be self-serving. When Political Savvy is taught as “ethical politics,” it helps high-integrity contributors and leaders to recognize and protect the enterprise from overly political players so that ethical, competent people can reach positions of positive power. Savvy skills create cross-organizational collaboration to curb unhealthy competition, silos, and turf battles.

From Fear and Upset to Focus

The current economic downturn can be distracting or even paralyzing. Possessing Organizational Savvy reduces stress through an increased sense of control, understanding of what’s happening in the organization, and greater ability to predict behavior of work associates. Even snaky, shark-like activity is less jarring when you can anticipate it. Learn signals of inappropriate maneuvers so that you’re not thrown off-balance when they operate. This doesn’t make you a pessimist or cynic who can “light up a room just by leaving it!” It makes you prudent and realistic about human nature. As the bumper sticker quips, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you!” Seriously, we believe corporations and government agencies hunger for a healthy forum to constructively, openly, and proactively discuss and manage inevitable organizational politics, instead of sweeping these inevitable dynamics under the carpet or whining at the water cooler. This way, people can quickly re-focus their energy where it belongs–– on being productive.

Innovate to Grow

Companies atrophy without innovation, which demands a flow of new ideas and safely “speaking truth to power.” Organizational Savvy helps your enterprise’s people choose the right battles, respect ego and turf, and sell their ideas so that progress continues even during slowdowns. Growth in tough times involves optimizing your internal talent by making sure that competent people understand how the system works and how to move ideas forward so that solid ideas see the light of day.

Leadership Bench Strength

If your company is in a holding pattern, rebuilding, or cutting back, a reliable funnel of leadership talent will help you to survive, thrive, and emerge even stronger. Given external threats and severely limited resources, organizations cannot afford gaps in their leadership pipeline due to lack of strategic influence skills or career derailment. Ethical, politically savvy leadership is pivotal in today’s complex and volatile business environment.

I look forward to helping you position the bottom-line benefits and “burning platform” business needs your learning solutions and training programs address during future blog postings. Hopefully this entry helps build confidence that if you are a training, learning and development, human resources, or leadership development professional, you may be one of the “quiet heroes” helping your company to survive the storm of these turbulent times, so pat yourself on the back!

Welcome to our SAVVY BLOG, where Brandon Partners CEO and best selling author Dr. Rick Brandon will share ideas and advice on navigating organizational politics with integrity, influence, and impact for enhanced individual and enterprise success. You’ll learn strategies like Rick describes on this page’s video about Managing the Corporate “Buzz,” only in blog fashion from Rick and other thought leaders on this cutting edge competency for today’s organizations.

We will be offering several categories of posts such as Leadership or Diversity Implications of Savvy, further application insights about the 13 Savvy Skills taught in our workshops and online assessments, insights derived from participants, Intact Teams’ special usages of Savvy principles, multi-media resources and reading suggestions, and other useful material to help you navigate the political landscape.

We’re excited that this SAVVY BLOG will be a team effort with posts authored by Rick, along with some of our trainers, coaches, and strategic alliance partners. Visit often and subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed here–or sign-up to receive posts directly to your inbox by adding your email to the form located in the middle of the sidebar on the right, or on our Home Page.

We will be posting archived content, as well as all new posts beginning directly below this welcome message. We appreciate the time, energy, and expertise you may invest here, and look forward to engaging in intriguing and Savvy interchange with you. For more information about Brandon Partners, take a look around our Web site or follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook.