As Published In November 2004

Forward Thinking
By Joelle Dick, Caroline Kvitka, Aaron Lazenby, and Rich Schwerin

Four Keys to Lean Six Sigma

As any card-carrying perfectionist will attest, there's always room for improvement—often quite a bit of room when you embark on the road to improving enterprise productivity. One such route, Lean Six Sigma, might sound like some trendy starvation diet, but it's not only about what you eat—it's also about how you eat it.

Mike George, Dave Rowlands, and Bill Kastle, authors of What Is Lean Six Sigma? (McGraw-Hill, 2004), offer a quick introduction on how Lean Six Sigma combines today's two most important improvement trends: making work faster (Lean) and making work better (Six Sigma), built on four key tenets:

1. Delight Your Customers with Speed and Quality
Although customers have different priorities, they're the only ones who can define quality by voting with their wallets. Lean Six Sigma's goal is the elimination of anything that doesn't meet your customer's quality requirements (a.k.a. defects).

2. Improve Your Processes
Dr. Edwards Deming, an American statistician who led the quality movement in Japan 50 years ago, said that most quality problems are "in the process, not the person." Lean Six Sigma focuses on the steps that constitute the work and the flow of work between groups, with the goal of eliminating variation (the Greek letter sigma denotes standard deviations in statistics) while improving process flow and speed.

3. Work Together for Maximum Gain
Can't we all just get along? The Lean Six Sigma environment encourages people to work collaboratively, discussing and resolving problems openly. Teams foster effectiveness by setting goals, assigning accountability, reaching good decisions, and collaborating with other groups.

4. Base Decisions on Data and Facts
With Lean Six Sigma, decisions are based on facts, not guesswork. Data includes result measures (how the product or service turned out) and process measures (what happened to produce the result).

As for the impact on technology, Lean begins by breaking down and reestablishing system flows, so IT offerings that both enforce and automate these newly established standards are required. Lean also requires a system that adjusts capacity to meet changes in demand, provides a flexible infrastructure for updating flows as processes come online, and can be updated for continuous improvement. Oracle addresses these and other Lean challenges; for more information, visit oracle.com/lean.

Best Snowbound Retreats

This shortlist of snowbound resorts offers a range of on- and off-the-slopes activities to help you seal those deals, plus world-class conference facilities to fire up your troops.

Whistler and Blackcomb, British Columbia, Canada From tree-line alpine bowls to double black diamonds, Whistler and Blackcomb offer 11 square miles of terrain. Designated as the home of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Whistler has numerous watering holes and eateries. Plus, the Telus Whistler Conference Centre accommodates up to 2,000 people.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming A laid-back cowboy town, Jackson Hole boasts 10,000 skiable acres. The Mountain Sports School offers everything from learn-to-ride programs to Wild West Adrenaline Camps. Snow King Resort accommodates up to 2,100 people.

Killington, Vermont For you Northeasterners, Killington's 7 mountains, 200 trails, and 81 skiable miles make it the premier snow destination in New England. After a day on the slopes, unwind at the Wobbly Barn, with an apr�s-ski scene dating back 40 years. The Killington Grand Resort Hotel & Conference Center holds up to 1,000 guests.

Three Steps to Connect with Your Customers

Building positive relationships with your family and friends is one thing, but what about with your customers? The Relationship Edge in Business: Connecting with Customers and Colleagues When It Counts (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) outlines how to systematically build winning business relationships, and repair dysfunctional ones, in three steps. First, writes author Jerry Acuff, understand that personal relationships are vital to business success. Second, ask the right questions to discover common ground. Third, be truthful and straightforward or you'll undermine the good will you've worked so hard to build. With case studies and step-by-step guidance, Acuff offers tools to improve your bottom line.

Oracle News
Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10 Update
Along with a focus on better integration and information, scores of enhancements and new product offerings will arrive with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10, including hundreds of industry-specific and horizontal business processes. Notable industry enhancements include functionality that facilitates Basel II compliance for the financial services industry, radio frequency identification (RFID), clinical trial management for the pharmaceuticals industry, and automation functionality provisioning for the telecommunications industry.

"Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10 is a major milestone for Oracle and offers a significant expansion of industry-specific and core business process functionality," says Ron Wohl, executive vice president, Oracle Applications Development. "Customers can use the sophisticated integration capabilities of Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10 to reduce the time and cost associated with integration projects."

Oracle is advancing its integration capabilities to allow companies that run Oracle with other applications to automate business processes across the enterprise. The enhanced integration capabilities provide comprehensive support for business-to-business, enterprise-application, and process integration. Oracle provides a single view of your customers with the Oracle Customer Data Hub, a fully integrated customer data management solution that centralizes, deduplicates, continuously synchronizes, and enriches customer data.

Learn how Oracle is working with its customers on the Customer Advisory Board to make Oracle E-Business Suite even better. Visit oracle.com/profitmagazine/cab.html.

Oracle Events

Automotive Industry Roundtable
Find out how automotive industry leaders are using business technology to reduce costs, improve processes, and develop sustainable, long-term growth strategies.
—Detroit, November 10-11, 2004; contact Mary Crane at +1.212.554.0623 or visit www.economistconferences.com

Oracle OpenWorld Industry Tracks
Learn best practices from global leaders in more than a dozen industries, including automotive, high technology, and industrial manufacturing. Hear how Oracle customers are increasing operational efficiencies and reducing costs, and discover how Oracle Information Architecture can increase corporate value and enable you to make better decisions faster.

Get up to speed on Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i.10.
—Mumbai, India, November 1-2; San Francisco, California, December 5-9

Automotive
Racing Skip Barber-Style
Automotive execs are pressured to cut costs, lower prices, and raise profits—no pit stops allowed. Here's one way to grab the checkered flag: the Skip Barber Racing School, available at more than 20 of America's premier race tracks. In intro (US$695) to three-day (US$3,495) courses, you'll wheel a 2-liter Formula Dodge race car (0 to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds), learning race fundamentals at a racetrack near you. Start your engines.
www.skipbarber.com

Healthcare
Nap to Win
According to a 2002 study from the National Institute of Mental Health, an afternoon nap can help reduce brain burnout and enhance your ability to process information. But weary workers might worry about raising a few eyebrows for lowering their lids at work. Enter Metronaps. The New York-based company rents ergonomic Metronap Pods—US$14 for a 20-minute sleep session—complete with a soundproof enclosure, privacy visor, and lemon-scented wake-up spritz. Not located near the company's Empire State Building sleep center? Starting at US$7,950, your company can purchase a Pod and build your own state-of-the-art nap room.
www.metronaps.com

Technology
Getting Techy
The next time business or pleasure finds you in Silicon Valley, visit The Tech Museum of Innovation, an eclectic collection of hands-on exhibits from genetics to seismology. Play inventor and design your own microchips and smart devices, discover nanotechnology, or catch a National Medal of Technology laureate lecture.
www.thetech.org

Industrial Manufacturing

Demanding customers and global competitors have put U.S. manufacturers on notice: Deliver complex products faster and more profitably. So industry is seeking hired guns from America's three best industrial/manufacturing graduate schools for 2005: Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, and Purdue University (U.S. News & World Report).

Exposing Hidden Talents

You've got an important position to fill and scores of résumés to filter for likely candidates. But when it comes to actual face-to-face interviews, screening for qualifications isn't enough. Résumés communicate about competencies and skills but seldom about motivational fit or values. You need to know what motivates prospective hires, what hidden talents they might have, and to what extent corporate and personal values intersect. The answer? Behavioral interviewing.

"People are the only element with the inherent power to generate value. All other variables—cash and its cousin credit, materials, plant and equipment, and energy—offer nothing but inert potential," writes renowned human resources expert Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz in his book The ROI of Human Capital. In a knowledge economy, people and their ideas power corporate success; to tap this success, 90 percent of the Fortune 500 uses behavior-based interviewing.

"There are several reasons why behavior-based interviewing has become a core element of most selection systems, including ease of understanding, prediction of job performance, flexibility, and efficiency," says Scott Erker, vice president of selection solutions for Development Dimensions International (DDI), a global human resources consultancy. Erker has managed projects, clients, and consultants in 18 countries and has worked with several leading companies, including General Motors, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, BASF, and Mercedes-Benz.

When you move beyond qualifications and requirements and focus on specific experiences, passions, and interests, you'll have a better chance of identifying a great match. And people who are well matched with their jobs are generally more productive, motivated, and valuable for your organization. Behavioral interviewing is an effective tool for identifying—and hiring—top performers. And it's a great way to expose hidden talents and interests that don't appear on a résumé but might be beneficial for the position. "Behavior-based interviewing is based on the idea that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior," says Erker. So what sort of questions should you be asking?

"You need to ask some motivational questions: What drives you? What are you most passionate about in your work? Why? Give me an example of a time when you were the most creative or when you felt most alive at work, and what allowed you to feel that way?" says Mary Robins, associate director of the career center at Notre Dame de Namur University, in Belmont, California.

"Ask for examples of specific experiences," adds Gail Hartka, a senior consultant in management and professional development at Oracle University. In behavioral interviews, explains Hartka, the focus is on specific experiences and examples. If there's a competency you're screening for—customer service, for example—ask candidates to describe a time when their customer service skills were challenged and how they overcame that challenge. Or ask when the candidate felt most excited about customer service. The more emotion you can draw out, the better understanding you'll have for motivational fit.

After you ask a behavioral question, the most important thing to do is listen, explains Robins. In addition to what candidates say, what they don't say can be informative. A candidate's body language can reveal, for example, defensiveness (crossed arms) or evasiveness (lack of eye contact) that might be cause for concern and warrant further questions and subsequent interviews—or a polite handshake good-bye.

Global human resources consultancy DDI uses a behavior-based selection process to identify high performers. Using DDI's process, clients report that more than 75 percent of their new hires are considered above-average performers. For more information on DDI's behavioral interviewing selection process, visit www.ddiworld.com.