"Improve" and "Control" for Lasting Results

This is the last blog in my three part series on how to use the DMAIC business process improvement framework - to improve your life; whether those improvements are health and well being, career and finances, or relationships with the people and world around you.

Improve is the fourth step of the Six Sigma five step DMAIC approach. The objective of "Improve" is to develop and implement the best plan for improvement of the opportunities (root causes) identified in the analyze phase.

Depending on the root cause of the life process breakdowns - slip up on diets, over spending, or challenges in relationships, you can create methods to address and improve these areas of your life.

The "Analyze" phase that I discussed in my last blog provides you with the awareness necessary to improve your reaction to the situations that cause you to veer off the path towards your goals.

Once we become aware of the triggers that are either missed or switched that cause us to react to a situation in a way that is not producing the results we want to see in our lives, we are able to "Control" our reaction, thus producing different and hopefully the desired results. That's where the continuous improvement part comes in...

Sometimes, even when we change a process in our life we do not see the desired results, we may need to once again adapt our life process to achieve more significant progress towards reaching our goals.

It is in those times that we can become discouraged and put our hopes and dreams on the back burner all together - and fall short of living the life we deserve.

Don't let this happen to your dreams - you deserve the very best!

Analyze --> Next Phase of Improvement

In my last blog: Improve Your Approach - Improve Your Life we explored the first two phases of the improvement process, and how to use the DMAIC approach to improve your life.

In this blog we move on to the most important phase in my opinion - Analyze.
"Where and When do "defects" occur." In this case, where do the choices and decisions in your life process breakdown?

In the process of our life, we must analyze why we make choices that do not support the attainment of the goals we set for ourselves. Often times, we are our own worst enemy towards goal attainment. We get distracted, make excuses, and rationalize why we must make choices that do not support our long term goals.

For whatever reason, we often start out on the path to our goals with a great deal of motivation and excitement, and as time passes, our desire and ambition fade away, along with the vision we are striving to achieve.

So, why do we do what we do? Because we do not hold ourselves accountable. We find a way to blame the circumstances, surroundings, or people around us for our lack of success.

For instance, in the case of weightloss - we blame the office potluck, lack of time, and sometimes the DNA of our parents on our inability to make good food choices for ourselves. When in reality, we have the ability to choose.

Here's where a life coach comes in handy. A life coach provides you with the tools and activities you need and works with you to analyze why you have breakdowns in your choices and how you can stay on track and remain accountable for your own success.

Do you need help improving your life process? Let's chat!

Improve Your Approach - Improve Your Life!

If "Life is a Process", then it is capable of continuous improvement. This is the first blog in a three part series that describes how the methodologies used in business to support continuous improvement can also be used to improve our personal lives.

DMAIC is a five-step approach for driving costly variation from manufacturing and business processes: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. In this blog I'll cover "Define" and "Measure" the other three components will be discussed in a future post.

As the backbone of the Six Sigma methodology, DMAIC delivers sustained defect-free performance and highly competitive quality costs over the long run. Business leaders use it as a structure for improving performance in areas such as customer satisfaction, operational costs, service quality, and countless other possibilities – each business has its own performance metrics that are critical for success. Each of us as individuals also have our own unique set of performance measurements - depending on what we want to achieve in our lives.

Define:

Define is the first step in the process. In this step, it is important to define specific goals towards achieving the results you want from the process.

For example:

The desired result is weight loss
Specific goals would be:
- Lose 5 lbs before Mary’s birthday party.

You want to lower your credit card debt
Specific goals would be:
- Lower your debt by 10K by New Years.

Measure:

You need a starting point and a baseline measurement.

In the examples above
- What is your starting weight?
- What is your current amount of debt?

In this step, accurate measurements must be made and relevant information must be collected so that future comparisons can be measured to determine whether or not improvements have been made.

Now that you know what you want to measure, you need to set goals or milestones towards achieving your goal. Break down into reasonable chunks

- How much time do you have?
- What is the maximum commitment I can make each week?
- How much can I reasonably achieve?

Once you have defined your goals, performed a baseline, and determined milestones and measurements, you will be able to utilize the "Analyze", "Improve", and "Control" phases of the DMAIC approach to aid you in achieving them.

Think about some areas of your life your would like to see improved. Define exactly what it is that you want to achieve, determine where you are currently at relative to the goal, break into small steps.. LiTtLe cHuNks.. mini-SucceSSes.. and have SUPER CELEBRATIONS!!

Whose Expectation is it Anyway?

Life is full of expectations. Our bosses, spouses, parents, teachers, children, friends and even perfect strangers all have expectations of us and we have expectations of our bosses, spouses, parents, teachers, children, friends and even perfect strangers as well.

Sounds fair enough.

You have expectations of me - and I have expectations of you. But how effective are we really at communicating our expectations?

Not very, based on all the anger, disappointments, and hurt there is in the world today. If you are asking, what does one have to do with the other, let me explain.

Why does someone get angry, disappointed, or hurt? Because their expectations are not met. They had an expectation of a particular outcome, and that outcome did not come to fruition, so they experience the anger, dissappointment, or hurt depending on the situation at hand.

In those instances where our expectations are met, we are able to allow ourselves to be happy, feel joy, love and be at peace.

In some cases, the "agent of the pain" is aware of the expectations, and in other cases we assume that they should automatically understand and agree to our unspoken or poorly communicated expectations.

In either case, the opportunity lies in recognizing that just because you have an expectation of somebody or something it does not necessarily mean that the something or somebody is willing or able to meet your expectations.

We live our best lives when we do not allow the outside circumstances or situations and missed expectations determine how we feel about our lives, about ourselves, and about the people and world around us and instead take ownership for our reaction to the situation or circumstance.

The best expectation is the one you place on yourself; that demands you have a positive outlook and attitude regardless of the situation or circumstance. When we can adequately and consistently meet this, our own expectation of ourselves, we will have satisfied ourselves - thus giving ourselves the permission to be happy.

Sh*t Happens... But you have choices!

It's true, sometimes in life, sh*t happens, but you have choices. You can choose to:

- walk around it
- walk through it
- or just stand there

These choices are available almost everytime we encounter an obstacle in our life.

Those who refuse to let an obstacle get in their way and just choose to "walk around it" are able to do so, because they do not let the obstacle cause them to take their eye off the goal. They merely stay focused on where or what they want to achieve and take a few steps to the left and push on forward. This is usually the best approach, but as I said not the only approach.

There are others who choose to just "walk through it" -- they come through the obstacle, but not without a smelly mess. However, going straight through an obstacle keeps you on course with no risk of taking you off track with the few steps to the side as described in the "walk around it" approach. Those willing to go right through the obstacle might come out a little worse for the wear on the other side - but no doubt having gained some valuable knowledge and experience along the way.

Finally, there are those who let the obstacle overwhelm them - they are paralyzed and can no longer see their goal. They "just stand there."

There will be times in each of our lives when the obstacle or situation seems so overwhelming that "just standing there" is all we can do initially; but the great thing is - in every new moment - we have the opportunity to make a new choice. We can decide to go ahead and "walk through it" - risking some muck on the bottom of our shoe; or we can opt for the "walk around it" approach, and show up at our goal, with a smile on our face - smelling fresh as a daisy.

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." ~Henry Ford