This is part of the series The Role of the Six Sigma Black Belt. The concepts and ideas presented also apply to other improvement professionals and leaders implementing improvements in an organization.

The Expert Role

Companies that are serious about their Six Sigma initiative spend significant resources in training and certifying BBs (typically a two-year process). Thus, Black Belts become tool experts in using the technical tools of the Six Sigma methodologies (DMAIC or DFSS). They might also be subject matter experts (SME) if they are assigned projects within their own functional group. Finally, they may also be process experts as they are often selected because of their background as engineers, manufacturing professionals, or some other process focused discipline.

As an expert, the BB can be very valuable to an organization precisely because of their knowledge and expertise. A project sponsor loves nothing more than someone who “really knows their stuff” and can dive into the project fast with ease and comfort. The challenge comes when a team sees the BB as a threat or with distrust because after all, expertise is all relative. Team members may also feel they (individually or collectively) are experts and may resent an outsider coming and taking that role. It does not help when the BB has been made to feel superior (after all, they were “selected” and a serious investment has gone into their development) and either knowingly or otherwise acts in any way as an expert who has “special” knowledge, a “mandate,” and is here to “improve” the process or “fix” the problem for the last time (the implication of course is that whatever was tried before was either a joke or a failure).

This type of situation is almost domed to fail because in the rush to get the work done and show results (action orientation is after all, a very desired and rewarded characteristic in corporations today), the BB often neglects the fundamental concept of trust.  To borrow Steve M.R. Covey’s tagline in his book The Speed of Trust, “trust IS the one thing that changes everything!” Remember? People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care…yep, trite but true!

Of course, there is more to it than trust but to really tap into a BBs expertise, the team needs to trust him or her. The BB needs to gain the trust of the team, the process owner(s), and the key stakeholders, and help the team members trust each other. Short of a team building activity (which I might explore in a different entry), there are specific things that the BB can do that are practical and can contribute real value quickly and visibly to the work of the team. Here are my five ideas…

1. Ask them…genuinely ask and be interested in their view of things
2. Build on common ground
3. Combine advocacy with inquiry
4. Show real respect your team’s knowledge and expertise
5. Use their language & avoid jargon

Colleagues through LinkedIn groups added some very good ones…

• Dare to make mistakes (often because Six Sigma is analogous to error free process, BBs might approach their project work using this mentality, which may be problematic)
• Share your knowledge in a way that’s welcome
• Develop others in the process

Next time, the BB as a Project Manager. 


In the meantime, how can BBs be more effective in their role as  experts?