The ABC wants eight executives to become certified black belts by mid-2019, though martial arts has nothing to do with it.
The new Grandmaster Fu, Michelle Guthrie, wants her team to learn the (slightly) mysterious management art of Lean Six Sigma. The production methodology, most common in engineering and manufacturing firms, uses coloured belts typical of those used in martial arts — white, yellow, green and black — to certify levels of training. Only master black belts, who have spent at least two years leading projects in line with the doctrine, are considered experienced enough to pass on their skills.
The national broadcaster is calling for tenders to put together a panel of organisations to meet “future requirements for training and coaching in the Lean Six Sigma continuous improvement methodology”. It’s a four- to five-year contract.
Six Sigma was developed by Motorola engineer Bill Smith in 1986 and taken further by GE chief executive Jack Welch in 1995. It emphasises continuous incremental improvement to smooth out the wrinkles in systematic processes and achieve the most consistent outcomes possible. It relies on fostering a commitment to the dogma throughout the organisation, enthusiasm in senior executive ranks, evidence-based approaches and the DMAIC — define, measure, analyse, improve and control — system.
The Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales, which teaches the Lean Six Sigma system, claims it helped Optus “reached the pinnacle of lean maturity” in a cheery advertising feature to promote its courses.
The ABC’s tender documents indicate a rough plan to start by putting about 10 senior executives through “a day-long continuous improvement leadership course” in the first half of 2017. After that, the plan is to run increasing numbers of staff through the training, and pay for somewhere around 150 hours of “coaching” each year, starting from June 2017, to help it stick.
Those who do know a bit about martial arts might get a kick from one line of the tender documents.
“If White-Belt training is not a mandatory pre-requisite for participants to undertake Yellow-Belt training then the ABC will not require White-Belt training.”
A white belt signifies nothing at all in the world of martial arts. It’s the one you start with — that holds your pants up. — The Mandarin reporter Stephen Easton
I wonder if a new ALP government will be able to sack Guthrie and restore funding and independence to our ABC?
I would love to see this Abbott-Turnbull inspired nonsense thrown out once and for all, and the ABC to start earning our trust back.
what a load of wank
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first send mad.
Another bout of MBA drivel – buy shares in butchers’ paper & felt tips.
More management gobbledegook, and as with all this stuff, there is an underlying kernel of truth in what they are espousing.
As with all academic however, and most management training, one can pass through all the hoops without actually acquiring any of the skills other than being able to pass off to others that you do have these skills because you know the jargon.
The ideas in this stuff are great, but as with most or all learning, you can get the kernel without actually touching the nut. The underlying idea that only people who have been through this training are able to do it is the great corruption. Most seriously good managers and thinkers do this stuff naturally, without a coloured belt of any description. In fact, most of them go around thinking that everyone thinks this way surely, until after years and years of experience they work out that most of the people around them are just a bit dim, regardless of having qualifications coming out of their wazoo!