Studies on Lean and Six Sigma initiatives routinely put failure-to-sustain rates in the 60–90% range. Six Sigma failure post-mortems keep landing on the same three culprits: poor training, weak buy-in and bad change management. So let's dissect that. Poor training: Your training system has to overcome 3 things to work. 1) You have to get people to listen. This only happens if they think they need to. 2) You have to get them to remember. People forget 90% of the information

There. I said it. Not because people can't learn. Not because your trainers aren't talented. Not because the content is wrong. Not because people are bad. Training doesn't work because of how we're wired and because most organizations aren't compensating for how people learn. The numbers are brutal. Studies consistently show that only about 15% of training is ever applied on the job without additional support. Only 10% of companies have a formal strategy to ensure training co

Most organizations don't have a training system or an accountability system. They have training events and they have punishment events. And, statistically speaking, neither training nor punishment events are very effective. Here's how punishment events work in practice: Wait for disaster. Trace it back to where a standard wasn't followed. Punish to deter recurrence. Nobody was checking that standard before the disaster which is why it happened in the first place. The system o