We just learned the impact of Six Sigma on organizations. The next question is a very powerful question. It's a small question that drives all success. The more a man invests in that question, the more powerful that man will become. Can you guess what that question is? What?
For me? To address this question, let me share a short story with you that one of my students from India had shared. I was working as a team leader in operations. I wanted to do something different in my profession, and someone pointed me to do six sigma. After dedicating about six months for studies, I became a Certified Professional just after the day of completing the certification gave an interview for the assistant manager position in operations at one of the big organizations. Somewhere on the corner of the resume a, I had updated that I am a six sigma certified professional.
Everything went well in the interview, I was selected, but the HR was not agreeing on my expectations for the paycheck. As a team lead, I was earning rupees 250,000 per annum, I was expecting that this new position should pay me at least 450,000 rupees per annum. But the company had a ceiling salary of 350,000 rupees for the assistant manager position. I felt stuck and was trying to negotiate with the HR but she wouldn't budge while flipping the pages of my resuming during the discussion. It looked like she spotted something She interrupted and asked if I could wait in the lobby for a few minutes. Well, the wait was not for a few minutes, but for at least two hours.
Then I saw her, she was accompanied by another individual wearing smart business attire. Both were walking towards me at the lobby. The individual introduced himself as the operations manager, and handed me a letter. The letter was nothing but the offer letter. And to my surprise, the offer letter did not have a salary of 250,000 rupees which was my current salary, nor 350,000, which they were offering me nor 450,000, which I was expecting, but 550,000 Oh, my God. If you get less money, you generally ask Why are you giving me less money right?
If you get more you should definitely ask. So I asked him, Why were they paying me more than I expected, to which he responded, we want to build a process improvement culture in my department, and Six Sigma professionals are the right guys to establish this culture. However, we have a lack of certified professionals who could help in building this culture. Hence, we have an additional budget available to hire those with six in my expertise. Well, the story didn't end here. I became excited, took the offer later, but did not accept this offer.
I went back to my existing employer and informed them that I wanted to join the Six Sigma team of our organization. I'm a certified professional now and I'm getting offers from various other companies in about six months, and internal job posting was released. For the assistant manager position in the quality team of my organization, I cracked the interview and grabbed the position. To my surprise, I was not paid rupees 250,000 nor 350,000 nor 450,000 and not even 550,000. But I was given a package of 650,000. This was amazing.
The Six Sigma certification had not only held in giving me a job that has very high satisfaction levels, but also a paycheck that was better than most at my level.