How Does a Master Black Belt Become a Strategic Process Improvement Leader?
Becoming a Master Black Belt involves a great deal more than just learning advanced statistical process improvement tools. It’s about philosophy as well as tools. It involves acquiring the skills to be a leader and shifts focus from doing to developing culture change within the organization. A Master Black Belt should be redesigned from a tool master to a strategic process improvement leader. A Master Black Belt needs passion for continuous culture change. I think you must believe in zero defects before you can inspire confidence institutionally. A Master Black Belt also needs soft skills such as presentation delivery, interpersonal relations and communication. The ability to bridge the knowledge divide between Six Sigma and a complete lack of statistics knowledge is critical. In a typical healthcare organization 80 percent of people are not comfortable with statistics, and thus statistical support needs to be user friendly, easily analyzed and very visual. In addition, a Master Black
