PEELING AWAY THE LAYERS AT 3M

Finally, Business Week has taken a hard look at what really gone on at 3M since James McNerney took over as CEO in 2000. Over the last few years it's become clear to that the management principals touted by GE during the Welch era run counter to the needs of American businesses as our economy transitions into the innovation age (six-sigma=innovation killer). McNerney was given a tremendous opportunity at 3M, an opportunity to combine his management expertise with 3M's culture of innovation. Instead he managed to destroy 3M's culture, and failed to bring a single good idea to market:

Defenders of Six Sigma at 3M claim that a more systematic new-product introduction process allows innovations to get to market faster. But Art Fry, the Post-it note inventor, disagrees. In fact, he places the blame for 3M's recent lack of innovative sizzle squarely on Six Sigma's application in 3M's research labs.
Innovation, he says, is "a numbers game. You have to go through 5,000 to 6,000 raw ideas to find one successful business." Six Sigma would ask, why not eliminate all that waste and just come up with the right idea the first time?
That way of thinking, says Fry, can have serious side effects. "What's remarkable is how fast a culture can be torn apart."

Current CEO George Buckely is trying to put the pieces back together."

Invention is by its very nature a disorderly process, you can't put a Six Sigma process into that area and say, well, I'm getting behind on invention, so I'm going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday. That's not how creativity works."

Unfortunately, Business Week fails to call the Six-Sigma/McNerney period at 3M for what it was; a complete failure which almost destroyed one of America's best companies.

Links:
The article
Six Sigma is So Yesterday
Profile of CEO George Buckley's Strategy at 3M