Principle of War #6 – Concerted action

Concerted Action: Unify and bring all elements to work simultaneously in the achievement of your objectives.

This is the principle of coordination. When using maneuver and mass to achieve an objective that involves various departments or units their actions should be in coordination with each other.

Ideally, Lean Six Sigma organizations have a list of projects and kaizen events lined up. Determining which projects are executed when is key to the organization action as one system. Black Belts are trained in systems thinking for this reason. We don’t want to solve one problem and create two, or one departments “improvement” hurts operations in another department. This is big picture stuff.

At the front line “kaizen team” level we use a key member known as the facilitator. Facilitators help assure the team is working in concerted action with each other. Their duties include helping select team members, managing relationships, providing guidance and helping ensure team is moving towards the objective.

Coordinate activities

Note: Your ability to create concerted actions between people or departments is rocket fuel for your career.