{"id":7976,"date":"2026-01-13T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/?p=7976"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:53:26","slug":"using-people-the-right-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/using-people-the-right-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Using People the Right Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>If you believe you need to add more people, ask yourself if lack of labor force is truly the problem. Instead, it&#8217;s likely that the process itself needs refinement. Here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Download my free ebook, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/pdf\/Agile-Process-Innovation.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Agile Process Innovation &#8211; Hacking Lean Six Sigma for Results<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1123952322?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8220;Hi, I&#8217;m Jay Arthur, author of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Lean-Six-Sigma-Demystified-Second\/dp\/0071749098\/\">Lean Six Sigma Demystified<\/a>\u201d and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/demo\/\">QI Macros [software]<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;I was rereading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/4-Hour-Work-Week-Vermilion-Essentials\/dp\/178504303X\">Tim Ferrris&#8217;s book, \u201cThe 4-Hour Work Week,\u201d<\/a> and he mentions in there\u2026 he says, &#8220;Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production. Using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems. So refine rules and processes before adding people.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;I was in the phone company, we had a whole project where the outside plant installation repair people thought they needed more people. And I worked on it for like a day and a half and I said, &#8220;No, we need less repair.&#8221; But they wanted to use Quality Improvement to prove that they needed more people. They knew the outcome they wanted and they wanted to chase that and they refused&#8230; they refused to go figure out how to have less repair. When half the calls to your company are for repair, guess what? You\u2019ve got a problem with repair. Go figure out how to fix that.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;All right, so that&#8217;s my Improvement [Insight]for this week. Don&#8217;t add people, fix processes. Simplify. Streamline. Optimize. Make them so that they are fast, affordable, flawless. This works everywhere: Healthcare, manufacturing, you name it.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s my Improvement Insight. Let&#8217;s go out and improve something this week.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you believe you need to add more people, ask yourself if lack of labor force is truly the problem. Instead, it&rsquo;s likely that the process itself needs refinement. Here&rsquo;s why: Download my free ebook, Agile Process Innovation &ndash; Hacking Lean Six Sigma for Results. &#65279; &ldquo;Hi, I&rsquo;m Jay Arthur, author of &ldquo;Lean Six Sigma [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[249,168,170,659],"class_list":["post-7976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvement-insights","tag-productivity","tag-qi-macros","tag-six-sigma","tag-using-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7976"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8280,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions\/8280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}