{"id":8444,"date":"2026-11-03T01:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/?p=8444"},"modified":"2026-09-28T14:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T20:27:18","slug":"start-improving-from-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/start-improving-from-day-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Start Improving From Day One"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many people think you need extensive training to start getting results from Six Sigma. Not true. You can start improving from day one. Here&#8217;s how:<\/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\/1207445230?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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Hi, I&#8217;m Jay Arthur, author of \u201cLean Six Sigma Demystified\u201d and QI Macros [software].<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;I was reading Adam Grant&#8217;s book \u201cHidden Potential,\u201d and he talks about learning a new language, like German or Japanese or whatever. He said the goal is to start speaking from day one. He studied a lot of people who are polyglots and their goal was to start speaking from day one. And he says, &#8220;The idea of speaking from day one has changed how I think about learning. You can learn from day one. Teach from day one. Coach from day one. You don&#8217;t need to get comfortable before you practice using your skills. Your comfort grows as you practice your skills.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;I believe that applies to Quality Improvement as well; Six Sigma. You don&#8217;t need to go to endlessly long trainings. I have a one-day [training], you know: train people, apply it to their data to get results. You should start practicing from day one on things that matter to you. So, you can start learning from day one, teaching from day one, coaching from day one. How can you just start learning now? Not take a week-long class or two-week class or four-week class spread out over multiple months and then apply it to something and wait a year for something to deliver. No. Let&#8217;s just start doing it right now. All right? That&#8217;s what I always do.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;You know, people say, &#8220;Well, how do I get people involved in Quality Improvement?&#8221; I said, &#8220;Well, if you&#8217;re in a room and they&#8217;re trying to do something, you know, maybe you whip out some Post-it notes and do a Value Stream Map. Maybe you pull out your laptop and you take their data and turn it into a chart that explains what the heck is going wrong.&#8221; Just start doing it. Easy-peasy. And it&#8217;ll drive you a little nuts. You&#8217;ll stumble a little bit, but you\u2019ll learn much faster. Anytime you make a mistake, you&#8217;re going to learn a lot faster. You know, the head of IBM said, &#8220;If you want to be more successful, double your failure rate.\u201d Double your failure rate. Good advice.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s my Improvement Insight. Let&#8217;s start learning from day one.<\/p>\r\n<p>&#8220;Go out and improve something this week.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people think you need extensive training to start getting results from Six Sigma. Not true. You can start improving from day one. Here&rsquo;s how: 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 Demystified&rdquo; and QI Macros [software]. &ldquo;I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[168,682],"class_list":["post-8444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvement-insights","tag-qi-macros","tag-six-sigma-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8444","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=8444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8558,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8444\/revisions\/8558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}