Nana’s Ham (#23)

On the evening before Thanksgiving Day, a couple were preparing for their family’s Thanksgiving feast. While the husband was prepping the green bean casserole, the wife was glazing the ham. The husband watched as his wife sliced off the ends of both sides of the ham. Flabbergasted he asked her why, saying “You’re wasting good ham!” She answered, “I don’t really know. This is just how my mom makes it.”

The next day at Thanksgiving Dinner, the husband asked his mother in law why she taught his wife to waste the precious ends of the dinner ham. The mother in law laughed and said “well that’s how my mom taught me how to do it.” His wife’s grandma unfortunately passed away earlier that year, however grandpa was in attendance. The wife asked her grandpa why her grandma cut the ends of the ham off. He was quiet for a minute while he thought about his late wife’s reasoning. He then stated, “I think she did that to make the ham fit in the baking pan.”

What an interesting story of Cultural Training! We can relate this story to when a generation of employees teaches another generation the work process. Cultural Training is also called “On the Job Training.” This is when an employee is required to teach a new employee the ropes, usually in a matter of days or even hours.

Cultural Training and On the Job Training can be great assets for employee development. However, an organization needs to have solid standards from which the training would occur. There should be specific work instructions and standards. Usually though, these trainings include whatever that particular employee views as most important. Without set instructions, this training can transform over time to a “standard” that is entirely unrecognizable.

Another analogy is the Telephone game. Remember when a group of kids would all sit in a circle and one person would start? They would whisper a phrase into the person sitting to their right’s ear. This would continue until the phrase was whispered into the very last person’s ear. The last person would then say out loud the phrase that was whispered to them. If your experience was anything like mine, then the last person’s phrase was entirely different than what the first person said.

What is your experience with Cultural Training? Share your stories with us!

About Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc.

We are Certified as an Accredited Training Organization with the International Association of Six Sigma Certification (IASSC)

“The IASSC Accredited Training Organization (ATO) designation validates Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc. has demonstrated adequate management systems, courseware with a high degree of correlation to the subject matter contained in the IASSC Bodies of Knowledge, delivery schema consistent with such content and highly qualified instructors.”

We Provide Public Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Training Courses in 34 Cities across the globe.

Our Training Centers are located in: Albuquerque, New Mexico | Anchorage, Alaska | Atlanta, Georgia | Austin, Texas | Boston, Massachusetts | Calgary, Canada | Charlotte, North Carolina | Chicago, Illinois | Cincinnati, Ohio | Cleveland, Ohio | Columbus, Ohio | Dallas, Texas | Denver, Colorado | Detroit, Michigan | Dubai, UAE | El Paso, Texas | Fort Smith, Arkansas | Honolulu, Hawaii | Houston, Texas | Indianapolis, Indiana | Jacksonville, Florida | Kansas City, Missouri | Las Vegas, Nevada | London, England | Los Angeles, California | Louisville, Kentucky | Memphis, Tennessee | Mexico City, Mexico | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Minneapolis, Minnesota | Montreal, Canada | Nashville, Tennessee | New Orleans, Louisiana | New York City, New York | Northwest Arkansas | Orlando, Florida | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Phoenix, Arizona | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Portland, Oregon | Raleigh, North Carolina | Salt Lake City, Utah | San Diego, California | Seattle, Washington | St. Louis, Missouri | Tampa, Florida | Toronto, Canada | Vancouver, Canada | Washington, DC

We Provide Onsite Lean Six Sigma Certification Training. Some of the training's we provide are: Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, Lean Six Sigma Champions Training and Lean Certifications for Healthcare, Finance, I.T, Manufacturing, Processing, Logistics, Retail Sales and Government.

SSDSI will come to your site to train for your choice of the Lean Six Sigma Certification Levels. Onsite training is more cost effective than open enrollment training when training larger groups of team members.

Benefits of Onsite Training:

The Training is focused on Your Opportunities

SSDSI uses your opportunities in class (vs. generic examples)

You will get the experience of a seasoned Lean and Six Sigma Master Black Belt who will help mentor you while completing your Lean and Six Sigma Project

You can train up to 20 employees for one fixed cost (this cost includes course ware and the instructors travel & lodging)

Our courses are full of games, simulations, and active learning to help the adult learner

SSDSI can customize the training to meet your company’s particular training needs

Call Kevin Clay at 214-731-3176 or email at kclay@sixsigmadsi.com for more information