Six Sigma

Categories: Company Management

The best. The most extreme edges.

This term was popularized by the old CEO of GE, Jack Welch, when GE was, like...good. He only wanted people who were Six Sigma, events that were Six Sigma, industry leading players who were Six Sigma.

So...who is this Sigma dude? Well, the notion comes from the gradations under the Normal Distribution Curve, which demonstrates the distribution of potential outcomes.

If you apply it to basketball, on the first sigma lives babies, really old people who can't walk, and the otherwise physically challenged. Then, at the second sigma, lives, well...most of the cast from The Big Bang Theory. Then, in the middle 3 and 4 are normal, semi-athletic-ish people who can shoot and dribble and...that's about it. Then, in sigma 5, we have reasonably decent high school basketball players who play on the team. They've sunk 3-pointers; they know suicides. Then, in the 6 sigma zone are players who can play D1 basketball in college. They're amazingly good players. Very few humans (and robots, at least as of today), play at this level.

And so, with this note, think about how far to the right of the sixth sigma Michael Jordan lives. Yeah. We can't even see that far.



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