Rules of Management - Sigma Concepts - Improvement - Our Mission

Kook Jin Moon
February 25, 2005

It is good to see you all today. I’d like to discuss five major topics. First I’ll briefly go over the five rules of management that we’ve been employing at the Tongil foundation. I’d like to introduce the concept of six sigma and then go into more detail and explain the process of continuous improvement. Then I’d like to discuss the foundation’s mission, compounded growth rates and finally the period of liberation.

Here are the five rules of management which we presented to our group.

They are to:

1. Choose results over status
2. Choose accountability over popularity
3. Choose clarity over certainty
4. Choose productive conflict over harmony
5. Choose trust over invulnerability

One of the major problems we’ve had in the unification movement is many of our organizations and leaders unfortunately were more interested in preserving their position and status rather than being focused on delivering actual substantial measurable results for the sake of our entire church.

As a result, since they were interested in preserving their status, they were not willing to face reality. And as a result reports got distorted, there were exaggerations and dissent was basically not allowed. So what we’ve tried to do in the foundation in the Tongil group, we try to bring in more openness, trying to be transparent, truthful and show data to our leaders and members of our church and movement.

The remarkable thing is that when you show and give trust, respect and honesty, you get those things back. So our work has been to help people, helping people to become free and honest with themselves, helping them to become free and honest in serving our True Parents and then making substantial results.

That is what I’d like to share with you today, is how we can become free, because today we are in the time of liberation, our responsibility is not to enslave people, but to free them; to free them spiritual so that they can all enter the kingdom of heaven, and all become the children of God.

This is the definition of six sigma: "It is a way of measuring processes, a goal of near perfection, represented by 3 or 4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO), an approach to changing the culture of an organization. Most accurately, though, six sigma is defined as a broad and comprehensive system for building and sustaining business performance, success, and leadership." (Six Sigma Way p. 77)

There are 6 major themes in six sigma:

A genuine focus on the customer
Data and fact driven management
Process focused management, and improvement
Proactive management
"Boundary less" collaboration
A drive for perfection, and yet a tolerance for failure

My brothers and sisters, we have all come together and have been brought together here by our parents and by our Divine Principle and the teachings of this church. And the principle is teaching us that now, with the advent of True Parents, this is the age of perfection.

My friends, my brother and sisters, if this is the substantial age of perfection, don’t you think that God has introduced concepts to achieve perfection on this earth, perfection in organizations today? At the same time he’s revealed the spiritual truth to our True Parents so that both the spiritual side and the external side can work together harmoniously reach perfection in this age.

It is very interesting, if you look at the Bible, on the seventh day God created man, when we study the principle we know that the number 6 if there hadn’t been the fall, represents the number of perfection. Isn’t it interesting that today, the substantial way to achieve perfection is found in six sigma philosophy.

My brothers and sisters, perfection is achievable today, it is, but it is achievable through failure. In six sigma and in continuous improvement, in order for us to improve, we have to fail. So when Jesus came to earth as the messiah, he preached to all the people of the world, judge not lest you be judged. He taught us to love and forgive the sinners, to embrace those who had fallen from God. All the people of the world are children of God. It is our responsibility in this age to gather all of God’s children and lead them to the kingdom of heaven.

This is a process improvement flow chart. The process of continuous improvement is found in six sigma philosophy. Basically in this flow chart this is what we call a closed loop system, it’s a circular system, hence a continuous process.

Let me show you how it works:

Process: foundation business group
Key objective: Make profit
Key indicator: operating profit
Change Concept: sell or liquidate unprofitable companies which cannot be easily fixed

How do we implement this concept?

PDSA

Plan: do market value evaluation of all companies in business group, decide which money losing companies are too difficult to fix. Decide which companies to dispose of

Do: dispose of the planned companies

Study: review the results and their effect on the operating income of the group

Act: If the effect is good then record the change concept as a SOP (Standard Operating Policy) of the business group.

This is the result of the first operation of the continuous improvement cycle.

We sold the following:

Wacom
INP
Hyundai industries
Il sung leisure
Sung shin investments

We liquidated or bankrupted:

Hwa shin
Plastic software
Prime salt
Sung won king krill

I don’t know my brothers and sisters. People say that somehow businesses sell themselves, but it wasn’t that easy to sell and dispose of.

Our group is getting better because we are doing specific things and executing these changed concepts. So this was the first cycle, so we made a substantial improvement, by doing this our operating costs were reduced substantially. By this we have a nearly a 60 million reduction in operating loss.

Now that we’ve executed and finished the first cycle, now we have to come up with a new change concept. But we know that the first cycle is to liquidate or sell businesses that are hard to fix, so that stays as our standard operating policy we don’t throw that away, if we see that situation again in the future, then we implement our standard operating policy.

Now in order to improve our group further we have to come up with a new change concept, the process stays the same, the key objectives stay the same, the key indicators stay the same, but the change concept changes. So here we have it again.

Continuous improvement

Process: foundation business group
Key objective: make profit
Key indicator: operating profit
Change concept: restructure unprofitable business to make profit or reduce loss

I don’t know how many of you have done business restructuring, but in the field of management, business restructuring is one of the most difficult jobs to do. And to do successful business restructuring is even harder. I can tell you for a fact because I spent countless hours working on these restructuring projects, interviewing hundreds of people and making hundreds of difficult decisions on who to fire. My friends, people do not fire themselves, this is the hard work we’ve been doing for two years.

PDSA cycle

Plan: develop a restructuring plan for the companies that are unprofitable or have low profitability
Do: execute the restructuring plan
Study: review the results and their effect on the operating income of the group
Act: If the effect is good then record the change concept as a SOP of the business group

We restructured the following companies:

Ilwa
Il Shin
Sae Gyea Times
TIC companies

My vice chairman gave a report this morning. You can see the quality of management we’ve brought together. We have very good professionals working for us now.

So as a result of the second improvement cycle, our business group experienced a greater reduction in operating loss and improvement in our profitability.

Now that we’ve accomplished two cycles, we have to come up with new change concepts. A key point to understand is that business improvement and organizational development is done deliberately, nothing in a business organization happens by chance. All has to be planned to become successful.

Third cycle

Change concept is to grow businesses and to improve low profit business.

Then we go to our PDSA cycle. We make a plan to grow revenues in a profitable manner to more effectively take advantage of fixed expenses. We implement the plan, and review the results and their effect on the operating income of the group. If the effect is good then we record the change concept as a SOP of the business group.

The result, as a result we improved through growth

Central City
Young Pyong
Il Sung construction
Sun Won construction

All the businesses in our group have improved, not one has gotten worse. Is this by chance? Let’s be reasonable, we’re all grownups. Outstandingly successful, the world movement, our Unification Movement can be outstandingly successful. But in order to realize our potential we have to become honest with ourselves.

Now we have three standard operating policies:

Sell or liquidate unprofitable companies which cannot be easily fixed
Restructure unprofitable business to make profit or reduce loss
Grow business to improve low profit business

We’ve done, for example, one restructuring already in Sae Gyae Times. And the president of that company worked hard and had to make many difficult decisions to do that restructuring. All of us in the Tongil foundation and in the entire movement appreciate his efforts to make those changes. We all should give the president of Sae Gyae Times a big round of applause.

But my friends, what is our second operating policy? Although we have reduced the loss, the loss is still substantial. Nearly 20 million dollars a year. We started at 30 million and now we’re at 20. That’s not good enough. According to our SOP we will continue to do restructuring until we get the proper mix of human and fixed resources so we can make this organization sustainable.

We have made a lot of progress, but our work is just beginning. It is not finished. This is just the start. Now that we did four cycles of the continuous improvement cycle what is the next challenge? We must come up with a new cycle. Once we complete the fourth cycle then we do a fifth, sixth, seventh, and the continuous improvement goes on forever, it never stops.

This is the reason why organizations today are able to achieve near perfection in the quality of their product; because their continuously, incrementally making themselves and their organization and their product better. Brothers and sisters, this is truly the age of perfection, we are seeing perfection being achieved in this date, in this hour, in this time; In substance.

My brothers and sisters, we are not here to talk about business, we’re here to talk about our True Parents, we’re here to talk about the providence of humanity, God’s providence, and God’s will for the earth.

My brothers and sisters, don’t you believe that God is constantly working throughout history and through all of us to bring all of us closer to him. Don’t you think God wants to save all his children and bring the entire family of man together as one family under God, without excluding one single person?

My friends, my brothers and sister, I too share that conviction with you. It is an interesting thing, because when we look at our Divine Principle, and when we look at the continuous improvement cycle, we can see the six sigma continuous improvement cycle in the Divine Principle that we read every day.

Our True Parents have already taught us everything, all the truth is right before our very eyes, but we are blind, we do not see what is there. Now is the time to throw away our prejudices, our intolerance, our greed and our selfishness, and truly embrace the truth of God, of our True Parents, as a true parent of all humanity, of all the people.

When we look at continuous improvement:

Process: providence of restoration
Key objective: restore God’s dominion; establish Abraham as the father of Israel
Key indicator: accomplish the foundation of faith by successful offering
Change concept: make Abraham the father of God’s chosen people

This is the principle

PDSA cycle

Plan: pick Abraham as the father of the Israeli people, make him and his descendents prove their faith in God
Do: establish foundation of faith through offering of heifer, ram, and dove
Study: review the results and their effect on the providence of restoration If the effect is good then record the change concept as a SOP of providence

Result

Abraham cut the bull and ram as God requested but failed to cut the dove

Dove taken by Satan

Because of the failure of the first offering his descendents were condemned to 400 years of slavery

So we failed, ok, what do we do? Do it again, this is continuous improvement.

Process: providence of restoration
Key objective: restore God’s dominion; establish Abraham as the father of Israel
Key indicator: accomplish the foundation of faith by successful offering
Change concept: make Abraham the father of God’s chosen people

PDSA cycle

Plan: pick Abraham as the father of the Israeli people, make him and his descendents prove their faith in God
Do: establish foundation of faith through offering of Isaac
Study: review the results and their effect on the providence of restoration

If the effect is good then record the change concept as a SOP of providence

Result

Abraham succeeded in offering Isaac

God continued to work through Isaac and his descendants to win substantial victory over Satan

Foundation of faith fulfilled

Next cycle

Process: providence of restoration
Key objective: restore God’s dominion: resolve Cain Abel conflict at the family level
Key indicator: accomplish foundation of substance by bringing Esau to voluntary surrender to Jacob
Change concept: by restoring the Cain Abel relationship create the formula for successfully subjugating Satan and lay the foundation for the coming of the messiah

PDSA

P: pick Jacob as the new able and Esau as the new Cain
D: establish foundation of substance through Jacob voluntarily subjugating Esau
S: review the results and their effect on the providence of restoration

If the effect is good then record the change concept as a SOP of providence

Result

Jacob succeeded in subjugating Cain through love

Jacob established foundation of substance

Through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob God gained victory over Satan and established the root for Israel,

Foundation for the messiah was established

This is the SOP of providence.

Follow Jacob’s course to subjugate Satan.

Fulfill faith offering to separate from Satan and fulfill the foundation of faith
Bring Cain to voluntary surrender to fulfill foundation of substance
Moses followed Jacob’s course at the national level
Fulfilled 40 based faith condition and subjugated nation of Israel through 3 courses
Jesus followed Jacob’s course to become the messiah
Fulfilled 40 based faith condition and established spiritual foundation of substance

My friends, this is the principle. God is working through history and all of us to improve us. Continuous improvement isn’t about exclusion, but about inclusion. It’s not about intolerance, but tolerance. It’s not about punishment, but forgiving. These are the things that Jesus taught us and that now father is teaching us. I ask you, why are you so reluctant to open your eyes to this?

Now I have a question for you, what is Cheon Il Guk?

It is the nation where the natural subjugation of Cain by Abel occurs naturally and continuously.

What does this mean? When we look at the transition of power in democracies we see this transition. Cain represented by the defeated party bloodlessly and automatically relinquishes power to Abel represented by the new party which has the support and the love of the people.

In this process where is God? God is in all the people. If we take this process of natural subjugation and infinitely speed it up then Cheon Il Guk is a place where all become "Abel" because in the kingdom of heaven, people that serve only themselves cannot rise and hold positions of authority.

I have not come here on my own authority. I have come here only because True Parents have asked me to come here, and today I stand here before you only in service of our church and our members. In my position, I did not come here to judge you or all of you; instead my responsibility is to be judged by you. That is the responsibility of all our leadership.

Here is a quote from our True Parents from:

"God’s ideal family and the responsibility the citizens of Cheon Il Guk are called to fulfill"

"The kingdom of heaven is a natural world where all people live for the sake of one another. Consequently, antagonism and jealousy cannot be found anywhere in that world. It is a world that is not governed by money, position, or power. There, the success of every person represents the success of the whole, the likes of every person represents the likes of the whole, and the joy of every person represents the joy of the whole."

I am not a theologian, I have not graduated from seminary, how do I know this? I think to answer that question, you should answer, you are the ministers

The foundation’s mission is very simple, it is the mission given to us by our True Parents in 1963, nothing else. It is:

To substantiate the unification nation
To aid in the reunification of north and south Korea
To restore all material things back to God

How can we do this? It is very simple. We can do this by becoming a people that can win the trust of the nation. We need to show that we are capable of managing and growing the wealth of the church. We need to show an increase the wealth of our church to represent a significant percentage of the nation’s economy. We need to increase the number of church members to be a significant percentage of the population. We can do this. We can do this if we show integrity and transparency in the management of our public resources.

To make this nation of Korea our nation is very simple, we just need to make 50% of the population our members, this is a democracy, no one individual or organization is going to give us power. If we want to become the stewards of the nation, we need to make all the nations people our people. How can we do this?

The problem is not the outside world, the problem is not the satanic world, the problem is us, we are the problem, the reason we have not been able to expand our church is because we have reached the limit in ourselves. We do not grasp our True Parents comprehension of the principle and the truth. That is the gap, the gap between our perception and True Parents perception and God’s perception.

In the world today there are VIPs and thousands of people who respect our True Parents, but they will not join our movement, the reason is simple, they know that our organization is still immature, it is not capable of digesting organizations at higher levels of development, our leaders are still immature.

They have not yet risen to a level where they have truly abandoned their ambitions and their greed. Our leaders have memorized and studied the principle hundreds of times and probably know it by heart, but yet they miss the essence, just like the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ.

They knew the teachings and the Mosaic Law by heart but they missed the essence, the course of indemnity is the course of the formation level religion. That is our current status. In order for us to enter the new age, we have to get rid of the past and enter a new age in which we truly universalize our church and become a truly growth level and perfection level religion and organization. This is our struggle and our challenge today, here and now.

My brothers and sisters, if we can create an institution that is fair, based on policies and procedures, that protect the rights of an individual’s accomplishments, which seeks to do justice rather than to exert it’s authority, then there are many churches, thousands, tens of thousands of churches, that will join our movement.

This is the direction that I believe our True Parents are leading us in. we just need to open our eyes and see it.

The foundation’s goal in terms of business is very simple; it is to increase the market value of the Tongil foundation companies, to increase the market value of Tongil foundation properties, and to provide cash flows to support church growth.

We can do it. This is a good illustration of compounded growth rates (pictures of father’s first church of mud next to the original palace). This is where we started from 50 years ago this is where we are today.

If we truly follow our true father’s intent, where can we be 50 years from now?

This is a graph of compounded growth rates. Over 50 years if we start with $1 billion in church assets, and grow at 10%, after 50 years we will have $120 billion. Over 50 years if we grow at 12.5%, we will have over 360 billion, if we grow at 15%, we will have over 1000 billion.

The lesson is very clear, moderate rates of return over long periods of time will produce exponential growth in investment value. It is more important to stay in the game than to win big, you stay in the game by avoiding risk and by preserving capital. Preservation of capital is the fundamental building block of investment strategies. Our failure in businesses is not that we invested too little but it is that we invested too much. We should remember this point.

This is a slide that compares the indemnity period versus the period of liberation. There is a clear divide, it’s very different. The time of God’s providence before Jesus came and after is very different. It’s the same thing for our situation. The foundation of the Unification Movement in the formation level and the growth level are very different. We have to make this transition to be able to realize God’s will and True Parents vision.

Indemnity period

Making the foundation of faith and substance
Noah building the ark
Abraham’s offerings
Moses and the wilderness
Period of absolute obedience to irrational orders

The period of liberation is different.

Period of the coming of the messiah and his acceptance
Period of understanding God’s intent rather than following the letter of the law
Period where man governs himself through his own conscience
Period of brotherhood and universal acceptance

Here are quotes from the bible (not included), read them yourselves. It’s very obvious, Jesus cured the sick during Sabbath, associated with the tax collectors and sinners, ultimately the laws that were designed by God to bring the people closer to him and free them from sin. What does this mean for me?

We have all suffered, I have suffered, you have suffered, but we have to remember that we suffer so that others do not have to. Unification members must learn to be more open, embracing and "universal". It is a period without discrimination a period when all people can inherit God’s blessing and the kingdom of heaven because of the sacrifices of True Parents.

I will leave you with one last slide, these are True Parents words

"God’s Ideal Family and the Responsibility the Citizens of Cheon Il Guk are Called to Fulfill"

"The main attributes of God’s true love are that it is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, so whoever practices true love will live with God, share his happiness, enjoy the right to participate as an equal in his work, and the right of inheritance. Therefore, a life lived for the sake of others, a life of true love, is the absolute prerequisite for entering the kingdom of heaven."

Our True Parents and God have given us the keys to the kingdom of heaven, it is written in our True Parents words; all we need to do is practice them. Thank you.