The Super-PAC That Binds Gingrich and Lean Six Sigma

Last year, Mike George, a former management consultant, began approaching Republican Presidential candidates about signing his pledge to eliminate the national deficit using Lean Six Sigma, a strategy he developed in the 1990s. Enrollees in Lean Six Sigma courses learn ways to cut waste in their companies and make their workers more effective, earning “green belt” certification for one to two weeks of training and “black belts” for four. George amassed a fortune with the concept, winning blue chip clients including Xerox, Caterpillar, and United Technologies, and writing six related books that he says have sold more than 1 million copies. In 2007, Dublin-based consulting firm Accenture bought George’s business, ending his financial stake in Lean Six Sigma. Yet he thought Washington could benefit from the management principles and tried to sell politicians on them.

Newt Gingrich, who spent several days in a Lean Six Sigma class in the 1990s as a congressman, last June became the first GOP candidate to sign George’s pledge to end the budget deficit by 2017 with Lean Six Sigma. Then Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum signed on. George says the one Presidential hopeful he most wanted to win over was ex-consultant and dealmaker Mitt Romney. Yet by the time of the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, Romney had rebuffed him five times. “War it was to be,” George says. So the 72-year-old Texas businessman decided to form a super-PAC and get behind one candidate: Gingrich. The candidate has name-dropped Lean Six Sigma in campaign appearances, media interviews, and Republican debates no fewer than 28 times since mid-2011, according to a Bloomberg News review of transcripts and news reports.