Assume mobility doen't matter for productivity

Contrary to human nature, Six Sigma wants you to start with the assumption that "nothing matters."  This is not an existential philosophy but one that serves to reinforce the important principle that we must reserve our precious resources for the vital few. 

The search for the vital few is so important to Six Sigma practitioners that we are willing to go to extremes to live up to the mission.  You might say that all factors are presumed innocent (irrelevant) until proven guilty (vital).

(Now, this is overstating the issue a bit -- as any real estate broker will tell you, LOCATION is a vital x for real estate property value.)

The point is that before you make a business decision to act on a perceived cause of good (or bad) performance, make sure you prove the issue is vital.  The Six Sigma tools involved here are hypthosis tests.  The going-in assumption is that the cause doesn't matter ("null hypothesis").  You set out to prove this and if you can't, you may make the case that the cause does indeed matter.

Is employee mobility a vital x to employee productivity?  Start with the assumption it's not.  Try to prove it.  If you can't prove it doesn't matter then it probably does.  Mental gymnastics?  Perhaps...but the discipline of hypothesis testing that comes from adopting Six Sigma can help guide useful business discussions about priorities.