Kata Coaching

Vhen introducing lean management, many companies rely on the lean tools known from the Toyota Production System (TPS). That is, they introduce such tools as just-in-time, one-piece-flow, 5S and Kanban. But after a while, they notice that although they achieve partial improvements, the hoped-for quantum leap is missing - because we do not succeed in anchoring a culture of continuous improvement in our organization. The tools mentioned above represent, so to speak, only the visible side of Lean Management, which is also described in numerous books. However, the question that remains unanswered in most of them is: How do companies implement these tools?

How do tools get up and running?

to run? Because there is no patent remedy for this. Among other things, because in addition to the business areas of the companies, their structure and culture are also different.

Learning organization

Generally speaking, companies are not successful if they just copy Toyota's solutions. They may be able to act in a similar way to the Japanese corporation, but ultimately every company must develop its own routines for improving its performance and achieving challenging goals. What is clear, however, is that a company that wants to move in the direction of a "Lean Organization" must also move in the direction of a Learning Organization. This means that the company and its employees must learn to rethink their (thinking and acting) habits and to develop new, goal-oriented patterns of thinking and acting.

New routines of thought and action

Many activities in organizations are a consequence of habits that their members have acquired over the course of many years, sometimes even decades - consciously or unconsciously. They have been repeated so often that they

• are anchored in the DNA of the employees and
• are reflected in the workflows and processes as well as the structure of the organization.

Accordingly, they are carried out as a matter of course when employees or parts of the organization face certain challenges.

Such routines called habits of thought and behavior are not bad. On the contrary! They keep the business running. People and organizations need them in order to master their everyday life. Because otherwise they would spend endless amounts of time and energy on such everyday activities as driving a car. Or, in a business context, on such everyday tasks as procuring materials and preparing quotations. Routines only become a problem when the associated way of solving tasks,

• is considered the only possible one and is no longer questioned and
• is also maintained if, for example, a different procedure would be necessary due to a change in the framework conditions.

Then the routines become a stumbling block for the development of the person or organization.

Overcoming the fear of change

People and organisations usually find it difficult to give up (thinking and behavioural) routines, because they provide them with security. They also have an identity-forming function. In addition, when people (or groups of people) want to change their patterns of thinking and behaviour, they have to leave their so-called comfort zone and enter unknown territory. This triggers insecurity in them. Without leaving the comfort zone, however, no learning and thus no personal or organizational growth is possible.

How to overcome this dilemma? The Toyota company has recognized: If we want to master the future, we as an organization must develop a routine in changing and improving ourselves similar to that of

Develop your own routines

figuratively speaking - people driving cars. And the activities associated with striving for improvement? They must be so natural for our employees that they do not instill fear in them. On the contrary! As automated actions, they actually give them a sense of security. They become part of their professional identity.

Routines in developing solutions

Routines, of whatever kind, are the result of a long process of continuous repetition and practice. In musical education, for example when learning to play the violin, this permanent practice is commonplace. The same is true in sports. Gymnasts, for example, train certain movements until they have internalized them. And then they move on to more difficult exercises, so that their athletic

Support and accompany

your skills will gradually increase. But not only this! By constantly practicing and reflecting on what can be done better and how, (future) professional athletes and musicians increasingly acquire the competence to independently improve their performance - among other things, because they know which behavior is goal-oriented. They become coaches of their own person, so to speak.

It is precisely this conscious practice of routines not for certain solutions, but for developing new ones, that is the central element of the Toyota Production System. And a core task of Toyota managers is to support and accompany their employees as coaches in developing this competence. In other words, they do not give them the solution to new tasks. Rather, they guide their employees in their development - with the overriding goal that their employees themselves acquire the competence required for this. Or to put it another way: Managers try to gradually expand the comfort zone of their employees so that they successively acquire the competence and the necessary self-confidence to master ever greater challenges on their own. Toyota has developed a systematic procedure for this systemic expansion of problem-solving competence: the so-called Toyota Kata.

The Toyota cata

In Asian martial arts, kata refers to behaviors that have been internalized through constant practice and application to such an extent that they are performed almost reflexively. To achieve this goal, the master first teaches his students simple movement sequences. The students practice these so persistently that they become second nature to them. Afterwards, more difficult tasks follow, which bring the student, for example, step by step closer to his goal of becoming a samurai.

In order to develop people's competence so systematically, three things are necessary:

1. I need to know what the overall goal is that I want to achieve. So I need a vision of where I want to go.
2. I need to know what I need to learn in order to achieve the goal I'm aiming for - in other words, what my learning areas are. And:
3. I need to know a way or a method to acquire the competence I am still lacking.

Exactly these three elements can be found in the Toyota kata. Above all this hovers the vision of Toyota known as the North Star - the ideal image aspired to by the company. From this is derived the so-called improvement kata, with the help of which Toyota wants to achieve that the processes approach the ideal state. This is supported by the Coaching Kata, which Toyota uses to systematically develop the (problem-solving) skills of its employees - in many small steps and projects that all move towards the ideal image.

The improvement kata

The improvement kata is not a lean method, but a leadership routine that can be used to overcome challenges. Learning and practicing this task-independent routine enables a true improvement culture over time.

The improvement kata aims at approaching a target state step by step. The path to this goal is not predetermined. Rather, it is determined step by step within the framework of an experimental procedure. Important prerequisites for this are an exact description of the actual and the target state. The defined target states should encourage the employees to enter their learning zone and thus expand their comfort zone step by step. In doing so, they are supported by the managers by means of the coaching kata.

Simplified, the improvement kata consists of four (work) steps (Figure 1):

Step one: Its purpose is to provide a rough understanding of the direction for long-term development set by the vision.

Step two: It analyses and describes the current situation.

Step Three: In it, new target states are defined on the way to the target state. In addition, it determines which "obstacles" need to be removed in order to achieve the target state. The maxim here is: The defined target states are to be

Coach of the own person

must be challenging, but achievable. And: There must not yet be a known solution for achieving them. The employees must enter new territory. Step 4: Now the PDCA process (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is used to work step by step towards achieving the target state. This means that after an initial (action) planning, the employees become active. In doing so, they regularly check the extent to which their approach is goal-oriented before transferring it into their everyday actions so that it becomes the new standard on the basis of which further improvements are made. The managers accompany the employees in this process (Figure 2).

The Coaching Kata

Managers are therefore not masterminds and pioneers for their employees. They are primarily learning companions and coaches for their employees. They support them in developing and practicing new routines, also by means of a systematized procedure, the CoachingKata.

This is based on five questions that the manager repeatedly asks his mentee (for example a group leader coached by him) or directly the employees in regular meetings.

Question 1: What is the target state of the process?

The target state should be named and described anew by the mentee at the beginning of the coaching sessions (regardless of whether it is a person or a group of employees). The goal here: The desired target state should be internalized and the mentee should always be aware of it in the further coaching process - so to speak as a touchstone, for example, when evaluating the current actual state and possible decisions.

Question 2: What is the current state of affairs?

Current means: What is the status today - for example, after the first measures have been taken to achieve the goal? This reflection of the current state in the coaching sessions requires its continuous recording with figures or representation in diagrams.

Question 3: What prevents you from reaching the target state?

The mentee should determine which obstacles still stand in the way of achieving the target state, in order to derive from this the still existing fields of action and learning.

Question 4: What obstacle are you tackling next and therefore what is the next step?

The aim here is for the mentee to plan his or her further course of action - for example, depending on the relevance of the possible measures for achieving the goal or the available resources and competencies. At the same time, a new PDCA cycle is started. Question

5: By when can we look at what you learned from the last step?

This question should create the necessary commitment - on the level of action and on the level of learning.

Toyota has been practicing the coaching process described above (Figure 3), as well as employee management and development processes, for decades with the aim of expanding the existing culture of continuous improvement and anchoring it even more firmly in the DNA of the employees and the organization. Behind this is the realization that the need for change in today's companies is often so large and complex that it is increasingly difficult to grasp and manage top-down. So employees must develop in the direction of self-developers who recognize themselves,

• what to do on the basis of the desired ideal state,
• where they still have a need for development and can satisfy this need themselves.

Taking the time

Developing this competence in employees requires time, patience and attention to detail; furthermore, managers who have a corresponding self-image. They must be aware of

Managers are learning facilitators

Among other things, they must see themselves as coaches and learning companions for their employees and be prepared to deal intensively with their employees and the value-creating processes in accordance with the maxim "go and see" instead of "meet and mail" - and to do so continuously. That's why a rule of thumb at Toyota is: It's better to coach for ten minutes once a day than for an hour once a week.

Coaching employees requires a corresponding investment of time on the part of managers. This sounds like an additional burden for them. In fact, however, Kata Coaching leads to a relief of the managers in the medium term. The more competence and thus routine the employees have in solving problems independently, the less often the manager is needed as a supporter and "troubleshooter". The more routine the employees have in identifying and satisfying their own learning needs, the less often the manager is needed as a coach - at least when it comes to solving problems that arise from everyday work.