Improvement Kata

and

Coaching Kata


Building people to meet strategic goals
Bridge the gap between Strategic goals and Real day-to-day routines of an organization

Improvement Kata

and

Coaching Kata


Building people to meet strategic goals

Bridge the gap between Strategic goals and Real day-to-day routines of an organization

What is Toyota Kata?

Improvement Kata is a pattern of thinking, a systematic way of thinking within everyday habits, skill sets, and capabilities of people, aligned with and in support of achieving long-term objectives of an organization.

Background

Lean or Continuous Improvement always gains great passion by any top management. However, non-Toyota companies always face big challenges to reach true Lean.

Why? Because of the existing big gap between Lean people and managerial routines day-to-day. Then, Lean will not sustain ongoing.

What is Toyota Kata?

Improvement Kata is a pattern of thinking, a systematic way of thinking within everyday habits, skill sets, and capabilities of people, aligned with and in support of achieving long-term objectives of an organization.

Lean or Continuous Improvement always gains great passion by any top management. However, non-Toyota companies always face big challenges to reach true Lean.

Why? Because of the existing big gap between Lean people and managerial routines day-to-day. Then, Lean will not sustain ongoing.

Improvement Kata & Coaching Kata Model

IK & CK are about reaching tough goals, which require mobilizing the brainpower of many people in the organization. The objective is not just to achieve a goal, but to simultaneously get better at how to achieve goals.

2 key questions, bases of Toyota Kata are

① What are the unseen managerial routines (*) and thinking that lie behind Toyota’s success with continuous improvement and adaptation?

② How can other companies develop similar routines and thinking in their organizations?

(*) Beyond what we can see – the way we (and our people) think and act. It is “less visible stuff”, but it decides visible results.

Improvement Kata & Coaching Kata Impacts
  • How do we keep improvement going?

  • How we do align our organization so that daily improvement moves us toward strategic goals?

  • How can we work to develop solutions scientifically, instead of trying to implement preconceived ideas?

Improvement Kata – IK

Improvement Kata, it is Scientific Thinking. That is a mindset and a skill that requires practice. It is a way people Think – Experiment – Learn – Adjust to navigate a solution in situational context and continuously move toward Strategic Goals.

Why bothers? Business’s situation keeps changing and hard to predict. “Planning” becomes a prediction (or a hypothesis).

How about planning from the maximum point of uncertainty? The important thing is recognizing what needs to be learned and How to learn.

IK will help the team continuously to learn and explore solutions, deliberate striving toward challenges, adaptiveness, and reaching strategic goals.

Improvement Kata differences versus traditional improvement

  • Improving means moving Actual realities” closer to Challenges/Strategic goals, NOT “random” improvement or hunting wastes
  • “I don’t know.” And that’s okie. Improvement means exploring a way to get through unknown zone with a compass, NOT a map
  • Select problems to solve, what we need to, NOT what we can. (“can” = already known how)
  • IK do not have kind of failed experiment. It is about controlled experiment, aim to learn / discover, through small and quick cycle
  • Improvement Kata is NOT a method. Practice is a key.

Coaching Kata – CK

You will need a Coach, who teaches you a Starter Kata, then assists you with corrections and feedback as needed, along with Learner’s practice routines and developing Learner.

Coaching Kata differences

  • Manager/leaders resist “plan the whole thing” or “providing the answer”. Instead, leaders drive a team to to work together in order to get “there” scientifically (challenges/ strategic goals).

  • Getting people outside their comfort zone needs form and decisive leadership. Coaching Kata is a way to build capability by extending people beyond their Knowledge Threshold (unknown area)

HOW IT WORKS

Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata – They come together

Within step ④, there is a Gray Zone between Where Now and Where Want to be. You need to walk through the Gray Zone, uncover (unknown) obstacles you encounter on the way – what you need to work on to get there – NOT trying to fix everything. You need to conduct Experiments – use PDCA, Scientific Learning cycles

 How to learn Kata and get benefits?

IK & CK is the model

“It helps us understand the principles and concepts and communicate how it functions in reality.

They are a good start, but these alone does NOT change your habits” – Mike Rother

EXELLENCE is not an act, but a HABIT

Practice “Starter Kata” to get experience and be competent, create new habits, and results will come

Practice “Starter Kata” to get experience and be competent, create new habits. 

Results will come.

 

Practice To Develop New Habits

#kata #improvement #coaching #leadership #scientific #thinking

Thanks Mike Rother, author of book “Toyota Kata” for all of your great learning and sharing.