Toyota Kata : Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results Page 23

  4. Moving from Current Condition to Target Condition

  Once the advance group has defined the target condition, it should involve persons from the next level in the organization, its mentees, in planning how to move from the current condition to the target condition. The advance group should not finalize this part of the plan on its own. It is acceptable for mentors to set a target and sometimes even a target condition, but the mentees should become involved in planning how to achieve that condition. Otherwise it is akin to telling people what to do in traditional fashion.

  The overall idea in this part of the plan is for people to learn the improvement kata by repeatedly practicing its routine on real processes under the guidance of a coach. In terms of tactics, this part of the plan should specify the coaching cycles in detail: who will practice when, where, and how? You might lay this out, for example, in monthly increments.

  In planning how to move from the current condition to the target condition, we often linked the three levels of capability in Figure 9-11 with levels of training activity as depicted in Figure 9-12.

  Starting again at the bottom of the diagram, the training activity at Level A is a classroom course with shop-floor exercises. The purpose of this course is only to create a sense of awareness about what the improvement kata is. The next training level is to practice the improvement kata, which in the diagram is called training Level I. After a person has demonstrated sufficient capability to effectively carry out the improvement kata—this is a gate—they can move to the next level of training, C, where they practice the coaching kata. Moving from Level I to Level C is not a function of time or number of practices completed, but of demonstrated capability.

  Figure 9-12. Example training levels

  Within the “I” and “C” capability levels individuals will at any point in time, of course, have different skill levels. An interesting view of skill levels is provided by the “Dreyfus model of skill acquisition.”2

  The three levels of training activity, or whatever levels you may define, can then provide a framework for specifying who will practice what, when, and how. The table in Figure 9-13 is an example.

  As you can see by the horizontal arrows in the table, as people move up in their level of experience, capability, and perspective, some of them teach and coach people in the next level. By coaching the next group, the higher level group can maintain a better sense of the actual situation, that is, people’s true current capabilities. (See benefits of the mentor/mentee approach in Chapter 8.)

  This generic table is intended to help you envision how you might move practice-based training through your organization. Real life will not be this neat and orderly, of course. What is depicted in this table will, in most organizations, also involve much more than one year. But with this sort of overall tactic in mind, you can develop your own first plan to match your situation.

  Figure 9-13. How training might be moved through an organization

  5. Metrics

  It is important that we can measure our progress and, in particular, lack of progress. We learn the most from our mistakes! Currently we use two categories of metrics.

  1. One set of metrics has to do with coaching. These might be the start and stop times of coaching cycles, how many processes are coached, who does the coaching, how often the coaching cycles take place, and whether the next step (question five) was taken.

  However, it is entirely possible to fulfill a specified number of coaching cycles and have little to no improvement effect on the production process. Always bear in mind that the overarching objective is continual improvement of cost and quality performance at the process level.

  2. Therefore you should monitor the relationship between coaching cycles (above) and a second set of metrics: to what degree the focus processes are being improved. Such improvement metrics are taken directly from the target conditions at the respective focus production processes.

  As mentioned earlier, if the coaching cycles (metric set 1) are being fulfilled as planned but the improvement in the focus processes (metric set 2) are not being reached, then you need to take a closer look at how the coaching is being done.

  Also think about and define how these numbers will be obtained. Ideally this is done as simply as possible: with pencil and paper at the process. A good rule of thumb is that, if possible, you should go to the process to get the information you need. Ideally the mentee does not bring metrics to the mentor’s office. It is more like a pull system, if you will, whereby mentor and mentee go to the process to obtain the necessary facts and data there.

  Related to metrics, as part of their lean implementation efforts, many organizations have tried utilizing systems of point awards, or similar, to drive and assess progress. Be careful with such systems, since people often end up chasing points rather than a desired target condition. I tend to avoid such schemes.

  Problems arise when awards are linked to completion or implementation of activities, which is easy to measure, rather than to attainment of a level of personal competency or of target conditions, which, admittedly, is more difficult to measure. Levels should be awarded based on the student’s demonstrated capability or achievement of target conditions, not on how many courses or practices have been completed or tools implemented.

  Include Reflection Times in the Plan

  Keep in mind that when you execute a plan and work toward a target condition, you will need to make adjustments based on what you are learning from the unforeseen obstacles and problems you discover along the way. This is one of the reasons we prepare a plan: so we can see what is not going as expected. The advance group should reflect regularly and make adjustments as necessary. Build this into your plan by scheduling advance-group reflection times, for example, every two weeks.

  By conducting reflections—that is, PDCA checks as you work to develop improvement-kata behavior across the organization—you will learn what you need to work on to achieve that behavior. You can conduct reflections in an uncomplicated fashion. Go through the five questions and record on a flip chart what is going as planned (+) and what is not working or not going as expected (−). The inputs for the reflection can come out of the more frequent coaching cycles, which are a kind of process metric.

  However, one lesson I have learned is to begin any reflection session with (1) a restatement of the overall theme (for example, “To develop improvement kata behavior in the organization”), and (2) a reiteration of “why we experiment,” in order to calibrate everyone’s thinking before conducting the reflection. In a reflection, people may feel pressure and start defending why they were not able to complete a step as planned. This, of course, inhibits PDCA. It is useful to remind everyone that you are experimenting in order to see obstacles and to learn from them what you need to work on in order to achieve the target condition. You are not looking at individuals and evaluating them, and our success depends upon the reflection being a depersonalized, open, and data-based dialogue.

  One more point to reiterate for conducting reflections. We know that the improvement kata is scientific and that it works. If process improvement results are not as expected, then it is not the improvement kata that is faulty but something in our coaching that is still incorrect. Practicing the improvement kata over and over should produce results. If they do not come, then something is wrong in our teaching.

  Common Obstacles

  In our experimentation there have been many obstacles, many ah-has, and many course corrections. Here are some common obstacles, just as an example. You will find more.

  It is hard for people to resist making a list of action items.

  The five key questions are often difficult for senior leaders to internalize.

  We like doing but not checking and adjusting.

  We jump into solutions and skip over careful observation and analysis.

  People do not understand Toyota-style coaching. Both mentor and mentee mistakenly believe that the mentee needs to figure out what solution the mentor has
in mind.

  The unclear path to a target condition is uncomfortable for many people. People like a clear plan in advance even though that is actually only a prediction.

  Iteration (redoing steps) is uncomfortable. People feel like they did something wrong when they are asked to look again or repeat a step, yet this is very important for learning and seeing deeply.

  Many people will view this effort as just another project, rather than as developing a new way of managing. At the start, it naturally seems like this effort means adding more work on top of daily management duties, as opposed to it being a different way of conducting daily management.

  At the start, coaching cycles often take too much time and thus become burdensome. Once a target condition has been established, a coaching cycle can often be completed in 15 minutes. Less is more. As discussed earlier, rather than making a list of steps, just take one next step and then see where that takes you. Conduct your coaching cycles standing up at the process (target condition information and process data will need to be at the process), and do not let them turn into endless talk sessions. Go through the five questions, find the next step, and that is then the end of the coaching cycle. Take the next step as soon as possible.

  Lifelong Practicing

  In this chapter we have been talking about developing capabilities and behavior patterns, which, in Toyota’s view, represent the strength of an organization.

  The ongoing challenge of kata training is to strive for mastery and perfection, and even the most accomplished Toyota engineers, leaders, managers, and executives will say they are still working toward that goal. The sports metaphor is again appropriate here. Just like athletes, even advanced students and senior leaders will need to keep practicing the katas they learned as beginners, under guidance of a coach. The never-ending need for improvement and evolution of our processes and products gives us the opportunity to keep honing our skills while working on actual issues and toward real target conditions. While doing so, we should listen to our coaches and others who may detect a bad habit.

  The elegant trick in this is that while you are practicing, you are also doing something real, always to the best of the current level of your abilities. This is an interesting way to manage continuous improvement and adaptation, and a fascinating way to manage an organization.

  Notes

  1. I am indebted to Mr. Ralph Richter for his input on this diagram.

  2. This model, by Stuart Dreyfus and Hubert Dreyfus, proposes five stages of skill acquisition: Novice, Competence, Proficiency, Expertise, and Mastery.

  Conclusion

  We admire Toyota’s ability to thrive in different environments and in changing, challenging conditions. Yet it is not necessarily a problem that organizations sometimes come and sometimes go. The economist Joseph Schumpeter saw this as a process of creative destruction, and suggested that it accounts for a lot of the vitality in the most vibrant and dynamic economies on Earth.

  In the late 1980s when I was starting to research how manufacturing companies can retain or regain competitiveness, a Buddhist colleague surprised me with an observation. He pointed out that by conducting that research and trying to assist manufacturers, it is possible that I was interfering with natural selection, artificially prolonging untenable situations and, thus, in the long run, perhaps even causing more rather than less suffering.

  Yet despite Mr. Schumpeter and my Buddhist colleague, I do find myself caring if an organization survives or not, and if your organization survives. This is not because I fear change or have a special affinity for the organization. It is because the unplanned decline or collapse of an organization suggests to me that we as humans were somehow unable to sense in a timely fashion what was happening, react appropriately, and adapt elegantly. I do not lament the loss of the organization so much as I regret the failure to use our human capability—our capability to keep adapting—to its fullest extent. In fact, if we more fully use our capabilities to adapt, then there will be plenty of change as organizations keep intentionally modifying and evolving themselves, their products, and their services, to suit dynamic conditions.

  With success, business organizations may shift too much of their focus away from serving customers and society, to simply making money, trying to preserve a status quo or maximizing short-term shareholder value. Consequently, it can become more likely that progress— through improvement and evolution of processes, product, or service—will occur outside these organizations. In contrast, Toyota’s improvement kata helps keep an organization’s attention on what it needs to do to continue improving and evolving how it provides value for customers and society.

  Financial targets and results are vital, of course, but for long-term organization survival the question “How do we achieve those financial results?” should often be preceded by the question “What do we need to do with our processes, product, or service in order to meet customer needs?”

  In the space between these two questions lies much resourcefulness and creativity, which are available to any organization that has a kata that taps and channels those abilities.

  If we know and can master how to proceed through unclear territory, then we need not fear many of the challenges, changes, and unknowns we encounter in any of our endeavors. Rather than trying to hold on to what may be a false sense of certainty, which can lead to trouble because we then act with a mistaken sense of reality, we can learn a means for dealing with uncertainty. This is why I continued to study Toyota and why, as the research progressed and the findings became clearer, I decided to write this book. I hope that Toyota will stay with us long enough so that many of us—in business, education, politics, and daily living—can learn from this unique company about how we might better utilize our human capabilities. Thriving in the long term, the fundamental purpose of the Toyota organization, is to me a sign of good concerted use—good management—of our human ability and potential.

  Six years ago I began the research that led to this book thinking, like just about everyone else, that the story was about techniques and other listable aspects of Toyota. Today I see Toyota in a notably different light: as an organization defined primarily by the unique behavior routines it continually teaches to all its members. Due to the linear nature of the book format, some of my descriptions of the improvement kata are necessarily too mechanical, as compared with how this kata is utilized in every day’s work at Toyota. Fortunately, the improvement kata, even as presented here, will readily accommodate reality.

  Toyota’s improvement kata and coaching kata are largely invisible when we benchmark Toyota. Yet these two kata play perhaps the major role in Toyota’s ability to achieve ambitious targets, keep improving, and adapt. I have worked with these kata extensively now and I am intrigued by their capacity to help us move through the unpredictable paths ahead and achieve beyond what we can see (Figure C-1). When you look behind the curtain at how Toyota manages itself, you realize that Toyota has achieved not only a commercial but also an intellectual accomplishment.

  The response by business leaders when they learn about Toyota’s improvement and coaching kata has been overwhelmingly, and even surprisingly, positive. As if it were something we have been waiting for. When skepticism is expressed, it tends to revolve around two thoughts: that the step-by-step improvement kata and coaching kata seem to proceed slowly, or that it will take a long time to develop such behavior patterns.

  In regard to the first comment, Toyota’s approach may indeed appear slow, but in fact the continuous improvement and adaptation it generates is in sum both faster and more effective than our current approach of periodic attempts at improvement and adaptation. It is perhaps a classic example of the race between the tortoise and the hare. In regard to the second comment, I would agree that developing new behavior patterns across an organization involves a more far reaching effort, and probably more time, than a supposedly quick-fix solution. But a quick fix does not alter the underlying management system, and—the conclusion is bec
oming unavoidable—some aspects of our prevailing management system need to be changed.

  Figure C-1. Beyond what we can see

  Permanent pressure to adapt can keep an organization fit and healthy, if it has a systematic way—a kata—of responding to that pressure. This book does not describe everything about Toyota, but it provides more than enough information and detail for you to begin developing— through experimentation and practice—your own continuous improvement system like Toyota’s. You can even see your organization as part of human history through your efforts to bring continuous improvement and adaptation into it. This is because each step in that direction not only benefits your company, it also helps move our society forward because it mobilizes our capability.

  Does the way ahead for developing improvement kata behavior in your organization seem unclear? Are you unsure about what you will need to do to achieve successful culture change? Well, that is exactly how it should be, and if so, I can assure you that you are already on the right track. We cannot know what the path ahead will be, but the improvement kata shows us a way to deal with and perhaps even enjoy that unpredictable aspect of life. That latter sentiment is my wish for all of us, and, with that in mind, I will end with a question:

  What is your improvement kata?

  Appendix 1 Where Do You Start with the Improvement Kata?