Lean, originating in the late 1980s, highlights the Toyota Production System's success and Japanese manufacturing. It focuses on achieving more with less, continuous learning, and operational excellence, while valuing individuals' roles in business goals. Katie Anderson shares that Lean coaching applies these principles to enhance problem-solving skills and nurture capabilities, emphasizing supportive and growth-oriented leadership.
Enhancing individuals' abilities
Nick: So that leads us to this subject of lean, which you know a great deal about. So what is Lean? And more specifically, what is Lean coaching?
Katie: So Lean is a term that was applied by researchers in the late 1980s, about describing the Toyota Production System and other Japanese manufacturers’ success. How they came to sort of that world domination, especially in the automobile manufacturing space.
It's talking about how do you do more with less, and they came up with the word lean, which is accurate, but also leads to a lot of, I guess, negative impressions for people, they hear the ‘do more, or do it with less’, but not the underlying culture that supports that. It's about how do we challenge ourselves to do more with less, but not like berating people around that, but with a culture of learning and experimentation.
And so that's what I try and explain so much more in my book from Mr. Yoshino’s experiences of 40 years at Toyota from the late 60s to the early 2000s. But Lean is about how do we bring in this culture of operational excellence of continuous learning and respect for people into organizations so that we can get the business results that we need and want, focusing on people and process as the way to do that.
And Western culture is often sort of the opposite; we focus on that result or the outcome, and not the way to get there. And so that's a real difference. And there's a lot more of the production principle side of how you create flow and built in quality and all of this, it's critical as well. But at its heart, the engine that makes it work is around a focus on learning and on people.
Then the Lean coaching is how do we develop people's human capabilities around problem-solving and developing other people. And this is where it gets to this concept I call leading to learn, it's about how leaders set the direction, like where do we need to go? What are the challenges we need to achieve as an organization, as a team, or whatever?
And then how do they provide the support through coaching and development in the systems and structures that allow people to be successful? And then third, how do they develop themselves? That's really the foundation, and Lean coaching is about how do we develop people to do that.