A Coaching System: The Invisible Key to your Lean Management System Success

Many organizations have been on a lean journey for years, accumulating learning and experience along the way, with good pockets of improvements. They create value streams that seem to achieve good results only to see them fade over time, management systems that are implemented, but lack true engagement from everyone in the organization.  We have seen time and time again that the default way of thinking is “tools get results,” and there is truth to that because tools will get you there initially, but they only give you the illusion of control.  Rather than creating a culture of learning, development, and sustained, reliable results, tools only create a culture of compliance. 

It’s not uncommon that when we go to gemba, whether in our organization or externally, we only see the “tangible” things that are part of a management system, the tools and practices: visual boards, huddles, problem-solving cards, process confirmation boards, scorecards, and many others. We worry more about whether people are using them and how they are using them, rather than people being engaged, and understanding the “why.”  The “tangible or visible” things are there, easy to see, copy, and ask people to adhere to. However, we often forget to observe the “invisible or intangible” things that make a lean management system truly work: how leaders and people in the organization think and behave.

Many of you or your organizations have already started investing in developing some of these leadership behaviors by putting resources in place (such as hiring external consultants), developing your internal PI Team to be leadership coaches, providing training, etc. We observe initial changes in the right direction, good practices and experimentation; and unfortunately, just like some of the good results fade away, leadership behaviors too are at risk of fading away due to several reasons: leadership turnaround, lack of leadership commitment, crises that come up, and other contributors.  It’s my strong belief that the root cause of this problem is that we don’t have a formal coaching system in place.

The purpose of a coaching system is simple: make coaching an organizational habit, a way of thinking and acting every day, regardless of the situation. Essentially, this is something that will be done every day and is unending. A coaching system will address three key areas as a continuum: 

1. Coaching for development
2. Coaching for execution (or problem solving)
3. Coaching for standard

These three elements don’t exist in a silo, when coaching a person or group, you could be doing all three things at once.

I was recently in the gemba at my current organization with the intent of seeing how the management system was maturing in a department.  I intentionally invited people from multiple tiers with me to observe. I had the VP and Director present, observing Manager and Frontline staff and MDs run the daily huddle. This department had just experienced a manager transition and the new manager had been in place for three months.  During the observation, we saw the manager running the daily huddle, going through MESS, daily performance, barriers from the day before, actions to address the barriers, and finally a quick process confirmation on three key standards, all in less than ten minutes.  After the huddle, there were two interactions that illustrate an example of a coaching system at work:

1. Director-Manager coaching and VP observing
   1. Director asks the Manager kata questions, prompting reflection and learning about following the Huddle Standard Work
   2. Director asks about performance, barriers, and actions to address a key initiative through experiments for the day
   3. Director, as needed, provides direct feedback on strengths and opportunities and closes the loop to the Manager’s Personal Development Plan for next steps in onboarding journey
   4. Manager answers questions, reflects, and leaves with clarity and direction for the day and her onboarding plan
2. VP-Director coaching
   1. After observing the Director coaching the Manager and taking notes, the VP asks questions about the intent of coaching
   2. VP asks questions about coaching for standard and performance
   3. VP asks questions about how this connects back to the new manager onboarding plan and development
   4. VP closes the loop by asking how this coaching conversation ties back to the Director’s personal development plan and provides feedback

This example depicts a coaching system that addresses coaching for standard, execution, and development all at once. This is something we normally don’t get to see when going to gemba, it’s the “invisible or intangible” key system that makes everything work.  And just like the scenario above, this can be applied to any situation, every day, every time: a personal development coaching conversation with your direct reports, a weekly or daily status exchange, a monthly performance review meeting, running a kaizen event, or running an experiment for quick problem solving. 

A coaching system in place creates a daily habit of coaching for development, execution and standard for every person, every time. It’s intentionally designed to impact most, if not all other systems you have in place:  strategy deployment, daily improvement, problem solving, kaizen activities, people development, onboarding, hiring and retention, business analytics, etc.

Katie Anderson and Isao Yoshino, in their book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn refer to the role of the leader as: Set the direction, Provide Support, Develop Yourself.  Having a coaching system in place ensures your role as leader fulfills these three aspects.

If you are at a place in your journey where you feel it’s time to put together a robust Coaching System, here are some recommendations to create the right conditions:

1. Set clear expectations and provide clarity
2. Create a habit of having two coaches present, ideally your one up, if not possible, a PI team member
3. Define ground rules for coaching relationships
4. Build an environment of psychological safety, experimentation and being okay with failure
5. There is no black and white, you will be living in a “gray zone” most of the time, remember that it’s oaky to have uncertainty
6. Practice situational leadership: you don’t have to coach 100% of the time, sometimes you just have to be direct
7. Learn to ask effective questions (hint: use kata coaching questions!) and listen with intent (don’t listen while waiting to ask a question)
8. Lead by Doing: your system shouldn’t rely only on PI Team members as coaches, this is okay in the beginning, however, all leaders should practice, learn and develop the habit
9. Connect the Dots: your coaching system should be part of every leader’s standard work, if you intentionally build it in other elements of your management system you can measure the impact
10. Share, Share, Share: share successes and failures with humility and transparency

Creating a coaching system is the key to success in a lean management system. It is a complex endeavor, requires significant practice, experimentation, reflection, a common approach, humility and patience.  But tackling this challenge will be worth it as you mature your system, because you will be strengthening the bonds in leader-manager-staff relationships and you will truly be creating a way of thinking and acting in your organization that will create significant transformation and culture change.

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