1st Edition
Giving Wings to Her Team A Novel About Learning to Coach the Toyota Kata Way
Denise dreamed of being the kind of leader who empowered and engaged her people, but was becoming frustrated and disillusioned.
Denise -- a fast-rising, young consultant at a large advisory firm -- lands a job as a manager in industry. Crisis strikes as low-cost competitors take market share and general chaos generates late shipments. Denise goes into Lean consulting mode but quickly learns her supervisors are not buying it. They're not engaged, and they find the Lean tools confusing and a distraction from their goals of getting product out. It's going to take some magic -- magic that's available to you, the reader, too!
Come with Denise on a journey of discovery and skill development, as she moves beyond the tools and concepts of Lean and focuses on daily practice that helps her supervisors achieve their goals. It's about an approach called Toyota Kata that helps anyone develop and apply scientific thinking -- an exploratory mindset of curiosity and experimentation. A mentor from an unlikely place appears and shares with Denise how to coach her team. Once her supervisors dig into real problems they face every day, they begin to engage. Step by step, with insightful inputs from her mentor, Denise starts developing the skills to become a coaching manager. She watches her team meet their current challenges and be ready for more.
When you teach and practice scientific thinking and coaching skills you give wings to your team, and new worlds of opportunity open up. If you're a manager you'll identify with how the team in this story goes beyond general preaching about best practices, to practicing how to get to where they want to be. If you're a Lean practitioner frustrated with applying tools with a limited half life, you'll learn how to develop people so they can achieve their most important goals and keep going. And if you're already a Toyota Kata practitioner, well ... you will love this book!
PART I - Learning to Think Scientifically while Producing Results
Chapter 1 - Another day, another crisis
Monday, January 17, 7am, The Bombshell Hits
Chapter 2 - Getting to Work with Lean
Monday, January 18, 8:30 am, Finally Something Interesting to Do
Friday, January 21, 5:45 pm, Thank Goodness it’s Friday
Chapter 3 – What’s our Challenge?
Friday, January 21, 6:45 pm, A Pleasant Surprise at the Gym
Chapter 4 – More Pressure Leads & a Breakthrough in Thinking
Monday, January 24, Back to the Grind
Monday, January 24, 7:00 pm, Retreat to the Gym
Chapter 5 – Getting Down to Kata Planning
Tuesday, January 25, A New Day, a Fresh Start
Chapter 6- Telling a Story on the Storyboard
Friday, January 28, Happy Reflections During a Drive to the Gym
Chapter 7 - At Last, Experimenting!
Tuesday, February 1, 7am, Small Steps, Big Progress
Chapter 8 - May the Coaching Lessons Begin
Tuesday, February 3, 6:35pm, Searching for Maggie in Desperation
PART II - Coaching as Learning
Chapter 9 - Starting to Coach (with Some Struggles)
Thursday, February 3, 7:30am, Sorting out Maggie’s brain dump
Chapter 10 - A Little Japanese Cuisine, and a Lot of Learning
Thursday, February 3, 7:34 pm, To a Gourmet Dinner with Maggie
Chapter 11 - A Coach for the Coach
Friday, February 4, 9:35 am, Experimenting with Maggie’s Advice
Chapter 12 - Spot-on Answers to Coaching Questions
Monday, February 7, 8:00 am, Finally A Calm Day of Learning
Chapter 13 - Digging Deeper into the Real Obstacles
Tuesday, February 8, 8am, A More than Pleasant Surprise and More Learning
Chapter 14 - A Green Drink, and Fresh Look at Storyboards
Tuesday, February 8, 6:30 pm, More to Drink and Learn at the Gym
Chapter 15 - Obstacles and Experiments: It’s Complicated
Wednesday, February 9, 9:00 am, Another Day, More Coaching Experiments
Thursday, February 10, 8:55 am, New Ideas to Test at Work
Chapter 16 - We Deliver Same Day
Monday, February 13, 12:00pm New Week, Fun at Sales
Tuesday, February 14, 12:00pm, A Great Lunch Capped Off by a Beat Down from Dick
Chapter 17 - Fun in the Learning Group?
Thursday, March 2 - 10:45am, Two Weeks Later, a Fun Jaunt to Sales...She Thought
Chapter 18 - A Big Promotion…and a Bigger Crisis
Monday, March 6 -5:00pm, It Hits the Fan, Big Time!
Monday, March 6 - 7:00 pm, Denise Desperately Tries to Unwind
PART III - SCALING UP AGAINST THE ODDS
Chapter 19 - A Confrontation, Then a Way Forward
Tuesday, March 7 - 6:00 am, An Explosive Start
Tuesday, March 7 - 7:30 am, A Breath of Fresh Air
Chapter 20 - Denise Becomes a Motivational Speaker
Tuesday, March 7 - 7:45 am, Talking with Joe
Tuesday, March 7 - 2:00 pm, The Big Meeting
Chapter 21 - Preparing for Launch Day
Wednesday, March 8 - 6:05 am, Starting on a High Note
Wednesday, March 8 - 6:45 am, Preparing for the Best Workshop Ever
Wednesday, March 8 - 7:45 am, Getting a Trusted Ally on Board
Chapter 22 - At Last: Grasping Current Condition
Wednesday, March 8 - 8:10 am, Finally, Off to the Workshop
Wednesday, March 8 - Noon, To Lunch and Meeting with Mark
Wednesday, March 8 - 3:30 pm, Reconnoitering to Reflect
Chapter 23 - Workshop Day 2: A Deeper Dive into the Current Condition
Thursday, March 9 - 6:00 am, Sunrise, Rousing After a Delightful Night on the Town
Thursday, March 9 - 7:00 am, Can Day 2 Go As Smoothly as Day 1?
Chapter 24 - Establishing Goals to set up the 3-1-1
Thursday, March 9 - 10:15 am, Still deeper dive into current condition, all hell breaks loose
Thursday, March 9 - 12:30 pm, A Productive Afternoon, What a Relief
Chapter 25 - Prepping for Fun with Puzzles
Friday, March 10 - 6:35 am, On the Way to Work with Maggie
Friday, March 10 - 7:15 am, Finally a Chance to Play with Puzzles, but First…
Chapter 26 - Kata to Grow Exercise
Friday, March 10 - 09:50 am, Back to Kindergarten for Puzzle Time
Chapter 27 - Welcome to the Coaching Dojo, Shoes off at the Door
Friday, March 10 - 12:30 pm, Denise Gets Coached Again
Friday, March 10 - 2:00 pm, Finally, Dojo Fun
PART IV - Upping the Pace: It’s a Sprint and a Marathon to the Finish
Chapter 28 - A Month Down the Road
Friday, April 6 - 8:00 am, Four Weeks of Learning, and Some Stalling
Friday, April 6 - 8:30 am, On Pace For the 3-1-1?
Tuesday, April 11- 3:50 pm, Thunder and Lightning
Chapter 29 - A Fleet of Coaches is Born
Time passes, progress accelerates
Wednesday, May 4 - 4:00 pm, Presenting to the Ghouls, Again
Chapter 30 - If Only You Could Kata Your Love Life
Thursday, May 5 - 8am, Something’s Up with David
Thursday, May 5– Evening, Dinner is on Sales
Friday, May 6 - 7:00am, Trouble in Paradise
Friday, May 6 - 6:00pm, A Breakup?
Chapter 31 - Victories and Setbacks
Tuesday, May 10 - 7:00am, A Visit from the Big Boss
Tuesday, May 10 - 1:00pm, Devious Dick at it Again
Chapter 32 -The Grand Finale
Thursday, May 18 - 4pm, Countdown, 3 Weeks to go
Thursday, June 4 - 2pm, Times Up!
Thursday, June 4 - 4:30pm, The Jury is Back
Chapter 33 - New Beginnings
Friday, June 5 - Celebration and an Offer
Friday, June 5, 5:00pm - The Surprises Keep Coming
AFTERWORD
Biography
Tilo Schwarz is a leadership coach, former plant manager and co-founder of the Campus for Leaders at the University of Applied Science Ansbach. He helps managers to successfully lead change and empower their teams for improvement, adaptiveness, and superior results. During his time as a plant manager at a renowned German power-tool manufacturer, he started practicing Toyota Kata with his management team as part of Mike Rother's groundbreaking research in 2006. By doing so, Tilo and his team established continuous improvement as a daily routine throughout all processes and areas of the plant. That led to winning the A. T. Kearny operational excellence competition "Factory of the Year" and a WHU/INSEAD Industrial Excellence Award. Tilo is the author of several books on coaching and Toyota Kata.
Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor Emeritus, Industrial and Operations Engineering at The University of Michigan and President of Liker Lean Advisors, LLC. He is the author of the best-selling book, The Toyota Way, Second Edition, and has coauthored nine other books about Toyota including The Toyota Way to Service Excellence and The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. His graphic novel with Eduardo Lander and Tom Root tells the story of lean transformation at a mail-order company: Lean in a High-Variability Business. A more compact graphic novel, Engaging the Team at Zingerman’s Mail Order, illustrates how Kata unleashed the creativity of their team. His articles and books have won thirteen Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. He was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame and the Shingo Academy.
As CEO my vision for Elisa is for all leaders to be coaches and bring the best out of our people. This enjoyable novel gave me lots of new understanding of what it takes to learn to coach at a high level.
--Veli-Matti Mattila, CEO, Elisa Telecommunications
At AstraSeneca we are using Toyota Kata to coach and develop scientific thinking in our leaders. This novel was a delight and gave me deep understanding of what true coaching is and how to learn and spread it.
—Peter Alvarsson, Head of Operational Excellence, Europe Region
This book demystifies Toyota Kata by telling the story of how Denise, an embattled but undeterred front-line manager, learns to coach. I found myself relating to the characters and the all-too-common challenges they face. I highly recommend this novel for any leader trying to get results while developing people in today’s complex, ever changing world.
—Michael R. Galagher, GE Executive Lean Leader, Corporate Finance.
Practicing Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata in Volkswagen Sarajevo empowered our organization to achieve historical results. The feel of this novel is as if the authors were there with us, observing our steps and participating in our struggle to promote scientific thinking. The universality of the message is astonishing, and I highly recommend it.
— Malik Sisic, Head of Purchasing / Vice CEO, Volkswagen Sarajevo d.o.o.
