The Role of the Sensei in Learning

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“This kind of specification is not a case of perverse Taylorism or micromanagement, with smart people telling less-intelligent people what to do.  It is, in fact, an investment.” - Steven J. Spear

When kicking off a lean transformation, organizations often hire specialists or consultants to keep the initiative on-track.  Although this can greatly help with the transformation, it is critical that these people understand that their role is to be coaches rather than players in the process.

If the objective is to achieve sustained transformation, people throughout the organization must learn that lean is a very different way of looking at business.  They must understand how it applies to their jobs, as well as the company’s processes, systems, and culture.  This type of learning occurs when the individual actively participates in the changes by developing new ways to work, including the freedom to experiment with new ideas that may fail.

The role of a specialist, or sensei, is to guide people in the new way of thinking.  The more the experts do things – change systems, redesign processes, etc. – or tell people what they need to be doing, the more they interfere with learning and reduce the chances of sustaining the change.

Conversations, Dialogue, and Questioning to Drive Learning

One critical role of a specialist is to drive the adoption of a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) mindset throughout the organization.  This involves coaching people how to look at a situation, analyze what is going on, and develop ideas to improve performance in a simple and direct way.  When people identify countermeasures that do not appear to effectively address a problem, the specialist can either let them learn through a failed experiment or engage them in dialogue to help them see for themselves where their thinking went wrong and how to get back on track.

The process requires patience and a great deal of questioning: Why do you think that? Why did you approach the problem/change in that way?  What ideas or approaches did you discard along the way?  How do you know you what is happening in the process?

To be truly effective in the role, the specialist must possess a deep understanding of lean and be adept at Socratic or ORID (Objective-Reflective-Interpretive-Decisional) techniques.  These methods are proven to be effective at facilitating learning by helping people think through facts, feelings, and connections about a situation before making decisions.  Without these types of methods, the specialist will tend to tell people what to do and, although this may result in compliance and some level of improvement, it will not create the type of learning that will enable people to apply the information to other situations.

Slowing Down to Go Faster

Although coaching may appear to take longer than attempting to drive change by telling people what to do, it greatly increases the chances of sustaining the transformation.  The difficulty the organization's leaders often have with this approach is related to the lack of patience that characterizes western business.  The difficulty faced by the sensei in coaching versus doing comes from the excitement that people tend to have when they learn about lean and what it can do for an organization. It's not easy to hold back opinions when you know what should be done to move the process forward or address a problem.

The only chance of sustaining transformation - and I'm not completely convinced that sustained transformation is ever possible - will occur when people start thinking PDSA and acting lean when the sensei isn't around, which is something that will never happen without effective coaching.

Transformation? Not Without Purpose

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Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business and to provide jobs. W. Edwards Deming

One of the most common roadblocks companies face when attempting a lean deployment is a lack of clarity around the organization’s fundamental purpose.  Without a clear and consistent understanding of why the business exists and what it is expected to accomplish, any attempt to transform the culture will lead to frustration, disappointment, and eventual abandonment of the effort.

Identifying Waste?

Waste exists in virtually every process, and can be identified and reduced without a significant amount of effort.  When the organization does not have a clear purpose, however, improvements tend to be superficial and transformation does not occur.

When leaders consistently drive focus around the company’s core business, it becomes easier to identify the systems and policies that interfere with serving customers.  It is unfortunately fairly common to see systems related to performance evaluation, IT, recruiting and hiring, and other areas that are overly complex or do little to help the organization meet the needs of its customers.  Without constancy of purpose, however, there is no lens with which to evaluate whether a system truly adds value or not.

Begin With Purpose

The Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines an organization as, “a group whose members work together for a shared purpose in a continuing way.”  Without a shared purpose, there is no organization.  There is only a group of people who come to work each day, spend time on what they feel is important, and go home.

The purpose does not need to be sophisticated, creative or witty.  It just needs to be clear and unchanging.  Although not necessarily an easy thing to do, clarifying and living in accordance with the purpose helps people understand the value the organization provides and, when this happens, transformation truly begins to occur.

Letting Up Is Not An Option

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After winning at Wimbledon, Roger Federer is once again the number one tennis player in the world.  Now that he has made it to the top, can he expect to take it easy and hope to remain there?  Will his practice sessions and workouts be easier now that he has only to sustain the level of performance that got him to number one?  And since he has obviously mastered the sport, he is no longer in need of a coach, right?

When talking about competing in a highly competitive environment like tennis, the obvious answer to these questions is, "no."  Yet in a highly competitive business environment, it is fairly common to let up when performance improves as if the gains will hold and things will continue to advance without the type of focus it took to get there.  In some organizations, the effort actually loses support because of the feeling that further improvement is not worth the investment.

Once You think You've Won, You Lost

People in organizations where lean thinking has taken hold understand that continual improvement requires continual effort. This means never letting up on the drive to develop people and assure continued learning.  As with an athlete mastering a sport, there is no such thing as maintaining a certain level of performance.  There is either improvement or deterioration - and as you get better, improvement becomes more difficult to maintain.

It's interesting that people use the term "continuous improvement" while deep down believing that there is a point where things are good enough and not worth the effort to continue.  I referred to this in an earlier post as the we-can-always-improve-but syndrome.   If we're striving for perfection, improvement is always needed.  Changes in people, technology, customer tastes, and many other aspects of the environment invalidate any notion of sustaining the gains.  The only way to sustain a given level of performance is to continue to improve.

Performance Improves . . . And It’s Fun

Those who buy into the continual improvement philosophy find working in a lean thinking environment very satisfying.  They understand the link between their efforts and the company’s performance and are energized by the ability to participate in improving processes.  For those in leadership positions, however, it can be exhausting to continually fight against the barriers that interfere with improvement.  And since these barriers naturally occur within organizations, the effort to remove them will never end.

Just as Roger Federer needs to continue to improve to remain number one, an organization must continually push harder, learn faster, and get stronger in order to remain relevant.  Failing to do this can pretty much guarantee membership in the growing group of companies that, at one time appeared invincible, but have since disappeared because of arrogance or apathy toward improvement.