GA 391 | Discovering the Power of Toyota Kata with Ron Pereira & Friends

Hey everyone, this is Ron Perera and today I have a different type of episode for you. We are not going to do our traditional interview with a lean thinker. We'll get back to that next week. But today what I want to do is I want to share the audio from two different videos that we have in our library, our Gemba Academy library on the topic of Toyota Kata. The first video is going to be from a course that we just recently released. The course, that course is called Toyota Kata Essentials. And as the name implies, it's just an overview of what Toyota Cottage is all about. And now this video, the audio that you're going to hear is of the first video in that course. And something that some folks don't realize is that the first video, if every course in our library is available to view for free, no subscription needed, so that there's lots of videos on our website that you don't, that don't require a subscription. So if you aren't a subscriber, don't hesitate to come over to our and watch those first, the first videos of all those different courses. And so in this, this first one is just the overview video of this Toyota Akatas Essentials course. So I'm gonna go ahead and play the audio now. If you do want to watch the actual video, we're going to link to that in the show notes. So this is episode 391, so just go to gembapodcast.com, look for episode 391 and there'll be a link right there that'll bring you to this video, which again is unlocked and available to view.

Hello and wel.

Welcome.

Toyota Kata is a structured way to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement at all levels of an organization. This is done by practicing a specific set of daily habits and routines. These practice routines or patterns are known as kata. The term kata comes from movement sequences in martial arts. Learners practice their kata until these motions become second nature. In business terms, a kata is a routine that we practice so that the pattern of thinking or action becomes an automatic habit or skill. Kata is an iterative process, meaning that people experiment and learn as they make progress towards big or important goals. The development of Toyota Kata was the result of research conducted by author and professor Mike Rother. The research focused on two what are the invisible managerial routines and ways of thinking that build the foundation of Toyota success with continuous improvement? How can other companies develop similar routines and thinking in their organizations? These questions came from the concern that something was missing from the practice of continuous improvement. On one hand, many organizations had enjoyed success by studying best practices and adapting proven solutions. On the other hand, this was not enough to bring sustained competitive advantage and long term survival for many organizations. The insight from the Toyota Kata research was that it was not the solutions themselves that led to success. Instead, it was the degree to which an organization masters effective routines for developing solutions again and again in different situations and along unpredictable paths. This requires the ability to teach thinking and skills that lead to the solutions. The research identified two types of practice patterns at Toyota. They are the Improvement Kata and the Coaching Kata. The improvement and Coaching katas work hand in hand to develop the habitual scientific thinking patterns that are the foundation of all effective problem solving approaches. This is done through an iterative process of asking questions, experimentation, and learning. Although these kata help develop problem solvers, Toyota Kata isn't a problem solving method. Rather, it's an approach to solving problems by developing people. In the Toyota Kata way of thinking, management is a systematic pursuit of desired conditions by utilizing human capabilities in a concerted way. There are five main benefits to incorporating the practice of Kata into our management system. First, Kata provides a practical approach for people and organizations to achieve their desired results. The KATA practice routines provide structure that help people learn how to move from their current state to their future desired state through experimentation, learning, and adaptation. Second, practicing Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata together enables organizations to develop skills and thinking patterns. In this type of management approach, the primary responsibility of leaders is to develop people so that they're capable of achieving their desired results. People in the organization practice improvement Kata while leaders also practice coaching Kata in support of the learners. The stepwise kata routines enable anyone to learn the important skill of scientific thinking at a practical level. Third, KATA encourages us to embrace uncertainty in the traditional approach to problem solving, improvement, or implementing best practices. We often focus on being certain that we have the right answer before taking action. It's common for people to hold on to a sense of certainty based on what we know or believe. This can stop us from learning and adapting to new situations. The Kata approach recognizes that there is always a threshold of knowledge or a point of view which we lack information and start guessing. Kata gives people a structure for working through uncertainty and unknown territory. Instead of being afraid of hitting obstacles or making missteps into what we don't know, Kata allows people to keep moving by experimentation. Fourth, the Kata approach helps us get started. There are many roadmaps, methods, tools, and approaches to improvement. There is a lot to learn and it can be difficult to know where to start, Toyota Kata provides a structure and a set of questions that help us think through what we want to achieve, as well as how to take the next step. Fifth, Kata enables us to change our organization's culture. Practitioners of continuous improvement focus on changing tangible things for the better. We want these changes to have a significant and lasting effect. Unfortunately, when we focus only on changing things and not on changing our culture, our improvements rarely last. Kata gives us a structure to change how we think, how we learn, and how we teach others to think. Alright, that wraps up our review of Toyota Kata.

Okay, so hopefully that added some value. Now again, if you'd like to actually see the video, go over to gemba podcast.com look for episode 391 and we'll link to, to that actual video. It's the first video of that course. So again it's, it's, it's open and unlocked for anyone to view. Now this next video is from a course that we've had actually released for, for some time. And this course is called Toyota Kata Practice Makes Progress. Now this course was a little bit different. This was a live workshop that we facilitated. In fact, Mark Rosenthal, a long, long time friend of Gemba Academy and a fantastic lean thinker and Toyota Kata practitioner, he actually facilitated this workshop and we filmed it. And something that we did early on in the, in the course is we shared this famous TED Talk video of this, of this marshmallow challenge. Now you might, if you're not familiar with this marshmallow challenge, again we're going to link to the TED Talk video so you can go to GembaPodcast.com Episode 391 and we'll link to this video. But I'm going to give you the gist of it just so this next audio makes sense that Mark's about to share. And what's going on here in this marshmallow challenge is that the game is you've got these sticks of spaghetti, dried, dried, just regular spaghetti, and you're and one marshmallow and a team then is asked to build a tower. So the idea is you want to get the marshmallow on top of your spaghetti tower, okay. And the highest tower wins. And there's all sorts of different ways to do this, right? And what they've done over the years is they've done this workshop or this exercise with many different types of people everywhere from young kids in kindergarten to, you know, executives, CEOs of big Fortune 500 companies. Okay. And what they explain in this Ted Talk video is that what they've experienced over the years is that the people who do the very best at this challenge are the kids, the young kids, because they don't overthink it. Whereas the MBA student, you know, they're overthinking everything and they're arguing about who's in charge and so forth. Whereas the kid, they basically just take it, pick up the spaghetti and start experimenting their way forward. Now, they also explain that art engineers, trained engineers and architects actually do outperform the kids by a little bit. And then it's interesting, they talk also about how CEOs do okay, you know, at this. But if you add an administrative assistant to be on the team with the CEO, their, their performance skyrockets. So, Eddie, how Mark, that's, that's a big part of the talk that Mark gives here in this, in this next video, the audio of this next video. But I wanted to lay that context. But I would encourage you to go watch that TED Talk video as well. Finally, this video here, it's called what Learning Looks like, and it is actually normally not unlocked. You would need a subscription to watch this video. But I'm going to work with our IT team and at least for the next few weeks after this episode, errors, we're going to unlock this video. So feel free to go watch this video also of what learning looks like with Mark in that, in that live workshop environment. Okay. And well, thanks for listening. Enjoy this, this next bit of audio, and then we'll catch you up next week and we'll get back to our. Our normal interview style episode.

Okay, so let's talk about what learning looks like. So talk like, think about the various groups, especially the business school students, the little kids and the engineers. That's who I really want to compare here because they have three fundamentally different approaches. So what were the core assumptions that each of those teams made about what they already know about this problem? So what was the core assumptions of the little kids about what they already knew about this problem? Basically, nothing. Nothing. Okay, this is new. What was the core assumption that the business school students made? That their model would work? That their model would work, that we understand what to do here. We know how to do this. Now, the truth is the same for both of those groups. It's new to both. Neither of them has encountered this before, but the underlying assumption was different. So their approach was different. The business school students made a plan and executed. And so how many cycles of learning did they get? One. Okay. How many cycles of learning did the kids get? As many as they could, because one of the key words he says in here, at each iteration, the kids learnt get instant feedback about what works and what doesn't work. That's what learning is. So let's talk about the business school students versus the engineers. Okay. They both started with the assumption that we know how to do this. What's the difference between those two groups? The engineers have training. Yeah, the engineers did know. Okay, spaghetti's new to them, but fundamental structure's not. And so the engineers are doing stuff they already know how to do. So of all of these groups, which ones learned the most? Kids. Yeah, the kids. Because they start with a baseline of very little and they built like the second tallest structures as a group. The engineers built taller structures, but they're just doing what they already know how to do. They likely didn't learn very much. They've been building bridges out of popsicle sticks since they were sixth graders. Right. Okay, so how about the impact of that High stakes incentive. What's the message there and where Our back's against the wall. We have a lot of stress because in reality, when there's a high stakes incentive, what we do in our brains is we already have it and we're afraid to lose it. Okay. So we get very, very conservative. So when the stakes are high, people is not. When people are going to explore a brand new way of doing something, they're going to stick with what they already know. In fact, when it's really bad, you get tunnel vision and you even exclude information that you need to know. Okay, Read accident reports from airplane crashes. Now that happens a lot. Unfortunately, that's the number one pilot error thing. Okay, so high stakes discourage people from trying new ways to solve a problem that is not the time to learn. So we talk about creating a burning platform to try to force people into a new territory. All that's going to do is get them. I didn't need to get off of this platform. That's how they're going to be thinking. Okay, so here's our challenge. What is our challenge here? Think about it. Do you all have problems that need to be solved quickly? Sometimes. Okay. Sometimes. I've never run into an organization that has a shortage of those. Okay, so here's the question. What people are going to revert to their habit? What habit do you want them to revert to? Because they have to have that practiced ahead of time. So that is the default habit. That's why pilots do simulators at the extreme end. Okay, we just threw a seagull into the engine. What Are you going to do they practice it so that they don't have to think about it? In our world, the core question changes from what do we need to do to what do we need to learn? That's the core message here. So let's talk about the executive admin, because that's an interesting thing too. That outside perspective focusing on how we go about it keeps people on track and hopefully helps that group of likely strong headed individuals from just pushing their agenda. And the admin makes them step back and think about what they're doing. So that's one of the roles that's crucial here because it's human nature to just go do something. So this is the whole point what the kids were employing. All little kids do this. They grow up with it, right in the scientific method. They're exploring, experimenting, they're learning about the world around them by trying stuff. They're turning over rocks. This is the best definition I've seen so far. It's a friend sent to me. Scientific method is doing whatever it takes not to fool ourselves into thinking what's true is false or what's false is true. So what is it about the little kids? Why is it that this naturally iterate? Right. When you're five, everything is new, right? That's kind of what it comes down to. Here's an instance insight that I got from a friend of mine. Okay. Kids brains are optimized for learning. We're going to see this again in the next piece. Adult brains are optimized for performance. So kids aren't as fast at getting stuff done because they're figuring it out. Adults are quicker because we see patterns, we match them and we just do stuff unconsciously. So what's the difference? Anybody here have a 15 year old with a of lot learner's permit? Yeah. Okay, what's that like in the right hand seat where you don't have a brake pedal or a steering wheel? Okay. Yeah. Right. Now, do you remember being a 15 year old with a learner's permit, anybody? Yeah, even I do, believe it or not. Okay, so I remember that if I kept the center line on the road kind of lined up with the seam between the hood and the fender, I was kind of in the middle of the lane and I was constantly glancing at that to make sure I was aligned. I'm thinking about that kind of stuff. Why? Because I'm still learning right now. Let's think about this. Who here has had the experience after a long day here you find yourself in, in your driveway and don't remember the trip. Okay, you're on autopilot. But that's a really complex set of behaviors. Driving through traffic without hitting anything is a phenomenally complex set of behaviors. Once you're off the Runway, it's easier to hold a cruise than it is to drive home in your car. Okay? Think about that. So what's going on right now? If somebody crosses diagonally across, you immediately alert, because that's matching. That's a pattern that you're not expecting. And the background processing is picking that up. But this is the fundamental conflict that we're up against, is that adult brains are optimized for performance. And sometimes it's a survival skill. Okay. Sometimes it's biased toward living because, you know, you only get to miss the leopard once. You can miss the gazelle a couple of times. Okay? So that's kind of our challenge. Our brain fills in the blanks. Actually, our adult brain fills in the blanks, and so that's kind of what we have to overcome. Back up. Yeah. This is fast, and it operates with an abundance of caution. This is why we are not exploring new territory. When we're matching patterns, this is what's going on in your brain. So our brains are great at filling in patterns we recognize. Everybody knows what that says. You can read it. You probably already know it. Doesn't actually say it. Okay, but you know what? I still read jumping to conclusions here. That's how fast it is. So you've got to be conscious. So you've got to ask yourself, what do I need to see to be sure? So that's part of the challenge. So those little kids don't have old patterns. Their habitual pattern is figuring stuff out. That's what they. They practice every day because that's what growing up is about. And my comment about K12 on this is, nobody's taught them that. Nobody's taught them it's wrong to be wrong yet. And that's when they start being cautious about making mistakes and they stop exploring. Was it one of Tyson's great quotes is, we spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives telling them to sit down and shut up. You know, how crazy is that? Okay, so let's come to the kata pattern here. When I'm looking at a process, there's a limit to what I know. And we're going to introduce a jargon term here called the threshold of knowledge. That's the boundary between what we know and what we don't. Know, know often that threshold is a lot closer in than you think it is because most of us are extrapolating well beyond it. So it's very important to know what we know and what we don't. I've got this goal I'm trying to reach which we're going to call a target condition in a couple of weeks. And I don't know how to get there. I'm just pretty confident that I can. We've all had that kind of thing, right? You have a goal, you're not exactly sure how you're going to get it done, but you're pretty confident you can get it done. That's what a target condition is in kata and in continuous improvement. Now, how do I get from point A to point B? Because I don't necessarily even know what all the problems are yet, much less the path to get through them. So the metaphor that I really like is imagine you're in a really dark cave. You got a flashlight, you got at Walmart. It'll go about 10ft or so. But I need to explore what's beyond what I can see. What do I have to do in order to learn to extend what I know? I have to take a step and then that light goes a little further. I'm a little more confident about what's here. Oh, there's, there's a really deep hole there. I'm going to go around that and then I can take another step and you can explore your way through. And the good cool thing is it stays light behind you in this model and you explore your way through by taking a step and learning and taking a step and learning as you go. That's what the little kids were doing and that's what we want to do. That makes sense. Sense. So we've talked about this a little bit. I just want you to think about back to the iceberg. What would be different in an organization that actually had these beliefs? What would the day to day interaction actually look like and sound like? What, what artifacts would you see? What words would you hear versus an organization that has their five point checklist for all of the Lean tools? What would be different about those two?

Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 Lean and Six Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.