Four focal areas

1. Strategy and A3 thinking

2. Value stream management

3. Process improvement

4. Daily management

Audience

The primary audience for

this program includes all

kaizen promotion office (KPO)

personnel, who will be trained

and certified in lean coaching

by RCG consultants. To ensure

continuity of the program

after the conclusion of RCG’s

involvement, a subset of KPO

personnel will be trained,

certified and licensed as master

instructors and coaches. A

secondary audience includes

senior leaders, executive

sponsors, process owners and

frontline leaders, who will be

trained and coached by certified

KPO leaders.

Leaders of an effective kaizen promotion office (KPO) must be many things:

• One part great problem solver.• One part great teacher.• One part great coach.

Of these skills, coaching may be the most difficult to master, and even more difficult for KPO leaders to impart to the senior leaders, executive sponsors, process owners and frontline leaders of their organizations.

Instructional objectives

The overall objective of the program is to develop KPO leaders who are self-sufficient in assessing and coaching senior leaders, executive sponsors, process owners and frontline leaders through a lean transformation from beginning to end. In addition, master coaches are trained and licensed as trainers and facilitators of lean coaching to ensure that the coaching method is transferred back from RCG to the client. The program is designed to complement RCG’s executive education on lean management and align with value stream improvement work.

Instructional approach

Over the course of one year, learners participate in a series of twelve two-day, hands-on sessions structured as follows:• Day 1

• Meeting with site leaders to review progress since last meeting.• Structured gemba walk focused on selected area, system or

problem.• Just-in-time training or retraining as required.• 1:1 coaching between RCG consultants and KPO personnel.

• Day 2• Seminar focused on selected topic.• Final report out to senior leaders.• Determination of focus of and assigned readings for the next

meeting.• Coaching project

assignments.

Transformation coaching for kaizen promotion office leaders

In between sessions, KPO personnel complete assigned readings and coaching project work. In addition to the twelve formal sessions, 1:1 time on the gemba between individual RCG consultants and KPO personnel may be scheduled as requested.

Program subject matter

The subject matter of the program includes lean coaching for frontline leadership, process management, value stream management and strategy deployment. Selected seminar topics, including the improvement and coaching katas, will be chosen from this list. To support personal investigation and class discussion, three Shingo Prize-winning books on coaching for lean leadership have been chosen:• Mike Rother’s Toyota Kata coaching daily improvement• John Shook’s Managing to Learn coaching A3s focused on complex problems• Tom Jackson’s Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise coaching on strategy deployment

Readings from these and other sources are assigned prior to each session and discussed in a seminar conducted by an RCG consultant. Additional sources include:• Edgar Schein’s Humble Inquiry• Edgar Schein’s “A General Philosophy of Helping: Process Consultation”• John P. Kotter’s The Heart of Change

Measuring personal transformation

Providing targeted coaching reinforces new behaviors that are necessary for a successful transformation. The Personal Transformation Ruler is a tool that shows a clear path to becoming a lean leader. It allows tracking and assessment of progress as well as showing the path to continuous improvement. Each section of the Personal Transformation Ruler provides focus for key skills and behaviors that are hallmarks of lean leaders.

Personal Transformation coaching helps sponsors, certified leaders and process owners adopt a completely new management paradigm. Asking operational leadership to make these changes without significant support would lead to failure for many and can derail organizational transformation.

Rona consulting group’s coaching approach for KPO development is outlined on the Coaching Grid.

We develop effective coaching skills within the KPO (specialists, fellows and directors) to enable an improved capacity for true lean transformation. While there is frequently an appreciation by the process owners of what to do and why it is important to do standard work, the main area of opportunity is in the “how” to go about achieving change. While the methods of improvement may be in place, methods without results are virtually meaningless. Incorporating the principles of challenge, kaizen mind, respect and teamwork into the workplace as coach will make the time that managers are spending “going and seeing” much more productive. Instead of just focusing on the tasks of improvement methods, we focus on getting results. Our coaching behaviors produce change through the practice of servant leadership and the use of the Socratic method.

The coaching methods emphasize the role of process owner and leader as a teacher through the Socratic method and focus on how to exert influence, distribute problem solving, establish accountability, develop critical thinking skills and develop people as responsible problem solvers. The number of coaching sessions required depends on an evaluation of the current state by Rona consulting group consultants.

Additional plans for ongoing self-development of KPO staff include facilitated cohort meetings of process owners, sponsors and QDS staff to learn together through a combination of reading assignments, presentations and gemba experiences that could be facilitated initially by Rona consulting group face-to-face and then over time by QDS specialists using video conferencing with Rona consulting group support.

When appropriate, we also do an assessment of critical physician partner groups to be sure there is the right alignment between healthcare organizations and these important stakeholders, and how they are addressing visual management and standard work to accelerate change within their organizations.

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