Page 468 - The Toyota Way Fieldbook

438 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK

In most situations, the approach of the lean sensei should be somewhere in
between harsh and soft. The lean sensei cannot become a pair of hands doing
the work. They must challenge those they are training. This often means giving
challenging assignments and stepping back, allowing the students to struggle
and even fail. They can then step in and coach. This is the learning by doing
approach. The student must be doing, and feel personally challenged, in order
to learn. They will not learn nearly as much by watching the sensei.
There are different models for the frequency of visits by the sensei. It can
range from full-time to leading a kaizen workshop every other week to a couple
of days per month. Full-time is usually too much, and two days per month is
usually a minimum.
Typically, sensei who are there full-time are doing, not coaching. This
may be necessary if there are no strong students assigned full-time to the pro-
gram. It also may be necessary to move fast. But it is only useful as a transi-
tion strategy. If the full-time sensei can drive enough change to demonstrate
what lean can do, it will hopefully motivate management to assign a strong
full-time person to work with the lean sensei. Then the sensei can reduce
involvement.
The every other week workshop approach can drive a lot of change quickly
(see the Tenneco case in Chapter 19). If the sensei is truly leading a kaizen work-
shop every time he or she comes, they are probably not doing much coaching
other than on-the-job teaching through the workshops. And there is a strong
value to coaching beyond the workshops.
The two-day-per-month approach is very powerful if there’s a strong inter-
nal team to coach. The sensei reviews progress since the last meeting and pro-
vides challenging feedback and assignments for the next month. The sensei may
demonstrate a tool or help with a tough technical issue and then leave. With this
model, the sensei cannot do, but must teach, or nothing gets done. The students
learn they cannot be dependent on the sensei.
When we put together the elements needed to make lasting change, it looks
like Figure 20-2: the structure of the change process in terms of roles and respon-
sibilities, the broad participation and ownership needed (especially within the
line organization), as well as accountability, mentorship to learn by doing, and
committed, knowledgeable leadership.
The importance of committed leadership cannot be overstated. The “Tale of
Two Pistons” case following highlights the importance of committed and knowl-
edgeable leadership. This case seemed to have everything going for it—high-level
management support for lean, a good change structure, ownership by the line
organization, and even one of the best lean machining experts in the world. It was
a new line, so it could be developed lean from scratch. One area under one
project engineer learned from the lean sensei, and the line was lean and highly