Breakthrough Point Coaching System in a Lean Environment

The Two Goals of Every Lean Culture

If you are implementing a lean culture in your business there are two primary goals:

·      Improving productivity

·      Reducing costs  

To maximize the achievement of both of these goals, you must equip team leaders and middle managers with the essential coaching skills to create the breakthrough point where your culture shifts from its current culture to a lean culture.

Lean is a Culture, not Just Results

Lean is first and foremost a culture – a way of thinking and acting in the business. Every organization has a culture; whether it is clearly articulated or not.  The lean culture is intentionally designed to create a workforce that is energized and empowered to identify areas where process flow can be smoothed and unnecessary actions and resources can be eliminated; the overall result being improved productivity and cost savings.    Many people think of lean as a cost savings and process improvement process.  When implemented properly, lean does create cost savings and process improvements; however, they are the byproduct of a lean culture.   To sustain these kinds of results in the long run, a business must present the lean systems as a part of a greater culture.  When this is done, cost savings and process improvements become a byproduct of everyday actions and results.   

For lean to work properly, all employees must embrace the process.  All employees must believe that they have the personal power to identify and initiate improvement opportunities in the business.  This is a shift in most organizations, which is why leaders play such a critical role.

Coaching – The Essential Leadership Skill in a Lean Culture

The essential skill for every leader in a lean culture is coaching.  Building a lean culture means helping people develop a new set of beliefs about their role, success, how success is achieved, personal power, and what we call the “rules of the game.” Building a lean culture also means developing a new way of acting in the organization, for both leaders and staff.  We call this the rhythm of action or ROA within a team and organization.  Leaders must reinforce this new way of thinking and acting until it becomes natural for the team.  This is where coaching becomes essential.

Breakthrough Point Coaching System

Breakthrough Point Coaching in a Lean Culture is a skills based training and development process that builds a lean leadership mindset and equips leaders with essential coaching skills and knowledge.

At JTB Communications, Inc. we provide training classes in coaching and also a leader development process that builds the coaching skills of leaders over a one-year period.  Training classes teach the process, skills, and knowledge of coaching.  The ongoing leadership development process provides the opportunity for leaders to practice their coaching skills, receive coaching themselves, and accomplish specific assignments related to coaching that will reinforce and engrain the coaching mindset, process, and skills.  The Breakthrough Point Leadership Coaching system has four components:

I. Performance Coaching In a Lean Culture Training

This training is designed to give every leader at every level of the organization the foundational skills for coaching.

II. Performance Coaching Training for Middle Managers

This training is specifically designed for department heads, division managers, regional managers, executives, and any other individual that has leaders reporting to them.  This training program applies the performance coaching process specifically to working with leaders and coaching them.

III. Leadership Development and Individual Coaching of Leaders

Most leaders benefit from an ongoing development process implemented over a twelve-month cycle.  This ongoing developmental process creates positive accountability for the leader, a continued learning environment, and the opportunity for individual coaching.

IV. Advanced Coaching Training – Building Blue Chip Players

The advanced coaching training provides an additional set of skills and strategies to build on the skills, processes, tools, and techniques taught in Performance Coaching Training.  This advanced coaching training enables leadership to master the ability to get people to take full responsibility for their own success and build a team of blue chip players to take the organization to higher and higher levels of performance. 

Performance Coaching in a Lean Culture

Below is the outline for the Performance Coaching in a Lean Culture Training Classes.  This class can be a one day or two day experience.  The one-day program teaches the concepts, skills, knowledge, and techniques of coaching in a lean culture.  The two-day program provides opportunities for leaders to practice the use of these skills and techniques. 

Introduction

·      Lean defined & characteristics of lean

·      How lean is similar and different than the current culture

·      Expectations of teams and leaders in a lean culture

·      Coaching defined & characteristics of effective coaching

·      The role of coaching in a lean culture

·      Shifting the mindset and role of leadership

Key Principles and Knowledge

·      10/80/10 Principle

o   Most people are adapters not self-starters

·      Reality Engineering

o   Key knowledge for building a lean culture

·      Breakthrough Point

o   Convergence of three essential things – clear vision, belief systems that support the vision, actions that support the vision

·      The Handful Principle

o   The key drivers for a lean environment

·      Growth Cycles

o   How growth cycles relate to a lean culture

Essential Leadership Systems

·      How to implement the four essential leadership systems in a lean culture

·      Building peer accountability, teamwork, and high performance

The Coaching Template

• Call what you see, help me understand, VCR (validate, clarify, refocus)
• Coaching skill – Dialogue Planning Tree
• Coaching skill - Listening skills
• Coaching skill – Questioning skills

Understanding the Coaching Process

·      Goal of coaching – self-propelled people

·      The Performance Success Formula

·      The Four Step Coaching Process

·      Goal step

o   Defining performance expectations and metrics in a lean culture

o   How to define these and get commitment to achieve them

·      Observation step

o   What to observe in a lean environment

o   Coaching tool - Breakdown analysis

o   How to observe in a lean culture

·      Awareness step

o   How to reinforce right performance

o   How to address performance issues

·      Alignment step

o   Correcting performance problems

o   How to get agreement on areas for improvement

o   Coaching skill – Putting accountability on their shoulders

o   Coaching skill – Speaking the truth with compassion

o   Coaching skill – Getting commitment for change

o   Applying the coaching template and skills to resolve common problems in a lean environment.

Reinforcing Right Performance

• People focus on what you reinforce
• Reinforcing right performance not wrong performance
• Reviewing the reinforcement template
• Practicing the reinforcement template

Common Problems in a Lean Environment and How to Address Them

• The three most common problem areas in building a lean environment

• Accountability issues
• Teamwork issues
• Responsibility issues
• How to build team accountability for success

Eliminating Reoccurring Problems

• The basic three step process for eliminating reoccurring problems
• Coaching technique – Either/Or
• Coaching technique – Define reality

Addressing and Resolving Conflicts

• How to prevent conflicts from occurring
• How to address conflicts in a proactive way
• How to create a win/win whenever possible in a conflict situation

Leadership Development & Individual Coaching

Most leaders benefit from an ongoing development process implemented over a twelve-month cycle.  This ongoing developmental process creates positive accountability for the leader, a continuous learning environment, and the opportunity for individual coaching.  The exact components of the leadership development and individual coaching process are defined in working with each client.  The following strategies are usually included in this process.

Follow-up Sessions

• Usually, the participants in Performance Coaching training meet again 45 days after the training to review their assignments and improve their skills.
• Assignment results will be reviewed. 
• At the conclusion of Performance Coaching Training, participants are given an assignment to do specific things related to the coaching and development of their team.  These are based on an assessment that they will complete at the end of the Performance Coaching in a Lean Culture training.
• Problems associated with coaching staff will be identified and strategies for resolving problems will be developed and practiced
• Practice of problem solving skills and techniques

Individual Coaching Sessions

• Individual coaching sessions are scheduled with each participant. 
• Feedback from coach’s leader and potentially from team is provided to focus areas for improvement.
• If areas for improvement are identified, belief systems and actions are explored to identify are remove barriers that keep them from success.
• The trainer/coach and the leader will practice the application of specific coaching skills or techniques if needed
• Video taping is also used by many clients to help coaches improve.

Breakthrough Point Coaching in Lean Culture - Advanced Coaching

The advanced coaching training provides an additional set of skills and strategies to build on the skills, processes, tools, and techniques taught in Performance Coaching Training.  This advanced coaching training shows leadership how to get their staff to take full responsibility for their own success.  In addition, advanced coaching training will teach leaders how to build a team of blue chip players to take the organization to higher and higher levels of performance. 

The Advanced Coaching training can be a one day or two day training program.  The two day program provides opportunity for leaders to practice the skills learned in advanced coaching.

Review of Performance Coaching in a Lean Culture

• Review major content areas of initial coaching training
• Review and discuss progress in building a lean culture

Identify Remaining Obstacles for Building a Lean Culture

• What is working and what is not working?
• Identify remaining obstacles
• Identify how effective coaching can impact these

The Three A’s of Advanced Coaching

• Alignment
• How to help your team identify what is in and out of alignment
• What to do when you identify things that are out of alignment
• Awareness
• What are people aware of and what are they not aware of related to expectations?
• What are people aware of and what are they not aware of related to processes?
• What do they know intellectually but have not embraced or understood emotionally?
• Accountability
• Where is there positive accountability?
• Where is accountability lacking or missing?

The Advanced Coaching Mindset

• The rules of advanced coaching
• How does the advanced coach think?
• What are the key elements that the advanced coach is looking for in the organization and individuals?
• How to be fully present in the coaching moment

Advanced Observation Skills

• The four types of information you receive in a coaching situation
• Expectations
• Language
• Actions
• Results
• The five filters for observing and listening effectively
• Frame of reference
• Alignment
• Awareness
• Gap
• Accountability
• How information comes to you – understanding waves
• Initial observation
• Clarifying context, problems, and causes
• Patterns
• Shifts in the conversation
• Victim language and personal responsibility
• Oddities

Advanced Questioning Sequences

• How to follow your hunch in coaching discussions
• How to follow the thread in a coaching situation when the use of the observation and listening filters provide important signals

Building Relationships

• How to help your team learn build effective relationships with others in a lean environment. 

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