If you’ve been considering leadership coaching recently for your Lean journey, you’re not alone. Every day, high-performance leaders wonder whether Lean / Opex executive coaching is the next step in their Lean journey.

We need to turn leadership upside down and learn to be a coach at every level of managing from the supervisor to the CEO. A great coach understands you need to get off the sidelines and get into the value streams daily. They do this to challenge the norms and to engage the team to find new ways of winning.

Bill Gates said “our most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.” That is a great coach.

 Let me help you leverage your most valuable resource: time. Accelerate toward success by eliminating the 7 wastes to reduce the non- value-added time in your companies.

 I interviewed Norman Bodek who is considered by most to be the godfather of Lean. He published over 100 books. His last book was on “The Harada Method” which is all about coaching.

Norman, why should everyone have a coach? 

“Every great athlete has a coach. Every CEO has a coach. Why are there hundreds of thousands of consultants in America?  Everyone needs someone to observe them to help them do what they want to do.”

 Norman in your opinion what is the difference between a real coach and a trainer? 

“A coach brings out the best from you, knowing the standard, what good looks like.  A trainer focuses too much on what they know instead of observing you and pointing out what you need change.”

Norman, how many coaches have you had in your life that have played a huge influence on your success?

“I havehad the privilege of learning and working with close to 100 masters including Shingo, Ohno, Deming, Juran, Cosby, and others.”

Norman, why should Leadership have a coach for the Harada Method and Lean implementation?

“Harada Method is a unique technique that has worked with many companies successfully. A leader needs a coach to learn and follow the principles properly. Dr. Fukuda one of my past authors said about standardization: “workers vary about 20%, supervisors about 300%, and leaders about 1000%.” Yes, the leaders do many things but do not have a clear idea of their standard to be fully successful and manage all of their resources.  They do not take the time to learn everything that well. I went to Japan with Lester Shoen. He owned a U Haul company.  He was one of the world’s richest people.  He went to Japan to learn what they were doing and to be able to put it into practice in his company.  He started off going to medical school.  He went to law school because his company needed lawyers.  He became an engineer because his company needed that skill.  He was very unusual.  Leaders think they can delegate Lean to others.  No, they have to go to the gemba to be involved to be able to see Lean.  You must really know how to make it lean.  Leaders get lost solely focusing on profit and not the exact details of what should be done to build a great company.”

 Bill Gates was right: the reality is everyone does need a coach. And those who can recognize when they need help, how to ask for it, and where to get it and power ahead in pursuit of their personal and professional development objectives. The Harada Method will get everyone heading in the right direction.

 The power of the APP will hold you accountable to your company goals and your personnel goals. I use the APP with my company goals and my personnel goals. Norman is 87 and he is still setting new goals for his company and for himself.

 This may be one of the greatest tools in helping your company achieve a real vision of Lean. Wouldn’t we all like to have the energy of Norman Bodek and be lucky enough to have him as a personnel coach. Well you can by joining us twice a month for our Podcast on Lean Transformation and the Harada Method. We want to coach all of you to achieve success in life.

 Please visit our websites for the podcast schedules. The next one is the Wednesday July 17 at 1pm Central time. Go to our first joint podcast to listen to it it https://youtu.be/eVF9CMhEhdM  I am sure you will enjoy it. I believe the App is a great planner and it has the whole Harada Method, but it has something missing:

Everyone needs a coach. 

Every great athlete has a coach. Tiger Woods has a coach.  On page 45 of my book I describe how Tiger uses M.A.R.I. to continually win. With his last major win, he accomplished it with a coach. Every CEO Norman has met has had a coach, but the average person at work does not have a coach.

Norman said Christophe Makni in France has set up a Harada Method club which we would like you to join. Contact: christophe.makni@gmail.com 

If you don’t have a coach, we will connect you with someone in the club to coach each other. Watch the video to get better ideas how to coach each other. https://youtu.be/eVF9CMhEhdM . Norman will continue to run coaching sessions on zoom.us

Please contact me for any help.

Bodek@pcspress.com or www.johnballis.net