Engaging the Team at Zingerman’s Mail Order: A Toyota Kata Comic

After decades of implementing Lean tools, organizations are getting serious about the heart and soul of Lean management. They are developing people to continuously improve. Most of the Lean tools, such as kanban, andon, and visual management, are designed to surface problems so you know what to work on to achieve your goal. Engaged, scientific-thinking team members solve them one by one.

Toyota’s underlying assumption is that the world is complex and uncertain, and we never have the perfect solution, so whatever is implemented needs continual refinement as we learn and as the marketplace changes. If we can’t predict what is around the corner, then a key skill is being able to learn and to adapt to what appears. Where do we want to go? How can we ensure that everyone contributes to our journey?

This book builds on Lean in a High-Variability Business. It is a shorter, focused introduction to developing scientific thinking through deliberate practice with Toyota Kata (TK). TK has practice routines (‘Starter Kata’) for both the learner trying to change how they approach problems to a more systematic, scientific approach, and the coach trying to teach them by helping them work toward actual goals. The focus is on the HOW of developing engaged managers and supervisors who in turn can develop an engaged workforce. There are many books about why engagement is important and descriptions of best practices, but few provide practical guidance on how to actually achieve it. And there are none in an easy-to-understand comic or graphic form.

It is only through deliberate practice that we can develop a new, habitual way of thinking to avoid jumping to conclusions and let the facts and evidence guide us. Here''s how one organization does it. You can too.