Number 91 – Provide Coaching and Training

Provide coaching and training on the tools and principles of operational excellence.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

There are three critical participants in any successful operational excellence implementation.  The Sponsor, the process owner, and the team member.  Each has a special and specific relationship to the tools, techniques, and tactics used to deliver the results we expect.  When any of them fails to participate appropriately, coaching and training is the most appropriate response.  We call this discipline – an activity, exercise, or regimen that develops or improves a skill or more simply put, training (dictionary definition).

There is a lot here to be unpacked.  It suggests that there are tools and techniques, processes and functions that are associated with operational excellence, that we know what they are, and we know how to utilize them when appropriate.  That someone is capable of coaching and training us when we are using them ineffectively and inefficiently.   That whether you are an executive, and middle manager, or an individual contributor to your process team, you are willing and able to coach and train, either upward or downward, when the misuse of operational excellence is identified.

Provide Coaching and Training

The first idea that strikes me when writing this is this- good enough is the enemy of great.  Don’t we have to know what ‘great’ is to pursue it?  Do we even have a common view of great to know we are off target.  Do we have an agreement to pursue it?  In the previous opex topex, Number 65, we looked at agreements as tools to create alignment to vision and strategy.  We might need agreements to make coaching and training part of our response to performance failures.  The most difficult conversations I ever conduct are those where leading upward is the objective.  As an executive, is it ok to be corrected by your staff?  Yes, I would expect it to be respectful and private.  We praise in public and correct in private, yes?  But even then, is it a welcome conversation? 

So, we are left we a couple of challenges with this one.  Do we have an agreement regarding the definition of OpEx principles, and do we know what the tools are?  Do we have a culture of openness and collaboration that allows coaching and training in any direction? 

Questions For Your Consideration

What does OpEx mean to your organization and to you?

How open to coaching and training are you?

When you see a performance gap, how do you address it?

Do you have a culture that welcomes coaching or is it considered a punitive activity?

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