toyota found an elegant solution to this how do you develop scientific thinking issue or problem and that is they turned their workplace into a training ground at some point in its development toyota didn't just solve problems they said we need to develop the capability to solve problems scientifically in our people not just wanting to have the problem solved but oh i need to develop an army of problem solvers so that we can take on bigger and bigger challenges and survive a long time as an organization and that you know their solution is that the workplace
is also a training ground so here's kind of a coaching chain uh schematically depicting uh something we saw inside of toyota where one level coaches the next it's not the only way to do coaching it happens to be the way it is done a lot at toyota and what they're doing is they're combining teaching or coaching slash practice with working and an interesting thing about this diagram if you look at it it's also how they align the organization toward goals so they're getting work done they're practicing a scientific thinking way of approaching goals and problems
and they're aligning organizations all by doing the same thing that's a fairly elegant answer what we found is that if you practice this at work people take it home the effect is not just at work it spills over you don't turn off your mindset when you go home from work whatever mindset you've acquired in whatever ways you've acquired it cuts across you apply it at work it's the way you deal with issues at home when you work on other things and people not only take at home the scientific thinking mindset that we've watched toyota kata
practitioners take home they influence others they influence their children they influence their partners they influence their friends they influence their communities what i'd like to point out is that the workplace or workplaces have the potential to be the world's largest classroom what a wonderful classroom it is it's a great place to practice you're there every day for the most part there are many goals and problems to work on there are people who can coach one another you know neuroscience also points out that if you work on something real or meaningful it's going to stick much
more than if you're doing just like a lego exercise in a classroom or something like that so the workplace wow is in a way the world's largest classroom and in a sense that's the toyota kata mission to utilize the world's largest classroom to promote practice of scientific thinking which then spills over and becomes much more than a workplace thing you sitting in this room and myself and many of the other kind of geeks around the world of which there are hundreds if not thousands are not just working on a problem or a goal at work
you're also a teacher an influencer in the largest classroom in the world and i just want to point out that you guys are part of that so wherever and whomever you coach in scientific thinking i'd like to say you're doing important work this is something that spills over and has benefit for humans in general you
