What I’m Talking about When I Talk about Co-Learning 

The Management Brief recently began an extended series on coaching and co-learning to illustrate the mutual benefits that partners — mentor and mentee, but also peers — derive from the relationship. Most if not all lean leaders seek guidance from internal or external coaches and their peers to accelerate their lean journeys and increase their impact in terms of value delivered. And those providing the coaching also learn from the experience and then share the knowledge gained with the lean community going forward. The following article from Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, illustrates that virtually all lean learning is based on some form of co-learning that takes place throughout an organization and across industries, and he offers advice on how to get the most from these partnerships.

— Josh Howell, President, LEI. 

I’ll be up front about it. I’m stealing the title for this article from a book title by one of my favorite authors — Haruki Murakami, a best-selling fiction writer whose books are translated in more than 50 languages. But he’s also written several non-fiction books, one of which is a short book on learning called, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running.¹ It’s a wonderful treatise on the challenges and value of running and the personal and professional benefits it provided to Murakami in his life. A beautiful pearl is this wonderful quote about Murakami’s relationship with his coach when training for a triathlon:  

“Her approach wasn’t a slash and burn policy, totally dismissing the way I’ve been swimming up till now and rebuilding from the ground up. Instead she revised very small movements I made, one by one, over an extended period of time.” 

In this example, Murakami learns to improve his swimming technique through coaching. But this also illustrates a co-learning relationship. Murakami’s coach also learns. She is learning how Murakami swims and adjusting and coaching him based on that reality. Furthermore, she is learning how coaching in Murakami’s situation could be potentially applied in other swimmers’ situations — both the specific coaching of technique, but also how to coach in his situation. It’s the essence of co-learning and improving the frontline work. She doesn’t go into the situation with a formula or a set of tools, but learns first where Murakami needs support through observation and coaches those specific points. 

So, to the subject of this article, over the course of my career at Toyota and the Lean Enterprise Institute, I’ve experienced a career of learning that is based not only on goals I’ve set for myself (which, of course, as Murakami states is extremely important), but rather on the enrichment of learning from others and with others, (like Murakami’s coach), something I’ve called “co-learning.” 

The Co-Learning Relationship Matrix 

Co-Learning Level	Example from Article	What One Side Learns	What the Other Side Learns
Individual Level	New hire on Toyota assembly line	New team member learns standard work for building a bumper from team leader and co-workers	Team leaders learn how to level up capability of assembly workers faster during labor shortage; Toyota learns to train people quickly
Project/Organizational Level	Chief Engineer developing a vehicle	Chief Engineer learns from the market, production plant, supply chain—how customers use the vehicle and challenges of producing it	Organization learns the Chief Engineer’s vision for the vehicle and is challenged to make the best car for the customer
Cross-Industry Level	TSSC working with non-automotive companies	Project companies learn how to apply TPS to their specific industry and operations	Toyota learns how TPS applies in different scenarios (e.g., hospital patient admission insights could apply to dealership service)
Mission/Purpose Level	LEI Co-Learning Partners program	Partners gain insights on making their operations and management systems better through lean	LEI learns the partner’s business and industry, then shares what it learns about lean application with the broader community

Co-Learning at an Individual Level 

Co-learning is a concept that is deeply embedded into the Toyota culture. When I started my 23-year career in Toyota, I was first sent to work on an assembly line, something each new team member who joins Toyota in Japan experiences. Why does Toyota do this? To reinforce that the assembly line is hard work, and it is the work that adds value for the customer.

Why is this co-learning? Well, from the start of my career in Toyota I wasn’t expected to immediately deliver value from my education or background. I was thrown into a completely new experience in which I had to learn from others how to build a bumper — my team leader, my co-worker. It was a humbling.

But, in the concept of co-learning, what did Toyota learn from this? It turns out, a lot. This was 1988. Japan was in the middle of its economic “bubble” and Toyota was experiencing a shortage of labor (sound familiar?). The company was pulling people from suppliers to help support vehicle assembly. Suddenly, Toyota had to learn to train people quickly to do loads of assembly work. While team members were learning the standard work to assemble an auto, team leaders were learning how to level up capability of assembly workers faster. I saw that management in any given situation often took on the role of learner, not merely leader. This continued throughout my career in Toyota. It showed up in many forms, for example, in A3 problem solving. I learned an A3 is a method to co-learn and engage on a complex problem that requires input and engagement from varying stakeholders.

Co-Learning at an Organizational Level 

After my plant experience, I spent six years working in Toyota’s Overseas Planning Division, a group responsible for planning overseas vehicle content, supply, and pricing. In this role, I had the chance to work closely with dozens of Toyota Chief Engineers. I learned the Chief Engineer role embodies co-learning.

The Chief Engineer has a critical role in Toyota’s success. Those familiar with this role know that this individual is responsible for working across the organization to develop the best vehicle for the customer, but also one that is profitable for Toyota. However, as implied in the title, the Chief Engineer is an “engineer,” not a plant manager or a sales and marketing specialist.

With authority over no piece of the organization, the Chief Engineer must instead learn about all pieces of the value stream: how customers use the vehicle, the challenges of producing the vehicle, the supply chain needed to ensure quality. This is done by visiting where customers use the vehicle, the production plant where it will be made. I learned a successful Chief Engineer was a person who learned from the market, but, in turn, also a person who could effectively share their vision for the vehicle and challenge the organization to make the best car for the customer. A relationship of co-learning.

Co-Learning Across Industries 

In my career in Toyota, I was eventually transferred and ultimately led an organization in North America called TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center). This organization was established in 1992 to do something truly unique — to share and practically apply the Toyota Production System (TPS) with any organization interested in learning it. In its early years, TSSC worked in the manufacturing industry, often with Toyota’s own suppliers. But TSSC also worked with furniture manufacturers, toy companies, appliance manufacturers, and others. Over time TSSC has helped companies completely unrelated to the automotive industry (non-profits, healthcare, education, etc.). The question I was most frequently asked was “Why would Toyota share its most precious knowhow with other companies?”

The automotive industry is a high-volume industry building consumer products. But Toyota believes that TPS can apply in any scenario. But how to learn that? Work with organizations in other industries. This will offer insights that in turn can be applied back to Toyota — for example, learning how to admit a patient to a hospital could provide insight into how to service a customer at a dealership when they bring their vehicle in for service.

Also, in regard to its suppliers, Toyota realizes that working directly with its suppliers not only helps its suppliers, but helps Toyota be a better customer. We see our own problems from the supplier’s viewpoint.

Toyota shares its TPS knowhow so others can learn while also learning from their application of TPS in non-Toyota settings. This is co-learning, and it is fundamental to TSSC’s entire mission.

Co-Learning as a Business Purpose 

In 2011, I joined the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI). We are a non-profit organization with the mission to “make things better through lean thinking and practice.”

Shortly after joining LEI, I was given responsibility for our “Partners” program. Jim Womack had established this program to share LEI’s knowledge with new, various industries that have an interest in lean.

I immediately changed the name to “Co-Learning Partners.” LEI is dedicated to education and research in our field. We need to be co-learners with the partners we engage. Hopefully, we can offer insights regarding how to make their operations and management systems better. But we aren’t in their industry and must learn their businesses. In that sense, it needs to be a co-learning relationship for it to be effective for both parties.

Moreover, lean supports business improvement for the individual organization. Through its application, we at LEI learn more deeply how lean can apply to a given job, workplace, function, organization, industry — and, subsequently, share what we learn with all who are interested.

Co-Learning Principles 

In the end, over the course of 23 years at Toyota and 14 at LEI, I’ve realized that co-learning is, at its core, how we make work better for those tasked with a given job, whether it’s a carpenter or a dishwasher, an accountant or a nurse, a CEO or a team member. 

Co-learning is how we make work better for those tasked with a given job, whether carpenter or CEO. 

How can we examine the work, engage with the worker, and together learn how to make work better? This is the essence of co-learning, and those who do it well follow a few key principles: 

• Humility. I don’t know the answer. But you know the work, and I know the improvement method. So how can we find the solution together? 

• Learn from the struggles of the work, not from imposing a set of tools (think of the Murakami example). If tools are used, they should fit the purpose and the problem to solve, not the other way around — a tool in search of a problem. 

• In every working relationship, there are things to be learned on both sides, whether it be team member and manager, coach and trainee, peer to peer. 

• Respect means we challenge each other. 

• Customer-supplier relationships with PDCA-based interactions generate learning for both sides. 

Interested in a co-learning relationship with LEI and your organization? Learn more at lean.org/co-learning

1. Haruki Murakami, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009).  ↩︎