When establishing the KATA corporate culture, I use my years of industrial experience and versatility as a manager, consultant and coach.

This corporate culture, made famous by Toyota, goes hand in hand with Lean Management. In the KATA* corporate culture, Lean Management methods are also practiced in the improvement KATA.

Features of KATA:

•     Change of thinking and acting
•     Striving for continuous improvement
•     Challenge for every employee
•     Personal responsibility causes motivation and commitment
•     Self-motivation to achieve goals

How does KATA work?

Starting from the corporate strategy, strategic goals and their sub-goals are broken down to the process level within the value stream loops. Measures are developed in a PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) at this level. In this process, target states are defined cyclically, hypotheses are set up, experiments are carried out, results are evaluated and lessons learned are collected in order to approach the target setting step by step via several intermediate targets on a previously undefined solution path.

KATA is well known in the "old economy" and its spread is growing, but it requires a "big change" in the existing corporate culture. Mistakes are allowed in KATA because they serve to enrich knowledge. And it is much more - it is "learning to learn"!

Many partial responsibilities for desired improvements are delegated to the lowest corporate level. There, with regular coaching and experiments, at the shortest possible intervals, the path to improvements is rapidly advanced. A high level of motivation is generated among those involved at the process level, as they themselves work on their solutions. Proposed solutions are not presented in a "traditional way" by higher levels. The solutions developed with KATA are not driven by ROI, but still achieve greater successes for the company.

It takes a certain amount of courage for historically grown companies to introduce a KATA corporate culture and thus change or further develop the existing culture to some extent. But it is precisely with the KATA corporate culture that more employees can be won over to the strategic orientation in order to collaborate on the solution path and to find better solutions for the whole. Surprisingly good results in very good quality are achieved.

Accomplish your company goals with JL and KATA!

*Kata: A term in martial arts, Kata is used to describe specific predefined sequences of actions.