Our Purpose
After 30 years of working as consultants in the areas of industrial engineering and quality management, we have always struggled with the greatest, often insurmountable, challenge of how to consolidate continuous improvement in organizations, rooted in leadership and people.
Mike Rother’s books and the Toyota Kata approach based on scientific thinking were a true epiphany for us, on how we can change the way we think and act, transforming people and organizations, and creating a truly sustainable and lasting culture of continuous improvement.
LA-Consulting has embraced the mission of promoting scientific thinking and bringing Toyota Kata to small and medium-sized companies in Portugal and Portuguese-speaking countries, in order to empower people with scientific thinking skills, making the organizations more robust, resilient, efficient and sustainable.
By creating The Kata School Portugal, we subscribe to the Kata School Manifesto and declare our commitment to the Toyota Kata principles and code.
Luis Cardoso Pereira, António Bettencourt
Managing Partners at LA-Consulting
About Toyota KATA
Toyota Kata is a way for managers and educators to initiate and coach practice of practical scientific-thinking skills in their teams, to develop and mobilize creative capability. Competitive conditions favor teams and organizations that know how to adapt. It’s not as difficult as you might think, because you can begin by practicing a set of simple “Starter Kata”.
Each team or organization can build on the practice patterns and ultimately develop its own style.
A skill-building process that shifts mindset & habits from a natural tendency to jump to conclusions, to a tendency to think and work more scientifically.
Toyota Kata = The 4-step “Improvement Kata” platform + Starter Kata for practicing it
You only need to practice for 20 minutes once or twice a day, under the guidance of your coach.
Toyota Kata gives you a way to develop and mobilize your team’s creative capabilities, confidence and ability to handle tough goals.
KATA School Manifesto
We Can't See into the Future, and that's OK
Although we can’t predict exactly what the path to our goals will be, we can practice an effective way of working toward them.
Scientific Thinking as a Life Skill
Scientific thinking may be the most effective means currently known for navigating through unpredictable and complex territory toward our goals, because it makes us more adaptive and creative in the face of uncertainty. Scientific thinking helps us to avoid being fooled by our perceptions.
Scientific thinking involves continuous curiosity about a complex world we can’t control or predict and drives us to want to take the next step to understand a little better. In short, scientific thinking is a comparison between what we predict will happen next, seeing what actually happens, and adjusting based on what we learn from the difference.
Anyone can Learn Scientific Thinking, Through Practice
We believe that anyone who wants to learn, and is willing to practice, has the capability to develop scientific thinking skill. We can all acquire scientific thinking skill by combining a pattern of scientific thinking with routines of deliberate practice. We change habits by practicing a new way, which replaces the old way.
The Improvement Kata is a practical, four-step pattern of scientific thinking. Each step has structured practice routines, called Starter Kata, to help individuals, teams, and organizations internalize and operationalize the pattern. The Coaching Kata is a set of Starter Kata for teaching the Improvement Kata pattern.
Practicing Starter Kata helps us begin developing new habits of thinking and acting. They are a starting point, and practicing them should not mean becoming rigid, but rather set you on a new path.
A KATA School as a Center for Resources
A KATA School is a center and source of information, resources, networking, and support for people who are practicing the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata or are interested in them. You can bring resources into a KATA School, and you can take resources out of a KATA School. The goal is to help humans everywhere practice more scientific ways of thinking and acting, thereby developing ourselves and the community toward the best we can imagine and beyond.
The KATA School Commitment
- A KATA school brings together a diverse community of associates from various entities.
- Share with others the lessons and experiences you are gaining. Try to give back when you take, to help build up your KATA school. And support other KATA schools too.
- Content presented and shared through a KATA school should follow the spirit of The Kata Code.
The KATA Code
1. Conditions are unpredictable.
2. Enjoy the learning zone.
3. Understand the direction, grasp the current condition, establish a target condition, experiment toward the target condition.
4. Beginners practice Starter Kata exactly.
5. Have a coach, be a coach.