By Veronica Marquez, M.Sc., CSSBB, ASQ senior member, and Had You Connected . . . COACHING SIX-SIGMA TEAMS

On October 28th, the Montreal section was around their computer screens to listen to a talk about Diego Lythgoe’s perspective on his journey of coaching.

Diego started with introducing the “coaching definition”, according to the International Coaching Federation (ICF): “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential”. It is important to realise that coaching is not teaching and is not mentoring. It is an exploration based on curiosity and not knowing the answers. For those that practice Lean Six Sigma projects, this may sound somewhat familiar.

Based on my understanding from the presentation, the coaching’s competency model relies on 4 main sections. I’ve represented it in the following table.

The coach is there to help the client, not to solve the issue. The conversation therefore needs to focus on how the client is seeing and understanding the issue. It is about seeing the issue from the client’s perspective and their understanding of it. Since the coach is there for the client’s “growth to be optimal”, the focus must be on the client and not the issue being solved.

When looking at coaching outcomes specifically for a LSS practitioner’s development path, we can see two distinct axes. First, from individual to collective goals. Second, from behaviour to results. This 2 by 2 matrix lets us plot the different coaching outcomes that can be worked on depending on the experience of the LSS and the goals of development. Since Diego was addressing coaching in LSS teams, the team dynamics becomes an important element to consider. Therefore, he looks for shared goals and purposes; structured communications; allocated responsibilities and accountabilities; a level of interdependence; a willingness to place the collective goal above their own priorities; clear boundaries; and operating within a social system context. The coach of the LSS team must be able to understand the environment within which the team is operating; understand the phases of team development; understand the power and politics; connect the coaching to organisational change and development; and finally, consider the coaching as a leadership development process.

Interestingly, Diego presented the coaching system as being part of a social ecology, i.e. the organisation’s environment. Meaning that the coach interacts within an established system between the client team and the management, and both of these form part of the whole organisation. The coach’s relationship with both the client team and the management requires important levels of trust that cannot be breached. Therefore, a situation where the coach also directly reports to the management can create discomfort and uneasiness. Clear guidelines and methodology appear to be critical for the coaching cycle to be successful when in such an environment.Finally, as practitioners of LSS, we are familiar with the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) approach. Diego took it further and applied coaching to it and presented a new framework which guides the coach to use the DMAIC principles when coaching. The key elements of this framework are that all steps are driven with open questions as the coach wants to insight reflection to the client.

Diego finished the presentation with some of his personal “a-ha” moments into his coaching journey. His passion for coaching and for LSS wholly evident through his entire talk. I sincerely hope that you can meet him one day and have a conversation with him about coaching. It will encourage you to learn more about it.

Thank you Diego!

By Raymond E. Dyer, ASQ Senior Member, CMQ/OE, CQA, Internet Liaison and Section Secretary

Had You Connected . . . RISK MANAGEMENT

Our last event showcased Jim Moran, an experienced ISO standards professional, trainer, and speaker. The topic was managing risk with ISO 31000. Even before Jim could begin, I started the questions by asking him why ISO 31000 and not 31001 like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 (you get the idea). This was quickly addressed by Jim reminding us that standards that finish with a “1” are those you can generally get registered to. Those that finish with a “0” are typically guidelines that provide principles, a framework, and a process. In the case of ISO 31000, these guidelines are for managing risk. That is in large part what Jim went through, i.e. the principles, framework, and process for managing risk. He also went into the benefits of doing so. He showed a few approaches or tools used in managing risks, including Ishikawa Diagrams, Process Mapping, Risk Analysis Matrices, Internal Audits, etc. By the way, one attendee did comment that AS9100 was an exception of a standard finishing by “0” that you can get registered to (thanks Michael) . . . (Editor’s Note: You’re welcome).

My challenge in writing this article was that I was also moderating the webinar, and so not really taking notes. There were a few amusing stories Jim raised that caught my attention, most notably when he talked about “in his time” they used five and a quarter inch floppy disks. I reflected on that with amusement given I still remember a time we stored programs on cassette tapes and even go as far back as providing program instructions on decks of punched out cards back in university!

One of the benefits of being the moderator is having access to survey (or poll) feedback from our Webex host J.P. Amiel. I hope not to repeat too much information that our Voice of the Customer Chair Amine Djeffal will report, but here is some of the feedback:

– Great topic and presentation. – Great presentation! Much appreciated! – Thank you everyone, great presentation 🙂 – Thanks for organizing this excellent event! I only miss the human interaction! – Like the idea of survey as we go! Keeps the audience engaged! – Thanks for an outstanding presentation. – Very interesting subject. It will be nice to go a bit deeper on it. – Thank you, great presentation. – Interesting presentation on topic. Highly knowledgeable presenter. – Thank you Ray, ASQ Section and Jim Moran.

I shared the video recording with Véronique B. who could not attend, but wanted to know if she could hear the recording of the event. Her feedback was: “Great presentation, I really appreciate it. Jim is really a good communicator, he knows what he is talking about and I liked his vision. I also laughed several times such as when he mentioned the floppy disk ;-). Good job inviting him.” Thank you Véronique for the feedback.

Now we did get feedback about opportunities to improve on both the presentation and the format as well, namely to incorporate more practical examples in the presentation and to consider opening the format to encourage more exchange amongst the attendees, many of whom no doubt know each other. For example, one participant asked if it would be possible to see fellow attendees during the first few opening minutes of the event. We’ll need to explore the implications of this latter suggestion, but the feedback has been registered. Thanks!

As I said when kicking off the event, I’ve enjoyed Jim Moran’s weekly emailed bulletins on various topics surrounding the ISO world of standards for over a year and a half. They’re reasonable in duration, informative, and somewhat amusing, at least to me. If you’re interested in subscribing to them, visit https://simplifyiso.com/. I look forward to hearing from you at our next event! Thanks for attending and participating.