Mentee

The mentee is the student of the mentor.

The term mentoring describes the development process in an organization where an experienced person (mentor) passes on his/her knowledge and skills on to a new/unexperienced person (mentee).

The overall aim of a mentoring program is to develop and promote the mentee’s personal and professional growth within or outside your organization.

As described the mentor refers to the role of a personal trainer whose experience supports the development of the mentee. There is also the cross-mentoring approach out there where experienced managers from different departments or companies and their high potentials (mentees) come together for tandems. Cross Mentoring usually is an externally organized program in which the tandems are formed in cross-functional and cross-industry teams.

Sensei

In the lean world a sensei is a lean production expert that transfers his knowledge as mentor on to his mentees.

To be successful with a Sensei it's been revealed that you need to start at the top and find a sensei to work with in order to engage all employees on the shop floor. As Lean activities reach industrial maturity, the role of the Sensei remains a gray area.

It is obvious that your organization needs a Sensei to adapt and successfully implement Lean principles. Therefore, the Sensei position will be your bottleneck in Lean implementation. In every Lean transformation process, one learns at some point that the success of a company consists in learning to learn.

As a little guide, consider the following three effects:

Learning curve: The learning curve of each department and initiative is tracked by their manager in the organization rather than having to compare it to established best practices across your organization.

Spillover: Effective learning practices are passed through hands-on, experiential learning from person to person within your organization rather than through predetermined processes.

Value-Based: Lean as a whole provides a learning framework that aims to balance customer satisfaction (which leads to organizational success) with employee satisfaction (and personal fulfillment) through a set of principles and tools aimed at discovering how MUDA can be reduced and value can be increased . Adding activities in all areas of the organization.

This approach has both sides of the medal, but the weak and the strength are lying in the learning path of each employee. Following the lean principles, every employee is expected to discover:

What do I need to learn: What is my personal challenge in order to better align my work with customer value and thus sustainable and profitable growth with the satisfaction of all my colleagues to reconcile.

Learning from the shop floor: The learning style is deeply embedded in daily operations. Employees are learning results from their support of learning activities at all levels. Because all employees solve their problems or show initiative, everyone is expected to interpret the conclusions of others and find a way to adopt the solutions to their own work. It is the responsibility of the Sensei to support its learners in this learning phase. Learning by doing is the correct way to describe it.

Create a learning environment for your employees: Learning on the job is never easy, especially in today's business climate. Consequently, one of the key functions of a Sensei in the Lean perspective is to create a visual environment for employees where it is easier to recognize than normal and where opportunities for continuous improvement in small steps (Kaizen in Lean jargon) are clearly visible Everyone. A learning environment also means a stable affective environment where mistakes are not punished but seen as a source of learning.

The Sensei is not a boss at all. He or She has no power and can only suggest. The Sensei's task is to help all employees in your organization to develop their own lean thinking through practical exercises in workshops. The Sensei's job is to convince middle managers that solving today's problems will, in the long run, prevent tomorrow's fires.

The essence of Lean is learning while solving problems. This is a difficult task at the best of times, and indeed every person in your organization must be taught to learn how to learn. In relation to managers, the Sensei has five main roles of support:

1. Finding problems

2. Tackling problems

3. Creating problems

4. Solving problems

5. And finally learnings from problems

"If you have no problems, you are dead". is a classic lean principle. Perhaps the most important part of Lean's problem-solving learning approach is the initial problem-finding phase. Lean's approach to business is to capitalize on every problem.

“Sometimes you WIN sometimes you LEARN!”

— Operations Insider

Coaching

There is no denying that the abilities of a coachee to perform and learn are enhanced when they are encouraged by a coach to form solutions to the problems which they are confronting. This is exactly what coaching is. A coach may not be an expert, but for sure they can be regarded as the technical point of contact and are asked for their opinion and advice.

It has now become quite common to see supervisors coaching their employees. There can be a five steps procedure been seen in order to define and achieve goals.

At this point I want to recommend the book written by Anne Loehr and Brian Emerson, "A Manager’s Guide to Coaching" demonstrates how managers or supervisors can help their employees enhance their skills and develop themselves without the need for any additional training.

An employee’s success depends on “aptitude, attitude and resources.” Attitude matters most. In fact, a better outlook can make up for shortfalls in skills or materials.

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But let us go back to the five steps of the coaching process.

Step 1: Define the target state

In Step 1 we focus on defining the required outcomes. Get the clarity to define goals or future states. It is proven that those individuals who are clear regarding their goals are most likely to achieve them to those who have not defined their goals in a clear manner. Not having well-defined objectives can result in unpleasant side effects, for instance, preoccupying yourself with details. A successful and effective goal must be created by the coachee itself and must concur with their personal values. It is important to make certain goals a bit challenging, as easily achieving results cannot sometimes prove to be less motivating. On the flip side, it is also essential that some goals must have manageable and realistic partial steps so that, in general, it can be considered as achievable.

Step 2: Status Quo

The main aim in the second step is to identify the delta between the current state and the ideal solution within the structure of the current situation analysis. It is also important to assess the psychological and real cost that comes to light, especially when the client is clung to their current situation. Doing this can challenge the client to provide the energy required for the change. With that being said than just a small amount of time must be spent on assessing the Status Quo, and most of the focus must be given to achieving the desired outcomes. You should not expect any solutions at this particular stage.

Step 3: Costs of Opportunity

At this stage, the client needs to develop feelings for their own resources and their possibilities of gaining control of it: "When you feel resourceful, you feel in control, and when you feel in control, you feel confident." The feelings of control are mainly developed on the basis of the knowledge that there are different options and choices. The coach motivates the coachee to identify various options, by which the probability of determining between the non-action and action would already be recognized and appreciated. For the purpose of identifying different options, brainstorming has proven to be extremely helpful. It involves writing everything which crosses your mind regarding the particular subject in a creative and playful manner without evaluating them. The next step involves coachees opting for the options that look more beneficial and effective. These options are then assessed, and their consequences are analyzed concerning various criteria. Because one thing is certain – every option comes at some cost. Make sure that the coachee is willing to pay it.

Step 4: Taking Action

It is time the coachees make their mind as to which one of the options looks better to them that can help them achieve their goal. At this point in time, the role of the coach is to motivate the coachee to state exactly what they intend to do. It must be understood that it is the responsibility of the coachees themselves to execute the individual steps. The duty of the coach is to identify the signals from the coachee that shows resistance. In such scenarios, it is helpful to refer back to the first stage of outcomes for the purpose of confirming whether the objective and goal is extremely unrealistic or obscure.

Step 5: Review

By assenting to review the plan of action after a certain period of time, a little bit of pressure is applied on the coachee to take action. The critical thing for the success is the genuine conduct of the review rather than just an announcement. It is essential to take the first step in the near future in order to avoid losing the planned actions in the daily activities of the business. For that reason, the momentum for the forthcoming actions can stay consistent. The senior-level personnel or the coach can take help of the review in order to keep the obligation and track the coachee's progress and can also regard it as, for instance, for their own superior. The coach ultimately continues to maintain control, and the coachees becomes capable of achieving clarity regarding their own activities.