Developing a Lean Culture

Practical Applications for Executives, Managers, and Supervisors

Hosted by Mike Hoseus, Live & Virtual via Zoom

Lexington, Kentucky

April 9th-11th, 2024

“This course was the most beneficial of its kind I have ever attended in my career. My team left with a brand new vision as well as specific action steps to implement immediately.” CEO, North American Furniture Manufacturer
“Across all the degrees and certifications I’ve earned, they didn’t emphasize the foundational piece of the human element. You have the 'secret sauce' to true culture deployment.” VP of Operations, Global Food Manufacturer
“Great insights on how to develop a high-performing organization by relentlessly focusing on problem resolution and people development.” General Manager, Leading North American Auto Manufacturer
Register for FocusIn - April 9-11, 2024
$4,950 per seat - Full Event with 3 nights Hotel Accommodation at the event venue
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$4,450 per seat - Full Event without Accommodation
Purchase Seat(s)
$1,950 per seat - Full Virtual Event
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What is FocusIn?

FocusIn is a knowledge exchange among senior executives in operations, human resources, and sales across varying industries looking to seed and foster best-practices in their own roles and environments. We customize our content, case studies, and interactive exercises around the attendees in the room to be thought-provoking and help build tools to sustain a high-performance culture. FocusIn is recognized by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP®.

Event Overview

FocusIn events are designed to provide perspective and practical expertise in executive leadership and people development alongside other like-minded professionals. The events are hosted and attended by industry leaders, including Mike Hoseus, a former Toyota executive and co-author of Toyota Culture.

Through a blend of workshop sessions and site visits, we’ll observe the principles of a high-performance culture. We'll reference several models of organizational development including the 4P model, taught by Mike Hoseus. This framework will offer guidance on how Toyota structures their purpose, people, process, and problem-solving efforts. A main takeaway will be your tailored individual and organizational action plan on how to take your Learning & Development journey to the next level of performance.

View Past Events

Participants from companies around the world attend FocusIn events, including leaders at:

Curious about FocusIn events? Take a quick look at our summary of recent workshops to get a better understanding.

View Past Events

Meet Mike Hoseus

Mike is Executive Director for the Center for Quality People & Organizations (CQPO), an organization developed in 1999 as a vision of Toyota Motor Manufacturing to share Lean Quality philosophy and human resource practices with education, business, and community organizations.

Mike is an adjunct professor with the University of Kentucky’s Center for Manufacturing, the University of Dayton’s Center for Competitive Change and a member of the faculty of Lean Enterprise Institute. Prior to CQPO, Mike was a corporate leader for 13 years at Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s Georgetown, Kentucky, plant both in Human Resources and Manufacturing.

Mike currently supports organizations with Lean Culture transformations focusing on the roles of Executive Management and Human Resources and how the quality people value stream connects to the production value stream.

Participants will receive:

Participation in over 16 hours of executive leadership workshop sessions led by Mike Hoseus

Complimentary access to all event materials and case studies, made available to you on the Adaptive engagement platform

Site visits at local manufacturing plants for hands-on learning (previous site visits include Bosch, Hitachi, Hyster-Yale, Nifco, and Toyota)

About Adaptive

Adaptive is a system for People Development practitioners designed to enhance Learning Management. In addition to the FocusIn events, we have built a software platform around the tenets of engagement and accountability in skill development, collaborative training, and role planning. The benefits include quantifiable, measurable, and trackable results related to your learning and development objectives. Unlike other LMS platforms, the Adaptive system enables companies to go from good intentions to great execution through a clearly defined skill development framework.

To learn more, please visit www.adaptivegrowth.io

FocusIn participants will learn about the following:

Purpose

Company Strategy

According to the Toyota Way, company strategy is founded upon the mutual trust between the company and its employees, and long-term mutual prosperity for all stakeholders. 

Mission, Vision, Values

A company's Mission, Vision & Values are the foundation of its culture -- all business process start with values. The Toyota Way integrates the organization's core business and ethical beliefs into all daily operations. Toyota has also established unique mechanisms to confirm that their values are being lived out each and every day.

Servant Leadership

Redefine the company hierarchy with the concept of Servant Leadership. This idea is focused on the mindset of working "for" others, versus others working for you. This mindset is powerful in its ability to communicate empathy and ownership of leadership responsibility. Toyota has done this differently by creating a system where problems are viewed as a good thing, and leaders are in positions to coach their teams. 

True North (Hoshin)

Hoshin is the process of reflective learning led by management that works to keep the organization on a consistent track to its strategy (True North) despite short-term influences. In the Lean organization, the work of managers involves teaching this pattern of thinking, fostering it to "take hold" across all levels of the company, and acting in order to continuously improve.

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Process

Cross-Training

Cross-training is all about encouraging employees to expand their skills beyond the scope of their immediate job descriptions. This allows teams to readily identify strength and weakness while being objective and empathetic about development targets. Cross-training also acts as a starting point for standardized work as it assumes the ability to teach others how to perform a given task in a structured way.

JIT (Hoshin)

Job Instruction Training is broken down into four essential steps: prepare the worker, present the operation, try out performance, and follow up. The Toyota Way systematizes job training to match the PDCA model for problem solving to emphasize employee development and encourage continuous improvement.

Standardization

Standardized work forms the basis from which improvements in process can be made. By setting clear standards, you can easily identify and correct out-of-standard conditions. In this way, Toyota was able to quickly rise to the top of the industry in terms of identifying and quickly solving problems. Standardized work is the basis from which work is performed and improved.

Value Stream Performance

In the Toyota Way, value flows horizontally across business processes and the most important problems a company faces are cross-functional. By thinking about and approaching problems from a "value stream" or "systems" mindset, it allows team members to identify waste, improve value to the customer, and remove constraints to the process.

Problem-Solving

A3 Thinking

A3 is a core communication tool at Toyota that allows leaders to establish clarity and alignment to purpose. This is a well-established tool that allows for the concise and structured presentation of a problem statement and the corresponding PDCA analysis and "story-telling".

Leadership Case Study

Participate in an interactive leadership case study that elucidates the PDCA & 8-Step Process of how to identify and solve problems. We will follow the journey of Gavin, a team member who has identified a problem in his work area. Along the way we will break down and prioritize the problem before setting improvement targets, identifying containments and countermeasures, and involving others in the learning.

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PDCA / 8 Step

PDCA is a systematic problem solving process in which you first identify a "Plan", then you "Do" the action or implement the plan, then you "Check" the results of the plan/implementation, and finally you "Act", or standardize the countermeasures into daily operations. This methodology has been taught and replicated across the world, and you will gain firsthand perspective as to how to maximize the effectiveness in your working environment.

TBP (Toyota Business Practice)

TBP is the global problem-solving process at Toyota. This is the "language" that is spoken in every facility, by every team member. This is the detail behind how each problem is identified, labeled, prioritized, analyzed, evaluated, contained, counter-measured, closed, and shared across the ~360,000 company employees and beyond.

People

Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement is the crux of the people development system. By enabling team members to actively participate in problem-solving and communication, it empowers the ability for the team and its members to excel and thrive. Toyota identifies key steps along the people development value stream - Attract, Develop, Engage, and Inspire. You will learn about each!

Hiring Practices

In the Toyota Way, hiring a new employee is a long-term commitment to the employee’s well-being and development. Because Toyota espouses the philosophy that its people are its greatest asset, hiring the right people to do the right job is an extremely important function of the business. You will learn more about the rigorous assessment funnel and practices behind the hiring system.

Lean Culture & Core Competencies

Lean Culture is identified as being one of continuous improvement, centered around people and processes. The Lean Core Competencies can be broken down into Thinking & Operational Abilities and Leadership & Teamwork abilities. All of these competencies link directly to the organization’s purpose and sincere commitment to its people. You will learn what it means to "live" this out in your role as a leader.

Lean Management System

The Lean Management System can be broken down into four essential steps: Go and See, Define Normal Conditions, Solve a Problem, and Sustain and Nurture the Processes/People. This system is unique in that it encourages managers to not only solve problems, but to also teach others the method for solving problems and how to implement solutions and/or permanent countermeasures. This course will teach you a practical approach of how to build and foster a lean management system.

FocusIn Cancellation Policy

To secure registration, all fees must be paid prior to the scheduled event. Any unpaid registrations will be cancelled, and individuals will be required to register on-site with payment provided immediately to attend the event. If a written cancellation request is not received 15 days prior to the event, the registrant will be liable for the entirety of the registration fee, regardless of attendance or absence from the scheduled event.

All cancellation requests must be made in writing. An 85% refund will be granted when the cancellation request is received 30 business days prior to the scheduled event. A 50% refund will be granted if the request is received between 15 and 30 business days prior to the scheduled event. No refunds will be granted if the request is received with fewer than 15 days prior to the scheduled event.

If, due to unforeseen circumstances, the event is cancelled by FocusIn, registrants will be extended a full refund.