Coaching and The Beginner’s Mind

In the mind of the expert there are a few possibilities. In the mind of the beginner there are endless possibilities.

 Shunryu Suzuki-roshi

Helping people approach things with a beginner’s mind is critical for a coach, especially in the world of Lean where we are trying to improve many of our current processes or products. Taking that fresh look or being open to new possibilities is essential as we move along any improvement journey.

The challenge is twofold, as you become an experienced coach you yourself must maintain a level of beginner’s mind both in coaching and in relating to those who truly are beginning their journey.

By definition, having a beginner’s mind means having an attitude of openness, enthusiasm, and a lack of predeterminations when approaching anything, whether completely new or something familiar.

C.S. Lewis details both the advantage of a beginner’s mind and the potential pitfalls for an experienced coach.

“The fellow pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject by now, in such a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren’t.”

This quote hit close to home to me as a coach when late last year I was leading a Value Stream Analysis (VSA) for a brand new Value Stream. We had been conducting VSA’s for several years in the existing Value Streams and had gotten really good at execution. The VSA participants were experienced as were the coaches and our standard work had improved each time.

After Day 2 of the VSA it was clear during our coach reflection time that we weren’t making the progress we wanted and the Value Stream participants weren’t learning. That’s when it hit me. We weren’t giving them what we had given the first time VSA participants in the other Value Streams. We were treating them like experienced participants being coached by experienced coaches. We needed to go back to our own beginner’s mind and recall what a VSA was like for new participants, how we coached and what helped others start their Value Stream journey.

We needed an environment where they could be both beginners, in an execution sense and be enabled by us to look at their current processes with the fresh eyes of a beginner’s mind.

Taking that step back enabled us to have a successful VSA and for the participants to begin their Lean journey with a stronger foundation.

My own experience with the VSA was a great reminder of how quickly we can become like the ‘expert’ C.S. Lewis talked about. To be an effective coach we have to teach, employ and be able to re-enter a state of the Beginner’s Mind.