Beth Carrington

Since 1999, Beth has dedicated her career to coaching organizations through their lean transformations as an independent consultant and instructor at LEI and other global organizations, such as the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor).

As an Improvement Kata/Coaching Kata Master Coach since 2009, Beth has worked with organizations to build their scientific thinking capabilities for improved performance, problem-solving, and innovation, which, in turn helps them achieve strategic objectives. (Scientific thinking is recognized as a foundation of lean management.)

Through this work, Beth has effectively coached organizations in various fields — pharmaceutical, educational, personal care, healthcare, manufacturing, services, and charitable. Her clients range in size, from small to large, and type, including repetitive and custom processors.

Beth has also coached many of these organizations through adopting hoshin kanri/policy deployment, value-stream mapping, and daily management.

Before becoming a consultant, Beth accumulated over 20 years of experience in leadership within the automotive, personal care, and furniture industries. She established Carrington Consulting Inc. in 1999 as a lean transformation consulting firm but redirected her focus in 2009 with the publication of Toyota Kata by Mike Rother. The book introduced the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata routines which, through practice, can enhance the skill of scientific thinking and the ability to coach and teach that skill to others.

Beth also publishes articles and videos about Improvement and Coaching Kata in LEI’s Lean Post. Recently, the Post published a collection of her work, “The Fundamentals of Improvement and Coaching Kata.”