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It has been a month, a month full of learning and micro-learnings. I’m excited that I have started a challenge, a personal race to go deep and practice #ToyotaKata as a learner.
Kata is a word from Japan that means a form or a system used by martial art sports as a routine or a pattern of behavior for practicing to memorize and perfect a new skill and for building useful habits.
Toyota Kata is a scientific thinking methodology originated by Mike Rother who had conducted six years of research into Toyota’s employees and management routines. He discovered two routines or patterns of behaviors that were not visible as management practices and were not documented by Toyota. These practices are: improvement Kata and coaching Kata.
I have been first introduced to Kata back in 2015 by my brilliant previous boss who encouraged me to learn about it to complement my passion for lean management and continuous improvement concepts. My mission of helping individuals and organizations to continuously improve and grow toward excellence gave me a sense of direction.
While practicing Kata and when I read my challenge statement, I feel a sense of excitement. It inspires and motivates me everyday to move forward toward my vision. I believe practicing Kata is a true test to my capabilities and my self-discipline and I think it will compliment my personality as deliberate and a thoughtful person. When reflecting on such an experience, I think this challenge is bringing the best out of me and shaping my strengths and focus to do more in the near future.
Although It was a stretch so far and I struggled with multiple obstacles toward my target conditions. However, completing one target condition or a milestone at a time gave me a sense of accomplishment and joy and served as an intrinsic incentive to fulfil my potential toward achieving my ultimate goal.
Finally, repeating Kata provided me with a rhythm, I feel that I’m not in a competition with anyone. I run my own race at my own pace. I’m gaining momentum, I just need to keep going. There is a season and a time for everything. Life is about moving forward. My turn will come.
Toyota Kata has it’s own style for meeting tough challenges, overcoming obstacles, and fulfilling people’s potential to achieve their targets. lessons are learned and documented based on experience. As a Kata learner, slicing the challenge into smaller milestones called target conditions is something that I found magical as a starting point for creating consistency in my journey toward my vision through daily practice.
Target conditions are different from traditional targets. It is how to work a process out by keeping an eye on my performance using process metrics rather than occupying my mind on my ultimate outcomes or results and how to get there. The idea behind each target condition is to stretch the Kata learner, get him/her out of the usual relaxed comfort zone through experimentation. Therefore, the expectation that I will go through a struggle while experimenting my next target condition. Obstacles were showing up on my way each time.
However, reaching one milestone – in Kata term target condition – at a time tends to increase confidence and motivation toward the desired goal of meeting the challenge or vision. There will be a feeling of breakthrough when a target condition is a stretch beyond the current process capability. Only then a degree of learning is linked to the degree or level of the challenge presented by a target condition.
Learning #ToyotaKata and experimenting toward the upcoming target condition is like a muscle. It needs time for accomplishing fitness goals. I learned that having a professional Kata coach to guide and support such a journey is extremely important, similar to any sport where the intellectual as well as physical presence of a coach will pave the way toward success through daily training, observing closely on performance changes and teaching how to play the game.
Capacity could be defined as the ability to contain, hold, or produce. Knowing how much you can handle in a day is extremely important for moving forward toward your challenge & vision.
Overwhelming experiences tend to defeat the determination for reaching the finished line. Such experiences create a surrender feeling and a give up approach. Capability of a system or a person is useful to develop an understanding of what’s happening in reality before making changes or improvements. Capability is the formula of knowledge, skills and availability. If the goal is too big to be digested and not broken down into smaller bites which can be tested and tasted. Our attempt to climb the mountain will be of no use.
Toyota Kata overcomes such desire by practicing routine deliberately until its pattern becomes a habit. It will help you create your own practical rhythm for personal sustainability.
“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning” Mahatma Gandhi
“Much of what happens in an organization is a consequence of the habits that people have learned through practice whether deliberately or not” Mike Rother
Furthermore, by addressing step by step each restriction or constraint such as limitation in budget and other resources from the physical location, weather seasonality and number of people involved. This kind of deliberation can be accomplished by repeating practices consciously and consistently through experimentation.
The role of a leader in Toyota Kata is to create such an environment with consistent coaching and teaching. Role model leaders introduce challenges more frequently without solving problems and providing all the answers. Leaders are obligated to develop the capability of their subordinates using scientific thinking.
As a result, the level of your capabilities will be equivalent to the level of your ambitions. learning becomes a habit. There will be a positive desire for continuous improvement in career and life. Therefore, the process of learning becomes exciting. Solely then your ability will determine your capacity.
If you are someone who loves to learn and is passionate about continuous improvement. Then you developed perseverance and a tremendous desire to improve yourself and the environment around you. On the other hand, working with different regions, providing on the clock services and spending a great amount of time trying to build strong cases for attending customer needs must be exhausting and distracting.
Having a routine might help in that regard. I have learned recently from #ToyotaKata that adapting certain rituals will boost my spirit toward the intention, the goal or the objective. For example, I need time to think scientifically, clearly and thoroughly before experimenting with a fresh plan. Furthermore, I like to consume the morning period from 9-12 noon to complete big ticket items on my to-do list before calling a client or meeting my team for progress tracking. Therefore, These rituals can help me stay focused, organized, and according to research studies, find purpose and meaning.
Toyota Kata has two routines for management practices. First routine is the improvement kata while the second is the coaching kata. Improvement kata is repeating routine or a pattern of behavior toward a challenge where certain steps called target conditions could be met by overcoming obstacles on the way. While coaching kata is a teachable habit to motivate employees and spark their thinking for finding solutions to problems within the process at hand. I found myself enjoying the routine. My self-reflection revealed that it was not a despicable thing to do if it was deliberative & intentional. Leaders can establish routines with minor norms and clear guidelines where everyone can follow.
“leader’s mission on Toyota Kata is to create & maintain the organization culture through consistent role modeling, teaching, and coaching” Mike Rother
Overcoming obstacles and taking care of every step on the way will be the result. Such patterns might become rigid, but I can always pivot and change my course without changing my strategy. As I’m preparing for the next milestone or target condition. My routine will be to be a strong performer in the field I’m going to enter. Regardless of business goal, ranging between satisfying a customer, solving a problem, cut cost or grow into new markets. I’m persistent and self-motivated to come everyday looking to enable change and utilize my routine to leave a positive impact.
I don’t know.. a feared zone for some people who tend to confront it with resistance or hide away from it. A potential position where someone who lacks information and a statement that might imply that threshold of knowledge is limited could hinder progress. Employees rarely convey it to their leaders as it might be perceived as a vulnerable situation due poor capabilities or failure to provide answers and solutions.
Looking at it from a different perspective, when someone is practicing perfectly without facing obstacles or making mistakes then most probably there is no improvement nor an upgrade in the skill level. Toyota’s tradition is to treasure obstacles and meet to discuss them with an open to learn attitude and a growth mindset. “Scientific thinking involves recognizing and calmly acknowledging what you don’t know, and conducting experiments to find out” Mike Rother
During my journey toward accomplishing the challenge and when I tested out multiple target conditions, obstacles were rising on my way. These obstacles have a negative impact or unwanted effect on my desired operating pattern. However, I learned to work toward overcoming such obstacles and consider them as opportunities to improve. “Saying I don’t know is half of the knowledge”. #ToyotaKata encourages learners to reveal what they don’t know and reminds coaches to listen to such statements.
Furthermore, one of the major insights was allowing myself to explore a reality which was never known before. “I don’t know” phrase then becomes a liberating statement and creates a sense of joy. I become a person who is more curious and less judgmental. Not knowing triggers an area for exploration & discovery. “I don’t know” becomes a path to wisdom.
Challenges are not problems. Challenges are our attempt to find solutions to problems faced. Challenges require a considerable deal of mental and physical effort -in other word a stretch- in order to complete it successfully.
Understanding the challenge is the first step in the “Improvement Kata”. #Toyota Kata identifies characteristics of an adequate challenge statement. some of them are:
- Don’t know how to do it (Difficult but not impossible)
- Gives a sense of purpose (Why you want to do it?)
- Has a timeframe & could be measured specifically
- Anticipate the future by answering (What success looks like?)
A challenge statement’s purpose in Kata is to link strategy (Why we are doing it?) to execution (What we are aiming to accomplish?). As a leader, instead of being dragged to problems and seeking to have all the answers. Setting the direction by introducing challenges is what develops the capability of your team.
Realizing the challenges ahead provides a crystal clear vision for long-term periods. “challenge yourself; it’s the only path which leads to growth” Morgan Freeman
While practicing Kata and when I read and examine my challenge statement. It inspires me everyday and acts as a catalyst to move forward toward my vision.
How do you leave a space as a coach to unleash growth in people? When I decided to start my journey as a Kata learner. I needed a coach so that the foundations and principles were grounded right from the start. During the past decade, my experience with coaching was more into short-term cycles and purely based on performance and project management.
However, last February I selected a Kata coach. I was limited in budget and time as the challenge was personal and not work or business related. Building credibility and confidence were my main concerns in the beginning. Once upon a time I was disciplined, persistent & focused on my personal goals. but recently and during the pandemic lockdown period I felt that I’m disoriented and in crossroads during my self-evaluation to my values & objectives coming to 2022.
Meanwhile, with consistent exceptional coaching something was different, the Kata coach helped me to gather my toolkit of skills and rise again in response to the challenge ahead. During the regular coaching cycles, I received valuable feedback that sparks my thinking and motivated me closer toward my vision. These cycles were a great source for changing my mindset, I know where my position is now and living my values according to what is available. I become more mindful of the present moment as well as more thoughtful when thinking about my target conditions and obstacles on my way. I learned from my coach to employ my values to feel the taste of life. “A coach is someone that sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness!” Michael Jordan
I’m looking forward to learning and then teaching until the scientific thinking gained is leveraged. Since the best way to learn is to teach and coach where every learning acquired can be transformed to a behavior of practicing and real life application. I learned from my coach to be a leader of my own life. This is the position I strive to practice daily and aspire to occupy ultimately. In order to sustain my routine and positive habits, someone gave me advice that change begins from the inside with self acceptance and self love. Grateful and in full satisfaction with my progress and accomplishment no matter how small or simple might be looking from the outside.
Now, I’m true to myself and proud about my personality and what I bring to the table. My mission evolved to help individuals and organizations to continuously improve toward their excellence.
Values are deep preferences inside a person’s mind. It can be noticeable and highly demonstrated when facing a critical situation or a contradicting scenario where options are limited. Learning is considered one of the crucial values for people to thrive. Talents alone will not lead to growth without perfecting your craft through learning then practicing and applying the acquired knowledge on a regular basis.
In the beginning of 2020, I picked up a master class about mindfulness. A holistic scientific thinking approach for reducing stress while building resilience. The outcome learned from this class was the awareness that arises from paying attention purposely to the present moment and not to be judgmental. Judgment can limit us severely as it does not reflect reality rather our belief about reality. Before this class I was having a bad habit of negative self-talk and depressing myself about the lack of achievement for not completing all my personal goals initiated at the beginning of each year. This was an overwhelming experience as I was framing myself as a person who lacks commitment and productivity.
Gratitude will help in that regard as it reduces the atomicity of negative thoughts and detaches discomfort that comes as a side effect. One of the outcomes learned by this class was the ability of gratitude and self-reflection on recent experiences. I started to reflect on a daily basis by journaling three experiences and turning them to a blessing and a source of learning. Now, I’m not intimidated by any negative self-talk, for example if I did not finish a book on time. Outcomes do matter to all of us. On the other hand, for better learning small steps while breaking down the process of learning will aid in sustainable desire to finish the line.
#Toyota Kata is a way to help us learn using scientific thinking. Learning comes as an outcome of the difference between what we have expected or predicted that will happen and between what actually happened in reality. Kata teaches us that we can learn and change our mindset only by practice. Such deliberate practice will lead us out of our comfort zone and challenge us to enter the learning zone. The learner in Kata will explore reality and uncertainty that was never known before. It is a powerful and joyful experience. Kata has a learning cycle of predicting the future, then testing all related theories and assumptions anticipated. later collect data to validate and finally evaluate results. Negative results out of this cycle are really useful and considered lessons learned. “Much of what happens in an organization is a consequence of the habits that people have learned through practice, whether deliberately or not” Mike Rother
Continuous improvement practice is vital to develop a learning culture. when a person is continuously and consistently striving for self-education and is thirsty to absorb useful information and digest subject matter topics. Chances are great to be specialized in an area of passion and potential. Therefore, be hungry to learn, yet apply the knowledge gained.
A trustworthy person is someone who is a dependable and reliable person that we think of automatically when we are in a difficult situation to count on. The qualities of such a person are honesty bonded with integrity, humility bonded with respect, commitment to promises, genuine as well as sincere at work and home. Furthermore, some of the skills that are common for trustworthy people like listening intentionally whenever you talk and care about your success and development. Trust is highly associated with courage and persistence, credibility and transparency. However, over trusting someone might be transformed or exploited into negative consequences. Most often, trust can’t be noticed or observed until you lose it. “Everything can have a second chance except trust” Gibran Khalil Gibran
In #ToyotaKata, understanding your subordinates’ thinking process and striving to make it visible and sound will be critical for the coach to help. In Kata community, TRUST is an acronym that stand for:
T: Testing
R: Reality
U: Using
S: Small
T: Target Condition
In Kata, we can’t trust our assumptions, opinions, perceptions, ideas and thoughts as all of them are potentially biased and unreliable. Thinking of something doesn’t make it a fact. We can’t be so sure as we never have the full story. Instead we need to test our perception about reality. The relationship between the Kata learner and the Kata coach is unique and mutually beneficial to both. It is a relationship based on trust as both depend on each other to grow. Leaders in Kata practice demonstrate the value of trust and strive to provide it for their followers. They have a vision and a destination to go to “It’s their true north direction for them. Leaders are in the front, walking in a specific operating pattern in their daily routines and enthusiastic to make an habitual environment thrilled with critical thinking questions using scientific thinking approach. “Leaders mission in Toyota Kata is to create and maintain the organization culture through consistent role modeling, teaching, and coaching” Mike Rother
Recently, I faced a tremendous personal challenge that was out of my field of knowledge. I needed help and felt occupied by stress due to time limitations. Therefore, I asked a friend of mine who had experienced similar challenges and had experienced similar situations in the past. The reaction of my friend was beyond my expectation. He was very generous and willing to help me without any hesitation and devoted a great deal of his private time to practicing together to overcome the obstacles surrounding me despite his circumstances and his preoccupation. The results were impressive, as I managed to complete the challenge and present my case successfully. ” The thought of achieving the challenge should give you goosebumps” Betty Gratopp
This was a true demonstration of a trustworthy person. a person who is prepared to take the extra milestone despite all the circumstances. A person who is authentic and walked the talk. disciplined in appointments and implement the task ahead with extreme strive for excellence. Therefore, trusted leaders are leaders who are assertive on their principles. Truth tellers and considered role models with their actions. They are available, loyal, and show constant connection and approachability to their teams.
In conclusion, before asking others to trust you, be true to yourself and trust your abilities. Be an influencer by leveraging something inspirational. Be the leader you aspire to be, trust that you will lead your life and career to the next level. Have a firm believe that light will come at the end of the tunnel. ” With every difficulty, there is relief. Indeed, with every difficulty there is a relief “. Only then, the domino effect will be activated and others will trust you.
When someone is starting a career, most often the unawareness of the work environment and fundamentals is the case with limited tools and means to do the required job. A sense of loss or incompetence and sometimes there is a desire to give up the job for the lack of harmony and inclusion. But after a short time, approximately from six months to a year, the employee begins to engage and homogenize with the institution system, while the level of knowledge rises along with enthusiasm and a strong willingness to learn everything from procedures, processes, and how to talk and present in eventual meetings.
After an average time of approximately five years, there is a type of false or fake satisfaction with the role assigned where the employee believes that he or she becomes an expert in everything. The level of comfort and ignorance begins to appear somewhat in providing the work as expected and required. Some characteristics of behaviors such as stopping learning, and a hunger for knowledge or training. Neglect some precautions as a requirement, treating personal opinions and assumptions as facts. Statements like we’ve done this thing before, that’s what we’ve been doing over and over again. I understand everything and there’s no need to experiment. We’re experts on these things. That’s the only way to get things done. From a personal perspective, I did that once when I stated to my friends that I consider myself number one in my country in the field of continuous improvement. This was my ego talking, it’s wrong and I admit that I made that mistake a few years back.
In #Toyotakata there is a focus on humility while learning and practicing. Furthermore, there is a thought to learn and grow by listening to a coach with humility to understand gaps along the way “Practicing Toyota Kata helps us to grow in humility, curiosity, and perseverance to go by experiment.” by Andrey Casta. In the eye of a Kata learner, there are always several options, but in the expert’s mentality, there are very limited options. Real experts must be humble because humility encourages others to learn from past experiences and experiments with continuous development without imposing opinions or taking them for granted. In the kata dictionary, there is no jumping to a conclusion. On the other hand, challenging the status quo by seeking help, guidance, and advice through consulting others will strengthen the learner’s curiosity, listening skills, and asking questions in a scientific thinking and analytical thinking approach.
Trying to understand the current situation before moving to implementation solutions. Observation and Gemba note-taking will help in answering an important question: why do the same mistakes happen again and again? Recent studies suggest that the reason might be lack of focus or concentration, overconfidence or complacency, and ignorance and negligence. To conclude, it’s crucial to learn and do new things, face new challenges, and practice self-reflection. Develop self-awareness skills by challenging the current situation and current ideas with respect and positivity. Don’t relax and look for progress and development in your comfort zone. Do things right, don’t try to find the easiest way. Rather, look for growth by adopting new skills and habits. Engaging with new groups will enrich your knowledge and strengthen your values. Humility will let you offer help to others. It will help to tell yourself, I know a little, but I need to learn and fulfill my potential modestly.
Deliberate practice is a mindful activity that involves using both body and mind with focusing full attention on the details. It’s a process of practicing with a purpose and learning by doing. It will help the learner to reach mastery of a specific skill or a goal where such learner should know exactly what performance to be improved.
Deliberate practice requires a coach to guide the practitioner in the appropriate direction. In addition, the coach will provide immediate feedback that is needed in the present moment of experimentation and during practices. On the other hand, practicing without feedback will lead to nowhere and will not perfect the craft as talent can take us to a certain limit only and will not show true potential or full strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, this behavior could transform into a bad habit. “You get better by correcting your errors, if you are practicing at a level where you don’t make mistakes, then you are probably not improving your skills” Mike Rother
The psychologist Andres Ericsson, an author of a book titled “Peak” is considered a pioneer in this field as he describes deliberate practice as “the individualized training activities specially designed by a coach or teacher to improve specific aspects of an individual’s performance through repetition and successive refinement”. He emphasized on studying experts and top performers world-wide when they are at their highest level to mimic their full automaticity and track their deliberate practice in order to improve performance.
Furthermore, another book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, has highlighted that a person will require a 10,000 hours rule which came from the research on deliberate practice of consistent time as a daily practice to unleash peak performance. Another recent study shows that deliberate practice increases performance by 18% in sports and 21% in music.
Practicing #ToyotaKata will let you spread that level of mastery through perseverance. Perseverance is embedded within Toyota culture where managers act as coaches to build deliberate practice and new skills. Improvement Kata develops a pattern of growth to better utilize and maximize practices starting with defining a challenge that shows the direction or a path toward a clear vision. We can learn something new through sustained practice and constant exposure if we have the self-motivation driven by perseverance and persistence to learn the basics or the foundations. then starting small and slow with small durations – Define a timeframe of cycles- to track and stick to a routine with repetition of all elements that need to be practiced meaningfully. This repeating routine aim is to move through target conditions by overcoming obstacles that arise along the way.
From a personal perspective, five years ago I was in charge of delivering an assessment case study to a committee where I’m obligated to conduct both qualitative and quantitative analysis as part of the study. I failed twice to pass the committee evaluation judgment. Nevertheless, In the third trial, I knew that I can’t repeat similar behavior and must change my course of action by unlearning some of the old habits of writing and stretching my learning curve and perseverance using deliberate practice. I was eventually able to convince the committee of a successful outcome that met their metrics criteria.
As a result, perseverance will adapt to tolerance, patience, and commitment and will trigger to achieve promising outcomes. Deliberate practice will improve scientific thinking and other thinking skills such as critical thinking. By drilling deliberately with perfecting your moves and cycles of testing or training, the professionalism level could be touched by reflecting on what worked and what didn’t. Everything needs time to develop but we need to start now and invest in ourselves and our education. Progress will be noticed by comparing and measuring ourselves only not with others.
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle is a scientific method and a model aimed at continually improving and learning the process under focus. This continuous improvement cycle is still very popular in the quality world and is still considered one of the pillars at Toyota today. It was first introduced by Walter Shewhart in 1939 and modified by Dr. Edwards Deming in the 1950s. It serves as a roadmap for experimentation and its phases can be illustrated as the following:
Plan: By predicting what change expect to happen to the process under focus. (Formulating the Hypothesis)
Do: By trying out and running the experiment on a small scale (Testing the Hypothesis)
Check: By studying, examining the results, and then reflecting (Comparing Actual outcome vs. Expected outcome)
Act: By adapting, stabilizing, and standardizing the change if it works. Otherwise, adjust and run the cycle again (Iterating another PDCA)
Our assumptions and hypotheses can be tested solely by experimentation, we can not test our hypothesis through people’s opinions and verbal non-factual discussions as it will be considered subjective judgment. Therefore, rejecting the hypothesis scientifically means that there is a difference in the results and therefore there are problems and obstacles in the process. As a result, we need more improvements for our process.
For example, Toyota adapted scientific thinking by visualizing problems as jewels and formed multiple teams to start learning how to improve the process. Toyota teams act like scientists by testing a hypothesis through experimentation and direct observation via the PDCA cycle. Traditional thinking on the other hand tends to hide or shy away from problems and assume everything is going according to the plan. As a result, Their response is usually that there is no problem.
“(Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle can too often become (Plan-Discuss-Complicate-Abandon)” Hal Frohreich
“True continuous improvement culture that really does (Plan-Do-Check or Study-Adjust) cycle, too many organizations stuck into plan-do phase and totally skip the study-adjust phase, they are really not in the continuous improvement culture and they are not learning” Katie Anderson
The importance of the check or study phase is to see the gap between what was expected and what actually happened and only here lies the learning. The PDCA, especially at the beginning of the planning phase, is to develop an understanding of what’s happening in reality before actually making changes. It’s crucial to approach PDCA before starting to implement solutions. As a result, The discovery of obstacles will be clear. In addition, processes are designed efficiently and procedures are written based on experience and lessons learned.
In conclusion, applying PDCA to yourself and other processes can reveal a lot. Many organizations from different industries tried to imitate Toyota’s principles, tools, and techniques in order to have superior results and successful outcomes. Most of them had failed because of Toyota’s adaptiveness to scientific thinking, physical observation through Gemba, and experimentation through the PDCA cycle.
At the start of a person’s career, knowledge and skills in a particular area are limited. Lacking the tools and approaches for performing the job assigned perfectly. This could lead to a sense of loss and helplessness which sometimes led to the desire to leave the job due to competency compatibility.
After a while – 6 months to one year – things started to get going and the same person began to engage in a homogenous way with the corporate system. The scientific level increases as knowledge accumulates with the presence of enthusiasm and a great deal of willingness to learn everything from the process and operational excellence approaches, even the way to speak publicly and to present in meetings.
After approximately five years, a false feeling of self-confidence started to emerge for the role assigned and a person thinks that he/she becomes an expert and the comfort zone established with a sense of complacency in performing the job in the expected. Examples of such behavior:
1- Stop Learning and acquiring new knowledge by training or experimentation.
2- Overlooking some of the pre-requirements and precautions before applying for the job.
3- Preserving assumptions as key facts that are not negotiable or debated or even challenged.
Examples of such assumptions are: “We did this before” This is easy, this is what we did often” and “No need to do that. It is not necessary” “We are experts in such things” “This is the only way to accomplish this job” “I totally understand the situation”
Therefore, in the eyes of a junior, there are plenty of options but in the mind of the expert, there are very limited options. A true expert is characterized by the following:
Modesty, providing options, encouraging others, learning and continuously improving, not imposing opinions, not jumping to conclusions, challenging the status quo, asking for help, and supporting or coaching others with providing immediate feedback, observing with critical thinking, and learning from the previous similar experiences, listening and asking questions with curiosity, socializing with new communities and sometimes different to enriches knowledge.
Examples of overconfidence and complacent behaviors:
A senior plain captain who doesn’t follow preventive procedures before taking off despite great career experience.
A family doctor who doesn’t ask basic questions and skip physical diagnosis then makes quick assumptions.
A sense of urgency is crucial for positive change and impact. True experts always try and test new things, experiment with new challenges, use self-awareness to reflect and analyze current conditions, don’t relax and always seek advancement, growth, achievement, and enjoyment in career and life, do it right and do not seek the easy way, live maximum life with clear goals and fulfillment.