At NWHPEC, we believe continuous learning extends beyond our own offerings. On this page, you’ll find a curated selection of webinars and conferences from trusted external sources that align with our mission to support your efforts to foster a culture of continuous improvement. These recommendations are chosen for their quality and relevance and to compliment our offerings.
ALL TIMES PACIFIC
AME/KSC Webinar: Kata Coaching - Experimenting and Learning - May 20 @noon
In kata we don’t plan our way forward, we experiment our way, learning as we go. Join Coach Mark Rosenthal to explore the striving phase of the Improvement Kata: experimenting and learning. This is the fly wheel that drives your daily learning practice. There are applications for many kata practices away from formal coaching; the Experimenting Record has wide applications in meetings and conversations beyond daily coaching.
Presenters: Mark Rosenthal, Maria Grzanka, Tracy Defoe
KaiNexus Webinar: Every Moment Matters: How Leadership Behaviors Shape Results Every Day - May 26 @10am
Why do improvement efforts stall even when the strategy and tools are clear? In this interactive webinar, Anne Frewin, founder of Employee Centric Leadership, explores how everyday leadership behaviors shape the environment where performance either improves or declines. The session connects engagement with execution, showing how communication, trust, problem visibility, and leadership credibility directly affect results.
Designed for continuous improvement and operational leaders, “Every Moment Matters: How Leadership Behaviors Shape Results Every Day” will offer practical ways to strengthen the behaviors that help teams align, speak up, solve problems, and sustain performance over time. Anne brings more than 15 years of Lean experience across healthcare, biomedical, manufacturing, and professional services, with a practical focus on helping leaders create clarity, communicate with courage, and improve the systems that shape the employee experience.
Register here (free)
AME Webinar: From Strategy to Execution - Selecting and Sequencing the Right Lean Initiatives - May 27 @10am
An AME West Region Event
AME Webinar: Digital Transformation in Manufacturing - June 16 @noon
In today’s rapidly evolving industrial landscape, the lines between traditional manufacturing and cutting-edge technology are blurring. This presentation, “Digital Transformation in Manufacturing” explores how Roche not only adapted to this change but thrived by embracing a digital-first mindset. We will demystify the concept of digital transformation and illustrate why every company, regardless of its industry, is becoming a technology company and every leader is taking on the role of a tech CEO. We will dive into actionable strategies for seamlessly connecting digital initiatives with operational goals, ensuring that technology that includes AI serves as a powerful accelerator for efficiency and growth. The session will feature practical, real-world examples of projects that are driving tangible improvements.
Join us to uncover how digital tools and strategies can elevate your operational excellence and secure your company’s competitive advantage in the new era of manufacturing.
Presenter: Dhruv Bhatt is the Head of the Digital Transformation Office at Roche, Branchburg. With over five years dedicated to shaping the company’s future, Dhruv has been instrumental in transforming traditional manufacturing processes into a highly efficient, data-driven enterprise. His work centers on implementing a unified digital platform that leverages advanced technologies such as Snowflake, Tableau, and automated data pipelines. This initiative is designed to enhance reporting, improve data accessibility, and foster a culture of continuous improvement across all functions. Dhruv’s focus is on harnessing data as a strategic asset to streamline operations, reduce errors, and ultimately boost the company’s responsiveness and profitability.
Learn more and register (free)
AME/KSC Webinar: Kata Coaching - What to expect as a coach or learner-improver - June 17 @noon
In our final webinar of this series, Coach Tracy Defoe will share what you can expect from learning to be a kata coach, or from your first efforts as an improver with a coach. You may find some uncomfortable situations that bring up not only assumptions but your self-image and feelings of competency. Be ready to learn and grow new skills along with a mindset reset.
Presenters: Tracy Defoe, Maria Grzanka, Mark Rosenthal
AME Interactive Session: Creating Courage in the Workplace - June 23 @10am
This interactive session explores how courage shapes culture, leadership, improvement, trust, and human connection at work. Using concepts from Bigger Thinking, participants will reflect on what creates courage, why people stay silent, how leaders influence psychological safety, and how we build courageous cultures. Together, the session creates space for honest thinking, shared learning, and practical reflection on how we create courage within ourselves and the environments around us.
Presented by: The Big Thinking Box – It’s a leadership and operational excellence development company founded by Allison DeVries. The organization focuses on helping leaders and teams create environments where courage, curiosity, and critical thinking drive sustainable results. Through books, workshops, and facilitation experiences, we support manufacturing and operational leaders in developing stronger thinkers, and work with school age kids to build these skills early. www.thebigthinkingbox.com
Learn more and register (free)
Kata Together 2026: Leadership & Coaching Conference July 13-17 in Mukilteo WA
Most leadership programs send you home with frameworks and an action list. This one sends you home different.
You spend five days on real conversations — coaching a hesitant team member, setting a meaningful target, leading without authority — alongside experienced coaches giving feedback in real time. You try. You miss. You try again.
Fifth year running. Not a conference. A working week designed to make you better at the work that matters most: yours.
Who comes to Kata Together?
For managers tired of having all the answers.
Ops directors, plant managers, team leads — anyone running a real operation. You’ve got a capable team, problems that keep coming back, and not enough hours to solve everything yourself. There’s a different way to lead — not softer, sharper. Better questions, fewer fires, a team that thinks for itself.
For Lean coaches and change leaders.
CI managers, internal consultants, transformation leaders. You’ve spent years helping organizations improve, and you know — the hard way — that the bottleneck is rarely the process. It’s the conversations around it. This week sharpens those: coaching the planning phase, engaging upward without authority, helping leaders make change actually stick.
For the Kata community, returning.
You know what a week in Mukilteo does to your thinking. This year, two new moves: a planning-phase dojo we’ve never run before, and a deeper leadership track that takes the work upward and across. Same group, deeper waters.
Learn more and register