Building Communities of Practice: A Pull-Based Approach to Continuous Improvement

Eric Olsen
5 days ago
4 min read

"What if, instead of me telling you what you need, we created a space where you could discover it together with others on a similar mission?"

This question emerged during a recent conversation at a San Luis Obispo Starbucks, where Vahid Keshtgar and I explored how decades of operational excellence experience could best serve others. What started as career transition planning evolved into a deeper discussion about how knowledge transfer really works in continuous improvement.

The Challenge of Traditional Knowledge Transfer

Vahid's experience implementing lean principles at Round Table Pizza revealed a fundamental challenge many organizations face. Despite successful Green Belt certification and genuine improvements in operations, the gains proved vulnerable to management changes. "The only roadblock was that the mindset of the people I was learning with in the classroom was different than the people I worked with," he reflected, highlighting how classroom learning from healthcare-focused training didn't naturally translate to restaurant operations.

This disconnect between formal training and practical application isn't unique to restaurants. Across industries, we see the same pattern: send people to workshops, implement some tools, see initial improvements, then watch it slowly erode as attention shifts elsewhere. The push-based model of improvement—where experts deliver solutions to passive recipients—creates dependency rather than capability.

Communities of Practice: A Different Model

What if we flipped the script? Instead of pushing predetermined solutions, what if we created spaces where practitioners could pull the knowledge they need, when they need it?

This is the essence of a community of practice approach. Rather than starting with answers, we begin with shared challenges. Rather than expert-to-student transmission, we facilitate peer-to-peer discovery. Rather than one-size-fits-all solutions, we enable context-specific adaptations.

During our conversation, we sketched out what this might look like for restaurant operators:

Monthly Gatherings with Purpose: "Come and let's talk about making restaurants faster, easier, better." No prescribed agenda, no mandatory frameworks—just practitioners sharing real challenges and discovering solutions together.

Problem-First Orientation: Start each session by listening. What's causing pain this month? What experiments have people tried? What worked, what didn't, and what did we learn?

Cross-Pollination of Ideas: Restaurant operators visit competitors all the time as customers. They see innovations but rarely have forums to discuss and adapt them. A community of practice transforms individual observations into collective learning.

An intriguing possibility emerged: restaurants are natural meeting places. Communities could rotate gatherings at participants' establishments, bringing a "go to the gemba" quality to the meetings. This allows members to see operations firsthand, observe real challenges in context, and learn from each other's physical environments.

The Pull Principle in Action

The lean concept of pull versus push applies beautifully to knowledge sharing. In manufacturing, pull means producing only what the customer demands when they demand it. In learning communities, pull means prioritizing the challenges participants bring when they're ready to address them.

This flexible, adaptive approach offers several advantages:

Relevance: Discussions frequently address current, real problems rather than theoretical possibilities
Engagement: Participants drive the agenda, ensuring high involvement and ownership
Adaptation: Solutions emerge fitted to specific contexts rather than forced into generic templates
Sustainability: The community becomes self-reinforcing as members experience value

Leveraging Modern Tools for Ancient Practices

An unexpected theme in our discussion was how AI tools could amplify community learning. Vahid and I explored using AI not as a replacement for human insight but as a catalyst for reflection and synthesis.

Imagine recording community discussions, using AI to extract key themes and insights, then sharing synthesized learnings back to the group. This creates a living knowledge base that grows with each gathering—collective wisdom made searchable and actionable.

The approach extends to individual learning too. Vahid could watch videos on change management, pause to record his own restaurant-specific insights, then use AI to weave together formal knowledge with practical experience. This isn't passive consumption but active knowledge construction.

Starting Where You Are

For those considering launching a community of practice, whether in restaurants, manufacturing, healthcare, or any other domain, here's a practical framework:

Define Your Beach Head: Start narrow. "Restaurant operators in San Luis Obispo" is more actionable than "business improvement for everyone."
Create the Invitation: Use simple, benefit-focused language. "Monthly coffee discussions for restaurant operators who want to make their operations faster, easier, and better."
Listen First: Resist the urge to teach in early gatherings. Let participants surface their actual challenges before offering any solutions.
Document and Share: Record discussions (with permission), create simple summaries, and share back to the group. This reinforces learning and shows you value their contributions.
Let It Evolve: Communities of practice are living systems. Let the group's needs shape the format, frequency, and focus over time.

Join the Conversation Today

If you're interested in experiencing this pull-based learning approach, Central Coast Lean offers multiple opportunities to engage:

Virtual Lean Coffee Sessions: Join our regular online discussions where lean practitioners share challenges and solutions in an informal, participant-driven format. These sessions embody the pull principle—participants bring their questions and the group explores them together. Learn more and register at: https://www.purpose-ccl.org/lean-coffee

These virtual sessions complement in-person communities of practice, offering flexibility for those who can't always meet face-to-face while maintaining the same spirit of peer-to-peer learning and problem-solving.

The Multiplier Effect

As our conversation concluded, Vahid observed, "My strength is team building—putting teams together that work very well with each other." This insight captures why communities of practice can succeed where traditional training fails. They're not about individual expertise but collective capability.

When practitioners learn from peers facing similar challenges, the knowledge sticks differently. When solutions emerge from group discussion rather than expert prescription, implementation follows more naturally. When the community owns both the problems and solutions, sustainability improves dramatically.

Continue the conversation:

Join Central Coast Virtual Lean Coffee: https://www.purpose-ccl.org/lean-coffee
Follow FPW on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-people-work/
Join monthly FPW discussions: https://forms.gle/yXPbCXURdfvYtjmn9
Learn more: https://www.fpwork.org/

This post was developed through collaboration between Eric Olsen, Vahid Keshtgar, and synthesized with Claude.AI assistance. It represents ongoing work by the Future of People at Work initiative, a collaboration of Central Coast Lean, Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), GBMP Consulting Group, The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence, Shingo Institute, Lean Enterprise Institute, and Catalysis.