Katie Anderson is a leadership coach, consultant, and author who inspires individuals and organizations. In 2015, she moved to Japan from public health research. She shares lessons she learned in Japan about deepening your leadership skills with The Profound podcast. As Katie had already applied Toyota production principles in the healthcare system, her life in Japan inspired her to learn lean at the source. Transitioning from public health to consulting was her big pivot away from academia and research.
Katie's Website
Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn
Katie Anderson is a leadership coach, consultant, and author who inspires individuals and organizations. In 2015, she moved to Japan from public health research. She shares lessons she learned in Japan about deepening your leadership skills with The Profound podcast. As Katie had already applied Toyota production principles in the healthcare system, her life in Japan inspired her to learn lean at the source. Transitioning from public health to consulting was her big pivot away from academia and research.
Katie's Website
Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn
Yeah. Hey, this is John Willis. This is another episode of the profound podcast and I've got it. Like I'm really excited to discuss today. Katie, Katie, you want to introduce yourself? Sure. Hi, John. I'm Katie Anderson. I am a leadership consultant and coach, and the author of the best selling book learning to lead leading to learn. And I'm really excited to talk with you here today about how we really create learning organizations and deeper thinking
Katie Anderson:in ourselves, and the people all around us as well. Yeah, now, we'll definitely get into the book, I got a lot of positive things, and I want to pick your brain. But you know, I got I went back and I looked at your a little bit of your background, and you know, even your background is like, very impressive, you know, it but it one of the things I found interesting is, you know, we can talk a little bit about this or, but seems like you started out like in patient care and lean. Yeah. So really, I'm going to give you a little context of my my Lean journey journey. So I actually first started off my career as an academic, in doing health care policy research, I have a master's degree in public health policy, I was a Fulbright scholar to Australia. So I have this deep foundation of like, of learning as sort of the core of who I am. And it was in my early 30s, that I got introduced to lean when I was working in hospital and healthcare systems. So I, I'm not a direct patient provider myself. But I was working in a continuous improvement role at Stanford children's hospital for six years. And that's really where the spark of just enthusiasm for my sort of, I guess the next phase of my career came from, about really helping people solve important problems. And that just set me off on a whole nother trajectory of more leadership roles and continuous improvement, and then starting my own consulting practice nearly a decade ago.
John Willis:There is a it's fascinating to me, because I came into lean, pretty late, you know, I've been an IT person programmer and, and then this DevOps movement started and even in the early days of DevOps, and even if anybody tells you, this is not true, they're sort of fibbing, because we didn't really know, we were like implementing a model that was lean. I mean, we knew agile had a big impact on what we did. But I mean, I think a lot of us collectively started realizing, as we sort of backtracked, and certain authors that we ran into, like, oh, we just been mimicking lean for software. But one of the ways that, you know, when I started thinking about Dr. Deming and wanted to go a little deeper into lean, is, some of the early stuff, I couldn't find anything in it that really was very, you know, there was Mary Poppins actually, in software development, and that, that that's a great sort of stake in the ground. But before like, the stuff we were trying to do in DevOps, the place I found incredible resources was in healthcare. And, you know, and I even got to interview a woman who, you know, spent the last couple, last two years of Demmings life traveling with him, and she used this phenomenal story of start as a nurse, and then she became one of the leading Healthcare Improvement, you know,
Katie Anderson:just wondering why why health care, do you think just see, has such a huge blast radius in this stuff, as an industry? Well, you know, a few a few things on things on that, you know, first, health care and medicine is really fundamentally based around the scientific method. So even though you know, they haven't, it's manifested in a different way. People go into medicine artists, or scientific thinkers. So there's some sort of inherent, I think, attraction to this type of process. What I what I discovered, though, is that it's interesting that people in medicine tend to have their, you know, their medicine hat on and the very scientific thinkers, but then when it comes to the operation side, it's all you know, firefighting, and these other issues. But there's such, you know, there was a real need for improvement, you know, back in the 1990s and early 2000s, a real focus on patient quality and how we were going to do that. And there were some pockets that really led led the way up in Seattle, you know, where they had Boeing that was, you know, we're like industry efforts that were improving manufacturing. And I think they had some Firestarter consultants that really came into those areas, and then got those early adopters. And so my training actually came through people who were up in Seattle and then brought it down to California. So I think that there were just in the there's so much purpose behind medicine that I think it really attracts people who are purpose driven as well. So I think that combination of scientific mindset and and like very clear purpose
John Willis:right aligned it as well. You know that I love that. And then you know when I'm reading your book, and one of the things is you say, Oh, I wound up going to Japan, and I was trying to go back to your career. So it looks like you had an opportunity to teach. Because your book, you don't really know. Like, again, well going into this fantastic story of what happened to you and your journey, but you don't really say, like, Okay, well, when do I shouldn't let? Yeah, I will have mentioned it very,
Katie Anderson:very briefly in the beginning of the the preface for for me that the trip or the opportunity to live in Japan, which was incredible. So was for my husband's job, and he works in tech in it as well. And so unrelated to my career, he had the opportunity to, for us to move to Japan to move to Tokyo in 2015. And 16. Of course, when he said, I have this opportunity for Japan, I my eyes lit up and I was beyond thrilled. I've always wanted to go to Japan and here I was going to have an opportunity. You thought oh my goodness. I mean yes to go into Twitter, I get to go to the Mecca. Yeah, to go to the Mecca to go to the source. And then what really brought it all together was a month after we found out about my husband's job opportunity in Japan. I was at a conference, a lean coaching conference, and Mr. Yoshino, Asahi Yoshino who's now the subject of my book, a 40 year Toyota leader was at the conference to and speaking on stage with John Shook, who is the former president of the Lean Enterprise Institute, and Mr. Yoshino was John Chuck's first manager at Toyota back in the 1980s. Well, I got a chance to meet Mr. Yoshino at that conference, he gave me his business card and said, Oh, move to Japan, look me up, I'll take you to Toyota City will go to Toyota. And we'll spend the day together. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. And so that was five months before we moved to Japan. And so that was the beginning of what has been one of the most impactful relationships and experiences of my life.
John Willis:Yeah, no, I you get that in the book. It's like, the like, how, what an opportunity, like you go in there, you're lean. And like, I always think about this I visit, I took my family a couple years, I talked about getting just going through the plant and, you know, watching the the sort of Kanban lights and like understanding the, you know, so often we talk about combat or software, right. And then I all of a sudden I see these things, just from any view in the building, you know, Oh, wow. That's really what it does. It illuminates everything that's gone. But but for find this, the thing that I loved about your book, and we'll break it down, as you just found this unbelievable person that had this, you know, like we can talk about lean all day long, we can talk about todo I could talk about Deming, but you find somebody who has these forced case stories. And like you just must receive, you must, even now you must split a pinch yourself and say, and how lucky out of anybody I could have met to be able to tell a story the way you were able to tell about his life.
Unknown:Thank you, you know, we Mr. Yoshino and I feel like it's a very symbiotic relationship, you know, that he couldn't have told his story the same way without me. And you know, and I certainly couldn't obviously not have told this story or had this level of rich insight about Toyota leadership without him. And it's just a really special partnership. And we continue to partner, you know, today, even virtually universally, we do sessions together for different leadership teams. And it was, it was very clear, we have some from common sort of core parts of ourselves, you know, the weft thread, sorry, the warp threads that you might, you know, that we talked about as the metaphor like the things that are really core to who we are very international people, I've lived in seven countries, a really rich connection to learning and a real desire to connect with people and help them. And those those elements of us have really just been the foundation of our relationship as well. And so one, what I thought was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to to spend the day with this amazing Toyota leader. Yeah, turned into, you know, I just said, well, let's, can I get on the Shinkansen the bullet train and come down again and visit you? He said, Yes, I would love that. And so I would just take the 90 Minute bullet train and spend the day with him and started writing blog posts about what I was learning. And that, you know, he said, you can write about anything we talked about. And that was then the beginning of what later became the idea for collaborating on a book and then resulted in a much bigger book than I anticipated, but yeah, no story that needed to be told. Like
John Willis:I've got so many thoughts of why that story is so good. The one thing before we get like heavy in Is it story is it made me think about how many and he's a fantastic I don't think, you know if you'll be able to tell his story was just perfect. But I wonder, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, like for me I learned all about Lean from the outside looking in. I think most of us do that. Right? And then all of a sudden you find this 40 year career person who has this, like the gaps, the real things that it wasn't always like this. I was just wondering, like, if you spent some time how many more people like that. We've never heard of their employer that just have these. Like for us who geek out on this stuff could be just another group of amazing stories,
Unknown:for sure. And there are books in Japanese that are that are written but they haven't made it to us. Mr. Yoshino has a unique Well, yes. So I agree with you. There's a lot of artists, including Mr. Yoshino boss, who we mentioned in the book who Mr. sicura, who reported to Mr. nomoto, who was in charge of the con pro learning program, and He's alive. He's in his 90s. Now, you can't see it. But that's Mr. De Bono's book. Yes. Yeah. Like Yeah. And then so the in between. So the Mr. Secure are reported to Mr. nomoto. And Mr. Yoshino reported to him, he's alive and in his 90s I'm being in my trip to Japan, I beat might be able to meet him, but what we'll see, but Mr. Yoshino, you know, he was in these really key roles behind the scenes, doing training and development of leaders at different points in his career, we'll look to it it was trying to create this more people centered learning culture, which was incredible. And he lived in the US for 14 years and so speaks perfect English. And you know, that that that helps helps it but yes, history would if we hadn't met, you know, of course, he's mentioned in John Chuck's book managing to learn as you know, the person who was his manager who taught him about a three thinking and all these things, but the richness of the stories wouldn't have gotten so I feel like my contribution to the world is to have captured this oral history and documented it.
John Willis:You did and you know, the one that's thinking about the reason I literally bought I haven't read it yet. The machine or the meter, I'm terrible at names, you know,
Unknown:tell the mess out. You know, what the Moto is he
John Willis:what he makes a quote, I wrote it down here said he is important of tariffs as Toyota. Oh, no, yeah. Whoa, okay. Wow, you know, that there's gotta be some gold there. So yeah, look for he's that's on my list to read his books.
Unknown:Absolutely. His leadership credo. And he, what Mr. nomoto said is the foundation of the more people centered side of Toyota and what they were really focusing on as the model for their leadership, starting in the mid 70s, comes from a sound Emoto. And it's incredible, like the Taiichi Ohno is more tied to like the production system. And the Moto might you might say, is that sort of the father of the Toyota way?
John Willis:No, that's the interesting thing about like, it's just like how we learn or let's certainly how I learn, you know, you, you try to sort of cover as much of the sort of the canvas with your standing. So you learn lean, and you think, Okay, well, it's too much Oh, no, and it's TPS, right. And it's, and then you sort of hear a statement like that, and, or, or you think green, or I tell you another thing that I thought was interesting is, it's easy to fall into a narrative that from like, like, sort of post Deming, post Japan sort of industrial miracle, right, which is, not just Deming, it's a lot of things. That, that it seems like the way I learned it, and I think a lot of people think about it's just Toyota was just this one, sort of up and left, and then you hear these sort of stories where, like, it was they were jagged things, and it wasn't perfect. And this didn't work. And, and I said, to me, that was another really interesting part of this story, which was, again, you know, we talked about like, oh, Toyota decimated Detroit, and, you know, they just starting in the late 60s, early 70s. And then you hear a story about how are they let's get into it. One of the first projects Mr. Yoshino has is because there's a dip in the 70s You know, so I just thought that was that was another fascinating part of this is that it was it was more realistic story. Of what else? Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I suppose. And you know, there's nothing wrong or this, you know, I mean, it's okay that we have this narrative, what Lean is what Toyota did to create lean, but But it was great to be the level you understood that and then say, Oh, of course, there had to be some jagged edges.
Unknown:Absolutely. In some a key theme of the book. And today it is experienced both from an organization and individual leaders is around failure in the challenge and knowing you have to meet a big, new audacious goal, but having the failure points along there. And their secret is that they're better at learning. And so learning their way forward. So when you look back, oh, it all it all, you know, looks like of course they got there. I also think what's to me is really important is that there was intentional focus from the executive team of the culture they wanted to create. And they said, you know, we're talking about the 70s. Here, they're like, Wow, we're seeing a gap. You know, we had all this success with the DEM, you know, the Deming prize in the 1960s. And we were doing a great job, but things have slipped. And so we need to keep refocusing on what we want to create. It doesn't just all happen by magic, which I think is an easy narrative to have, like, oh, it's always been this way at Toyota. And of course, there's foundational things that they've developed, but it still requires hard work and practice from their leaders to
John Willis:write. Yeah, and like we could talk about, like, sort of modern day culture and, and how those traps of success can just get you in big trouble. But yeah, so I think that's the thing. So I'll say this right off the bat, right, which is, I came into the Lean late, I wasn't sort of a traditional, I was sort of backtracking from all the things that like we were saying in DevOps, and Jean Kim, my good friend of mine, co author, you know, the Phoenix Project, and he calls me one day and he says, You have to read this book, you know, when Jean says this, it was Microtus Toyota kata. And I read that. And then, you know, not short, long after that, he said, You have to read another book. And it was Steven spears, high velocity edge. And for longest time, and this might sound very disrespectful to the Lean community, but like, it is not the intent. I would say to people, if you're like me, and you're coming in new to lean, there's only two books you have to read, read right Mark Ross's Toyota kata. And I'm not looking for an acknowledgement because there's, there's a, there's a happy ending in the store. Because now I think there's three books. Because I always felt that, you know, I've talked to Steven and I talked to Michael over this and like, they tell a story. And neither of them have ever talked to each other. But you look at Toyota kata and the way he the way he describes it, you start the book off with that, I'm going to tell you, there's been 100 books about Lean, but I'm gonna tell you the hidden side. And then spear tells you about sort of all these other ways of thinking that it's just me. And then again, we're why I think now if I say this to people that we need to read your book, because it fills the gaps. And so I think to me, you know that I truly believe that, you know, whether I'm right or wrong. And now in my list, I would say if you're coming in cold and new and you want to get started, you'd read these three books in this three, this order. And because I think your book gave an incredible realistic view. And once you understood rotters way he was talking about improvement, kata and coaching kata you and your students use examples, you're ready to look at the strength of your story, if that makes sense. Because that you've sort of got your drinking the Kool Aid, you're primed, and as a real story of somebody who has incredible 40 year career.
Unknown:So Well, thank you, John, that means a lot to me to know that the books not only helped you, but you think that it's a valuable resource for others to really get what the essence is. And I think we all learn best through stories, too. So it's great to have the frameworks but yes, this is like the real the real lived experience and someone truly learning how, how to lead in this way, you know, leading in this sort of Kata mindset, although, you know, he wouldn't call it Toyota kata, but the theme, it's exactly what Mike described, as well as you know, the thinking process behind this high velocity edge that, that companies have. And yeah, it's it's a human story, you know, and it's it. I think we all can relate. Sometimes it's too easy to put people on pedestals and like what a great leader, but like, there, he was really vulnerable to share the challenges as well. And I, I very much appreciate that. And I think it helps people to make that leap into what they might become, and to acknowledge that it's okay to have challenges and failures.
John Willis:Yeah, no, you know, now you sort of crystallized why I like the book so much. I mean, I sort of I guess I knew that it was the reason I couldn't crystallize exactly why I love it. And it is because it's a you, you put a human story on top of, you know, stuff that I was sort of at academically learning. So. So with that, so there's, you know, there's a lot of stuff, there's four case studies, right. And, and again, one of the other things that's great about them is, you know, I would say, you know, two of them, one of them, you know, two of them is sort of bad stories. And two of them are great stories, which is another great, like, you didn't just tell a story about this person who did this amazing thing. And then they did this amazing thing. And, you know, it was it was, seemed to be balanced really well, between like a great story. Not so great story, an incredible story, the new me, and then let me tell you a real failure story. And I think, and I guess that just was his career, right? I mean,
Unknown:right? It's life. It's how, how would it he experienced it as well. And it shows too, that even when you know things, intellectually, when you're placed in a challenging environment, it's not always easy to embody those principles or lead the way you want. There's other factors. And so yeah, and they're business failures that happen to even with the best intentions.
John Willis:Yeah, no, I think I was talking to somebody. I was just at Amazon free event for last couple days. And a good friend of mine, you know, we, we sort of worked on the early days of DevOps. And I was saying that this book is great, because, and I said, you know, it has a great failure story. And he's like, What is the failure? Sorry, Toyota. And I'm like, Well, you
Unknown:don't hear about you ever heard about Toyota is waterski. But
John Willis:it was cool about that, too. Is he like, he knew all this right stuff. But he fell into the trap that we all can fall into. Right? Like he I mean, I think in the retrospective, in the book, he started saying, analyzing why you failed, and he broke some of the rules that he knew he should never do. Right. So
Unknown:that's like our human experience under stress. And under feeling like we have these business goals. Oh, it's this cut? Let's let's take the shortcuts, but it's actually the the the long path gets you there faster.
John Willis:Yeah. And I think also the, you know, like it was a good, it's a good study. I'm biased to right, because he, he had had that conversations, you know, so why don't you tell us tell us some the overview of the four stories from you just enemies talent and let the author tell it?
Unknown:Yeah, sure. So the, you know, the beginning part of the book is there's some personal context to sort of, you know, humanize his experience, rather than just putting him in. The first part of the book is are more like short vignettes of things that he learned sort of in the first 1015 years of his career, then move into four case studies. And then one longer case study. So the first four case studies are about the first two are about some really seminal, organizational Donald Donald of challenges, but focus at Toyota. So the first was this con pro management training initiative that Mr. Yoshino happen to be part of that was created or, you know, commissioned by Mr. nomoto, who we talked about earlier, and then given to Mr. sicura, Mr. Yoshino is boss to implement. And this was when they realized in the late 70s, that they had a big leadership gap, that, you know, there were huge quality issues, there was the oil crisis, and they realized that Toyota had started to be really siloed and people weren't talking to each other. There are a lot of plug quality issues on the on the floor, and they realize that actually quality issues on the floor means there's a management issue up higher. So interestingly enough, they saw that it was
John Willis:right there like that's like that is like that's, that's a code straight out of a damning book. But yeah, go ahead. Yes, totally.
Unknown:So they, they, and Toyota, those senior executives had been trained in the Deming model it through the 1960s. So they realized that like sort of things had gotten trickled down and you know, diffuse. And so they put together this internal two year long program to really reteach sort of the 1000 layer of 1000 or so senior, most managers, the one layer or below the executive team, how to set a clear direction, how to support their people how to talk, you know, horizontally in the organization, and this is where really where the concept of using an A three size piece of paper. So the double of the letter, the eighth of four, as the communication tool, came to be at Toyota, as were established at Toyota as the main communication tool, and Mr. Yoshino was the handful of like, five or six internal people coaching and developing these senior executives and learning from Mr. nomoto, which was just, I mean, for him, what an incredible experience. He's what was in his mid 30s At this time, early 30s. And then, that really helped reset Toyotas management system that now is what ended up you know, all of those leaders became the folks in the 80s and the 90s that were really leading the way at Toyota. So when people like Jim Womack and others were going out to study Toyota, this is the management culture that they were seeing the output of that they were seeing the output of that. Okay, so fast forward a handful of years, then Mr. Yoshino was assigned to be responsible for the training program for the American managers and shop floor supervisors for the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors called New me actually near where I'm where I live. And this was in the early 1980s. And what's interesting, this is going to be Toyotas first foray into overseas manufacturing, they, you know, they were assembling things overseas, but actually producing producing cars. And they would they took the worst performing plant at General Motors. And I mean, there's so many, there's so much written about this great podcast from John Shook about this, too. Anyway, Mr. Yoshino his responsibility was to take these Americans and teach them basically the Toyota way. And so, you know, they would come over in these cohorts of like, 20 people or so for three weeks, this is when John Shook was hired as sort of the American influence to sort of cross bridge, you know, cultural things. And this is, you know, they, that was the foundation of all of the Americans to learn the Toyota way. And it was encrypted incredible story, they showed that it doesn't matter what culture you're from, that the principles work, if they're actually applied in a human way of supporting people, and having a just a different, just a different philosophy and way leaders engage with each other.
John Willis:I've done a fair amount of research on the new meeting, right. And a lot of people who listen to podcasts most probably most familiar with the new me thing, just humbled did a great job in his Continuous Delivery book about it. But I think one of the things that like I read it was so interesting is there was a lot of pushback that the before the new me, which was that the Americans can't do it, because they don't have that intrinsic culture that they haven't we already sort of, like the uses of like, Yeah, but it's just something they can do. Because it's built into culture. It's the way they think. And then that just destroyed. And then the other point I wanted to make is that, you know, if you think you're listening to saying like, Oh, you know, they've given away the whole book, I'll just say this, and we won't give it away is the stories you tell from him about the training and how they did the way he uses he his depth of understanding a culture that he probably doesn't understand that great. And make sure that the people that went over there, I took those stories were fantastic as well.
Unknown:Thank you. Yes. And so, so much has been written about numi. And not many people knew about con pro before. I feel like there's more to be written about con Pro. So we'll see. But they it was it's just the behind the scenes stories of what was really happening there. And from the person who was leading, leading it. And so it's just, it's great. And some there's some stories that didn't quite make it into the book because they weren't fit for publication. But there are many surprising things. And
John Willis:we're that nasty, but they were, you know, they were just a couple of good ones were
Unknown:the towel incident or the, the curfews and like yeah, it's just how we handle that and some cultural differences. And then, you know, the two other this the the two smaller case studies after this are more of talking about some time, the two subsequent assignments and Mr. Yoshino had after that one, which was finally fulfilling his lifelong dream of moving to the United States. And he actually lived, you know, 20 minutes from where we are, I am based in the 1990s to support the NUMMI plant, as in the office there. And, you know, it turned out to be totally not what he expected. And so just what did he do with that? And just the richness of learning about how you can your mindset and your actions can really shift your the, your experience and experience of others as well. And then he came back to Japan as this changed person like really integrated with he, you know, not just a true Japanese person, but with things that he learned in the US and how did he then take that and really embody, as John Shook said to me when he was reading the manuscript, he really Mr. Justina like embodied sort of the epitome of the perfect Toyota leader, not the perfect title leader, but like the model of the like, the leader we want to emulate and so what did he do? They're really around setting direction how do you really you know, develop his people and how is he improving himself at the same time? And so that was like this beautiful story and then it turns into this 10 year along next career, which is the you know, the the real big failure of planners WaterSki Boat business, which I'm sure most people haven't heard about,
John Willis:and I want to get a detail, but I want to keep the keep things I'm like, Oh, I can ask her this.
Unknown:Okay, so ask all pause, take a pause and then we can dive into the failure because there's so much more to unpack around. That was a 10 year tenure experience. The process of uncovering that was a really interesting one for me with him as well.
John Willis:I didn't one of the things that was sort of interesting too, is, you know, one of the things I covered in my book, which was tour, his first attempt at a car in the US, it was car Corolla Toyota pet, and it was, it was a disaster. It was designed for the rugged roads there. And all these things it couldn't do in classic Toyota fashion, they pull it off the market, rethink it, and they come back with what the Corolla. And so I thought, like I had known that story, and you know, this, there's, like, they, they take failure to like this incredible improvement. But you sort of nailed that, too, with why numi happened? You know, like, look, it's because you said that, like Honda and Nissan were already just building plants. You know, they were just sort of building plants like, Okay, it's time to go to America, there are some incentives of, you know, so tariffs and stuff. But to me, that was another classic Toyota stepping back and saying, No, we're not going to do that. Let's do this joint venture idea. So we can learn before we build our first real plant,
Unknown:Becky? Yeah, that was, and that was their intention, as well, it was, they also wanted to see what the other car manufacturers were, you know, what would happen to them. So it's, they go slow to go fast, because they want, they want more time to learn. And they wanted to have the experience of working with a unionized unionized workforce, which was new to them. And so they had a great opportunity to learn. And it was an incredible success story. And that's what set them up for success in Kentucky, because they learned so much about people management,
John Willis:just like you said, they're just insatiable. As an organ. I mean, Steve spirit has this quote, and I always mangle it a little bit, but it was he did. He did his Masters on decoding the direction TVA. And TPS sorry. And he said, is one quote, and I didn't ever get it perfect. But like the intent is, the total was a community of scientists continually experimenting. And like, true. But one last thing, and I sent me an email and like, it just, it sort of confounds me a little bit. And maybe, you know, and I think I have this general sort of, you know, coming into lean late. And, you know, I guess I would say that, you know, Winston Churchill said, history is going to be kind to me, because I'm going to write it. And as I read, different leans, you know, like, there's sort of like an MIT version of what happened and Toyota and there's sort of a heart, I, there's a Harvard MIT version, and then there's a University of Michigan or, and I don't want to get into that too much. But when I was reading, and I knew I had a good friend, Courtney Kitsis, she was over at Nike. And she did she, you know, I never got around to interviewing her. I need now do it. But she's like, John, I'm using hosting Canaria, and it's just amazing, right? And, and this is a woman that like, she was one of the pioneers. In nearly his DevOps. She was like one of the first enterprises to DevOps. And if you talk to somebody that was community, like how'd you get into DevOps? Oh, yeah, we were told to talk to Courtney. And, and then like, okay, Courtney's running this, but then I sort of put it on the back burner, and then I'm reading in the book that it's fundamental to the Cambro and all this, and I go back and wait, why does it Mike Rother say anything about this? Why does this and I don't know there's an answer, but like, it seems to me that like, certainly Mike who went over there and studied them. It just seems like I am having sort of a breakdown trying to figure out because it seems so fundamental, from a person who was there for 40 years, is it? I mean, he's there,
Unknown:you know, so, you know, the way I would link that is that the same process of thinking that Mike Rother describes as the Toyota Kata is the same process that happens within Hoshin Kanri or strategy deployment, it's it but it's more of how are they communicating and solving bigger problems rather than how are you doing more problem solving in a more, you know, department or across across the area? So he was really looking at how they having those conversations. You know, you can't there's only you could also write ya know, you're on Hoshin Kanri. But most people get Hoshin Kanri or strategy deployment wrong, because they don't you know, you Well, this is I think what most people have gotten wrong, or why so many Lean efforts fail is because As we focus on the visible tools, and the you know, like, all the lights and all the visible things, and the structure, the template, those are all structures to help support learning. And so but if you don't have the learning built into it, or the conversations and the questions and the thinking, and the reflection, then it's gonna fail. So like strategy deployment, most people still like, basically take their old, you know, goal, you know, typical strategy process, put it into this thing, and then expect it to be working. But what's missing are the conversations and the real understanding. So, so I'd say like, the same process, you know, there's so much it's the invisible things, right?
John Willis:Yeah. Yeah, no. Question. And all right. So the grand sorry, that the massive failure that when people like what what?
Unknown:Well, so what's super interesting, is it. So Toyota, Toyota, as a mindset of learning is also willing to have failures. And so they for innovation, you have to be willing to have failures, right? So you, you, of course, you want to you want to get the successes, but you have to have a lot of different failures. And so, you know, they even had the whole department focused on new innovation, and new ideas that would then get funded. And they would run experiments knowing that some way fail, and they had things in aviation, and they had things in like fuel cells, and they had then Mr. Yoshino had this idea for a you taking the Lexus engine and putting it into American Water Ski boats and creating this high end water ski boat, they said, Well, that's sounds like a great idea. He pitched it. And they said, Yes. And then off, he went to back to the United States. And, you know, it was so taking the backstory of uncovering this failure. Mr. Yoshino always was transparent that there was his business failure, and that it was hard. But I never really knew much about it. And actually, the sort of two years of us working on the interviews for this book, was a process of unpeeling, this onion the most, and he really never wanted to go into it deep, because it was very hard, both on a personal level of things that were going on, as well as just like a professional level, very challenging. And there was this one remarkable moment. You know, me, I can't remember when it was, but maybe it was about six months before, six, eight months before the book came out. And it really, he had always been sort of gray, and kind of down when we were talking about this failure. And he's, you know, we have a very close relationship. And one day, he had the smile, and he said, you know, what, all of your questions and your reframing and kind of curious of how this all happened, has really helped me see this in a different light. And I don't, I'm like I unburden him from the personal sense of failure. And he was able to see this experience from a different light. And then from that point on, he was able to talk about it with so much more detail. And he's like, he didn't want to share these things. So they were painful. And but it helped paint the context of it. And then and then we were able to really
John Willis:write was turning that into a story that we all get to
Unknown:yes. And so he now is still you know, it was a decade and a lot of really hard things that happened. But he was able to have a different level of reflection and also unburdened the sort of the, I guess, maybe the personal judgment around that. And so I think a key some key points out of that, that experience are one is that, you know, the beauty of this whole like it's okay to fail and have mistakes. Mr. Fujio Cho, who was the president of Toyota at that time, who was the former president of Toyota, Kentucky, he said to Mr. Yoshino, you know, you tried hard to achieve a challenge, and we failed, and that's okay. You made mistakes. And we made mistakes, too. We were all new to this business. And then he gave, they gave Mr. Yoshino a great new assignment for his final assignment at Toyota. And so it just really showed that the organization wasn't punitive. And blaming, they too took a risk. And they also they too, had responsibilities for reasons why this didn't work out. It wasn't all his wasn't all his fault. And then I think the second thing is, you know, as we were taught exploring earlier that you can know intellectually and even know through your own practice, what sort of the right thing to do is but under, under different pressures, or in different environments, it can be easy to sort of shortcut or do like, you know, be overwhelming. We have this human experience. And so that was some of Mr. SheKnows reflection, too, that he didn't do things in the way that he knew he should have. But there were also factors that, you know, it was a human, it was a human experience that we all can relate to.
John Willis:Oh, I mean, I've had like 10 startups, probably seven or more like massive failure disasters. It is hard to give up your baby. You know, it's like, yeah, like there's so much cognitive So baggage around something that you know, the way you tell the story is he has this idea. And then it sort of becomes this and I can imagine because yeah, you think about man, Toyota and speedboats, like, that would be like I have one right now probably, because that would have succeeded that the other thing in their story, there was a little jam I thought, which was, was when he went in, I think this is a combination of like, Toyota is a little bit of gamba, but a little bit of their leadership, but then also just that he was a really good leader. Because I know a lot of leaders that, you know, like in my world, like somebody comes up with a software thing and, and a great leader might not be the exact programmer and know all the ins and outs of the complexity of the program. But you can't, you know, just use one curse. You can't bullshit. A great leader. And the story when they take him out on the boat, yes. Like what the what they're like, and the American guy and he even convinced this is how sort of how, how hard it is to do this stuff, right? He convinced? She knows
Unknown:protege. Yeah, the Japanese engineer.
John Willis:Yeah, they've heard this, okay. Already be like, so the American guy says, you know, I'm going from some memory. But I says, Oh, well, don't worry about that. That's something that happens with American votes. And don't worry about that. Yeah. And you see those sitting there gone.
Unknown:No, boats not going the right direction.
John Willis:But then, like, what made it even more interesting is that the young Toyota engineer had fell into the trap going, you know, I think they're right, you know, and like it, but hims his instinct was to, you know, what I think is, like, I've seen great leaders in like software development and software startup companies where they may not like you, you know, like, somebody come in and say, Hey, boss, you really ought to understand this, you know, it's, you know, I know, it doesn't look right. But like, in the grand scheme of things, US genius programmers would always, you know, and but a great leader is like, yeah, sorry, I may not understand the complexity of the algorithms, but, like, that doesn't smell right. So anyway, I thought that was a great sort of insight. So
Unknown:yeah, it was like the red flags. And then, you know, he's like, I should have done taking more action, even if, you know, yeah, there's so there's so much richness in it. And I'm so appreciative that he was willing to go go inside and really share this hard journey. Because, because so many people like yourselves or self is also learning from it as well, and can relate, I can relate to it. It's like, the most powerful experience and then then, you know, he's continued to bring it all forward. So, yeah.
John Willis:How do you use this now in you know, like, I mean, you know, you know, this book, this tour de cada, this is books, you know, that I've written some other I work to dealt with handbook, there's different books, and, and then you go in, you're like, Okay, I've got all this, like, great stuff. And then you go into, like, a very complex organization. You know, like, wait a minute, like, like, I know, fundamental all this is right, why it can. So what has been sort of like a terrible question to ask, but like, what is your experience of sort of working that through, and I guess, your non success stories of, you know, that you've taken that you've built, you have had a consulting business, you find what is sort of the roadblocks were like, you know, even want to bring in, you know, in, it's still there, like, Huh, okay, this, so they can't do that.
Unknown:Yeah. So, you know, first of all, take a step back of, you know, what it's been great about the book has been able to complement the consulting work and the coaching work that I do and have done for years with organizations. And now we can use the book as a sort of, as a shared learning experience of and, you know, leaders reading it and then reflecting on it, and how does that compare and contrast to what they're trying to do. And it really has some lightbulb moments in the same way that you've had of helping people see what a different way looks like, because they may not have seen gone to experience Toyota themselves or experienced a different way of being. And then we're sort of my where my skills and come in is really helping people then apply these practices from, you know, in behaviors around setting direction, how do we really define problems? How do we coach and develop other people in our organization? And then what are the systems and structures we need? And I usually partner with the change leaders within an organization, either the executive or you know, the leader of, you know, the Lean transformation or you know, and helping them think about this and I can come in and do some teaching and some support and some thought leadership and I think that partnership really works quite well. I'm like, accelerating their impact and also being able to provide some of these these nuggets to help leaders Get on that path. The biggest, you know, the biggest challenge I see with executives and other other leaders is we've been, it's not about not having the heart. Like, we all know what great leadership looks like we've experienced, you know, those people in our lives that have coached and develop us. And like we all like, I would say, for the most part, aspire to have that same impact on other people. But what we don't often see is how the actions and behaviors that we've developed through being through schooling, being independent contributor, as being experts in our field, or our discipline, get in the way of doing that. And so where I help leaders do is see that impact they want to have reconnect with sort of the heart of who they want to be. And then really understanding what are the leadership behaviors, they need to have to align in that direction. And I call that leading with intention. And the way I sort of came up with that is when I lived in Japan, I I needed business cards made and I had, I didn't have a logo for my new business at the time. And so I told the business card company, because you hand them out like Halloween candy, you know, every single person you meet and in Asia, just put the word for intention on my business card, and it came back and the the kanji, the Japanese characters, comprised of a simple meaning heart and a simple meaning direction. And I really saw this word intention is something more active then than just this, like, oh, let's set an intention in this sort of mental way. But really connect deeply with your heart. And then what are the actions you need to take to really create that. And so when we can do that, then we are able to start putting things in place and practicing. And if we keep it simple, it's so much easier, like how do we move from always telling to asking how do we, you know, how do we really define a problem? And how do we slow down and have some more patience. And that's the secret sauce. Like it's really around creating this learning environment. And then you can apply all the tools and the process and look at things and all the technical side, which is really important, too, to create sort of, you know, lean. No, I think that's it.
John Willis:Yeah, I think that I love the idea. Because I mean, like to extend some of the books that I've been involved with, like jeans book, you write it kits, this least shareable commonality of, like, okay, like, that's the we all agree that's good. Do we want to be like that? Let's decouple it and, you know, so, you know, even some books I've had, and and then the intent, you know, I think there's so much, you know, sort of Simonson X work and this notion of like intention, or was the market David market attorney flip around, right. There's just so much there, you know, and it is sort of buried in between, sometimes we don't, a great leaders can just paint intent. Right. Yeah. So I love that idea of intention.
Unknown:And to let go of us being the ones that come up with all the answers. Yeah. Yeah.
John Willis:Okay, the book. Yeah. Fantastic book that. People Yeah, learn to lead.
Unknown:Learn. Lessons from Toyota leader of continuous learning.
John Willis:Yeah. Yes. The people who listen, trust my opinion, I will tell you, there are certain books, there's a book by Alec or it's actually an audio only course called Beyond the goal. And I used to challenge people to say, if you buy this book, you know, once I got to a level, there are too many people listened to me that I had to stop doing this. But I'd say if you buy this book, and you don't enjoy it, as much as I think you will, then I will buy you dinner next time we meet, you know, so I do have a lot more like I'm not famous or anything like 20 people that were like that can really come back and bite me, but it is your book is that, you know, I would say to people that you know, you're gonna have to trust me on this one, put it up, put it higher in your queue, because it's a great book. And thank
Unknown:you. We also have the audio book, which I read, and then you can hear Mr. Yoshino arts and Mr. John Chuck as well.
John Willis:So I cheat. Now, what I do is, it's sort of a cheat, I always felt like doing an audio book on a plane just seemed like, you're not really reading the book. But now what I do is I get the Kindle version. I did. I'm on five. And now I can annotate and highlight so I'm like reading along while I'm listening out and put in like, you know, look, come back to this later come back later. So that's my new weapon of choice on flight. So audio and the Yeah, you did a brilliant job just doing your own own audio that which was pretty cool.
Unknown:Thank you. Well, there's that. There's a story about mistakes and failures that I ended up doing it twice. Oh, really. You can listen to my podcast with Mark graven on the podcast my favorite mistake if you want to care about that. But yes, some pandemic related issues, but also that challenged me to embody the leadership principles that I described in the book. It was this very meta experience but Yeah, you can can learn about that but I'm happy with. I wanted to high quality for my customers and so you know, you have to make things right when that happens. Also, I'm really excited to be able to finally go back to Japan. I lead these Japan study tours, Mr. Yoshino is part of them. And I was in Japan last at the end of January 2020. Like literally as the boat was talking in Yokohama, that cruise ship, Mr. Yoshino turns 79 and January 2023, and I will be there to celebrate with him and to prepare for a different, yeah, got to
John Willis:figure out if I can go. Like I said, I just went from a real cushy, high paying job to a startup salary. But yeah, it just seems like that got to be a fantastic opportunity. It's
Unknown:an incredible learning experience and cultural and fun, but just walking away with a different perspective. So if any of your listeners are interested in learning more, reach out to me on my either website, KB J. anderson.com/japan. Trip, or email me at Katy at KB J anderson.com. I'm running two trips in 2023. And then we'll see where we go out through that.
John Willis:Okay. Excuse me a little bit of a yeah, um, yeah. And I'll put all the links there. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I just, you know, it was Glen Wilson, I guess. He's the one that was in London. And he was telling me about the trip. And then you said, you haven't read her book? I'm like, No, I, like, literally, on the plane ride home. I literally started doing
Unknown:well. Thanks. Glenn was, Hi, Glenn. If you're listening to the thanks for the connection here with John Glenn was part of my leading to learn accelerator program, which combines are the book and some of my teachings. And he and I met up in London recently as well. Yeah, he's great.
John Willis:He's pretty been pretty awesome. Getting to know him. Alright. Well, this has been, I knew it was gonna be fun. And then I hope you had as much fun as I did.
Unknown:I did. This is the beginning of not the this is not the only conversation I'm confident that we will have Yeah, the beginning, the beginning. I love I really appreciate the conversation. And it means a lot to hear that you recommend my book amongst, you know, spears, and frothers is the you know, the three books for people. Yeah. As an author, you know, there's so many like, you know, countless hours that you can't even quantify, to put something together. And I'm really I look forward to hearing from your listeners too, about what they take away.
John Willis:Yeah. So it's, you know, my book isn't, you know, 10 years and no glass, literally, the pandemic's when I decided, okay, if you're really gonna do this thing, you got to do it. And yeah, I've gotten a couple of just incredible feedback things. And it's just, boy, it's just, you know, you put I know what you think if you put so much work into this, and it's in your head, and then wait for somebody, and then somebody tells you, you know, like, the I've had a couple of people that told me like, you know, it feels like you're looking this book for me or like these columns, they mean so much. I know. That's a hard part. It's just such a big part of your life, to do what you did, or hopefully, well, I've already done it. Now the question is, how successful it will be. So yeah,
Unknown:well, we can talk offline about all of that, too. Yeah. Happy to share my learnings and insights. Yeah, no. Publishing and marketing books, because that's a whole nother Yeah, no.
John Willis:Another thing I Yeah. That's the That's a rabbit hole. I think I'm gonna avoid anything, we're just gonna go publish. With Jean. I actually started with a literary agent, and we have expression turtles all the way down. They send you to a proposal writer, and they're like, Okay, all right. Wait, stop here. You know that? You know,
Unknown:I published the book myself, so Oh, yeah. Immigrant presses my imprint. I set up a publishing company, and I hired the right people. You know, I didn't just like cobble this book together in a word. You know, so, but, you know, there's a lot of freedom that comes with that. And you can PDCA you know, it's
John Willis:no, that's what Jean did. I mean, that's what Jean did. Jean Kim did with the finished project. He put his own money, and he published his own book. And now he's probably got 50 or 60 books in is publishing.
Unknown:Yeah, I'm thrilled the books come out in so many different languages, including Japanese and I'm talking to a few other publishers for different languages. So I wanted
John Willis:to move the camera but over right over there, I've got Dutch, Russian, Korean, and then I forget what that one is. It's kind of cool to hang in your office. Just Yes.
Unknown:I know. It's minor all back. Yeah. Like four or
John Willis:five different languages. It's pretty cool. Anyway, it's been great to meet you. And I agree. I, I want to try to make an effort to Well, certainly I want to try to do that trip. But, but so we're gonna make an effort to start to continue this conversation. So
Unknown:I would love that. Thanks, John. It's been a pleasure.
John Willis:Okay, take care. Bye. Good. Stop the recording that To do