Learning to LEAD, Leading to Learn Part 1

Felipe Engineer  0:00  
I've read through part one of your book, love it, still reading it every day. I love the story in the book and I'm gonna say that again when we start I've been recording. So we're recording the whole time you've been live the whole time.

Katie Anderson  0:12  
No.

Felipe Engineer  0:14  
Welcome to the E bFc. Show, the easier better for construction podcast. I'm your host, Felipe Engineer Henriques. This show is all about the business of construction. Today's episode is sponsored by the lean construction Institute. LCI is working to lead the building industry and transforming its practices and culture. Its vision is to create a healthy and thriving industry that delivers outstanding project outcomes every time for everyone. Check the show notes for more information. Thank you, LCI. Now, to the show. Welcome Katie Anderson, and thank you for your help you help where you can the worst kind of help, as I'm sure you know, is unwanted help.

Katie Anderson  0:59  
Yes, well, actually, the worst, the worst kind of help is when you have the intention of being helpful. And then your actions are actually not aligned with how to deliver the help that person needs. And so that's the biggest the hardest one is when there's a disconnect or misalignment between attention, intention and action. Oh, yeah.

Felipe Engineer  1:21  
I've been guilty of that. Yeah.

Katie Anderson  1:25  
Me too. That's the biggest thing to why things I really focus on helping leaders at all levels to create an awareness for themselves is when are they getting them? When, when they may have the intention for something, but their actions are actually not aligned with that. So how do you create awareness for that? And then do something different? Cool to have you on?

Yeah, great.

Felipe Engineer  1:49  
Yeah, I'm a fan of Mark Raven, it looks like the two of you work together a couple times or co conspired?

Katie Anderson  1:55  
And I've done a few things professionally together, but mainly have a friendship that's developed out of professional connections and have been real supporters of each other. So that's been that's been great Mark was really super helpful. When I first started blogging, I had this vision when I moved to Japan in 2015. That, of course, I wanted to learn as much as possible and capitalize on the experience for myself, but I thought what a unique opportunity, someone who comes from the lean Toyota Production System space, and now getting to go live in Japan, and and so I wanted to start my blog. And so he was really helpful in me, sort of the backend logistics of like, how to think through getting a blog going and then amplifying some of those early, early blog posts. So I'm grateful for Mark. 

Felipe Engineer  2:45  
Yeah, he is definitely first learned about you through some of his content and posts. And then later through some other friends. I think you were on Sam's ci and 90 or ci Yes. Yep. He I saw you again there. And I was like, Whoa, what a small world.

Katie Anderson  3:03  
Yeah. Yep. It was great. Sam, Matt. He was a member. He joined Karen Ross's and my K to Katie and Karen's coaching communities are KGC to coaching communities. And he was partially inspired by the practice the concepts of purpose and intention that was fun, fundamental to our coaching practice. And he really took that forward to a whole nother level. And I love these ci and fives that he's doing and just engaging with people to talk quickly. How do you know Sam? there? 

Felipe Engineer  3:36  
How did you know he found me? And Okay, there you go. Yeah, he asked me to be on his so I jumped on his and we talked on the phone one time for everyone. Thanks, Katie. They're gonna talk me on the phone for like 10 minutes. And two hours later. I was like, I wish we just recorded this because it's a great show. Yeah. So we had Yeah, we talked for a long time. And then he had me on later, like two weeks later, I was on the show. And someday it'll come out. I see. He's doing like just a hectic I could imagine trying to post something every day. Oh, I know, your blog. How often were you writing? 

Katie Anderson  4:09  
Oh, it was it's been it's varied at least once a week back or is trying to do once a week. It's it's morphed. And then when I was writing the book, I've got really hard to write blog posts because like, all my writing energy was going towards the book. But, you know, I find that the writing the blog posts are an opportunity to reflect for myself and it's almost not journaling. It's not exactly that but it's it's a purposeful time to sit and put some thoughts together differently. So even when I was working on the book, I was trying to get something out once a month. didn't always succeed in that but I'm trying to get back to every two weeks ish now, but not to be you know, it's, it's okay. I don't think people are like, gosh, Katie didn't put out a blog post this week. Again, just continuing to put things out into the world is what's important to me. It has been part of the dialogue and the thought leadership and discussion. But they're one of the things I've been really loving is being on podcasts a lot lately, and in some ways that fills some of that space for me, of writing the blog posts. It's just a different medium in which I'm sharing thinking with other people and receiving other ideas as well.

Felipe Engineer  5:28  
That's great. And here, you're gonna get a twofer one there'll be there's just the audio only podcast, which is really big in the US, but it has we're in over 20 countries worldwide. And then the YouTube channel it's a fledging little channel, but there are quite a few people that watch the videos as well on YouTube and well we can throw images up of your book I'm ready to do anything that affects you just could bring it forward and look at it you have my EC my I do staging in the back. My dream is to have you discovered my dream, my passion yet?

I have I've seen maybe a tweet.

Katie Anderson  6:07  
Yes. Well, here this is my dream. This is my dream, my collection dream you can see all the way along there. 

Felipe Engineer  6:12  
Yeah, that's a really big one out there. 

Katie Anderson  6:14  
I'll say this is one, I got in the this one I had a specially made for me at the Daruma temple in Japan and actually on my Japan study trips. One of the highlights for me is to take people to the town in Japan where most of the these paper machine shade room as you know, tiny ones all the way to the big ones are made. And this this one I had made with my signature word which is intention. And so part of this top part of the word means heart. And this one means direction. This also is in the term hoshin kanri. So for strategy deployment. And so I see intention really is about connecting what's important here and our heart, or maybe you say your purpose, and then aligning your, your actions in that direction. So that gets back to and I talked about often how we try and be helpful. And that's our intention, but our actions don't actually align up with that intention. So that's what I'm talking about leadership and bring in shines work. This is my special Daruma from Japan. 

Felipe Engineer  7:19  
So I see that you have one eye painted is that does that count as an eye?

Katie Anderson  7:23  
Well, no, this one that I haven't I haven't chosen a special goal for this one. But this was I I got to pay extra for the monks at the temple to infuse some special energy into the Daruma. So he already has some extra spirit for me, but I haven't brought myself to to use this one yet. 

Felipe Engineer  7:45  
So they have more power the bigger they are Yeah. Excuse me, do you feel like the larger they are, the more potent they are?

Katie Anderson  7:53  
Well technically that's that is part of the I guess the lower the nice thing for the dream a temple is you pay more for the larger size and so they make some more money for their their monks. And then like large companies buy really huge ones. And so every year then companies and individuals will bring their neuromas their completed room as to the dream at Temple and then they had like this huge bonfire at the in January and set them all ablaze. And so it's actually really cool because you go and there's like these stacks of even more just large dream a small dream isn't everything at the dream a temple so i i'm not i have not brought myself I brought one to the one sort of medium sized one and lifted it the derma temple but I like I like my room as but I am getting an extensive collection now.

Felipe Engineer  8:45  
Definitely we're gonna have some nice bonfires at some point. Yeah. 

Katie Anderson  8:49  
As you reach more of your purpose, yes, reach more of the purpose and achieve the goals and there are a few goals put on hold this year because you know, we had some things change and oh, and so the one of the beauties of the room is also represents the the Japanese proverb fall down seven times get up eight. And so they're the rooms are weighted at the bottom. So they'll actually like you know, write themselves up. Oh, that's very cool. Yeah. And the big ones more effective. But this little guys working on a little guy does. Yeah, he really wants to come back up. That's good. So you know, even I think it's just there couldn't be a better or more apt proverb for our times right now with COVID. And all the changes were struggles we're going through and the things that we had expected to happen. We've been set back, but it's about how Now are we recovering from that? What are we learning and how are we moving forward and still, and still going forward to achieve our goals?

Felipe Engineer  9:44  
Right on. I like that saying a lot too. I just like, and, you know, we can open up my Kindle book right now. And you'll see that I just crossed that page like a day ago. We're talking about the falling down seven times. I'm gonna that's what I'm going to share with my son. We talk about Good finds and things that we're reading. That's one to share with him because I don't like I, as a person, my biggest growth has always been in failure, not in success. 

Katie Anderson  10:11  
Yes, yes. And to know that we can't expect perfection or achievement necessarily on the first go. That was one of the elements that I was so taken by with working with Sal Yoshino is how, how willing he was to explore the things that were his failures in his career, or the mistakes or the challenges that he had. And just wait till you get to the end of the book, there's a whole section devoted to this 10 year long business failure, he wasn't all a failure, but ultimately, was a failed business and, and the complexity that went into that, and also his own personal experience of kind of carrying that failure around for decades. And he was always, he'd always talk about, oh, I had this bad, this failed business. And you can learn so much from that. But even in the years that we knew each other, and starting to work on the book, he just kept it pretty surface. And then as I was diving more and more into trying to understand what happened, and also to even write the chapter, I kept going back to him, like I don't understand, like, what what happened, then he would, we would go back and tell he would, he would be able to go deeper and tell me more. And one of my greatest, I guess, oh honors the right word. But I just feel so happy that I was able to help him reframe his, his failure in a different way. He knew he could lead learn from it. But even in our early conversations, she just sounded, he kind of looked gray when we talked and then this one day, this one, it was an evening for me morning for him. And he just had this like glow about him. And he's like, I see things in a different light. And your questions helped me get there. Because you didn't blame me. You know, you weren't saying Oh, why did you fail? You were asking all of these questions about the environment and the circumstance and with genuine curiosity and caring. And he's like, because of that I have learned more deeply about my own experiences, and I see them in a different light. And to me, if, if there is no one read the book, and all it was was helping my now dear friend experiences life in a more deep and meaningful way. That was the greatest gift to me. So it's a bonus that other people can learn from his failures, too. And the bonus? 

Felipe Engineer  12:40  
Yeah, I think a lot of the things we learn Kayden, I'm in continuous improvement space, like you as well, we think sometimes, especially early on, that we can understand causality. And like, the deeper you go into it, the more mysterious and grain complex it becomes, it's very hard to really know, why did something happen? It's not easy.

Katie Anderson  13:03  
No, and there's in, in, in complex situations, it's rarely one root cause. Right now, it's a multitude of factors that contribute to ultimately, the outcomes that we see. And, and that's why, as you know, focus on process, not just on outcome is so critical, especially in the in the continuous improvement space, or if we wanting to have a learning organization, because it's the process in which where the learning happens. We're only focused on the outcome. Yes, we can have some learning, but we don't know if we can repeat that again. Or we just move on to the next thing. So you're like, Great, let's, let's just keep going out, come out, come out, come. But you're not creating that knowledge and that wisdom. And that's truly I think, what Toyota is, was able to do really successfully, you know, as you know, as Mr. Yoshino says, and I put it in the beginning of the book, the only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning. And this is why it's been so challenging for other organizations to copy them, because it's not the tools, the tools support a learning process, but it's really how are you getting? How are you using the tools to support learning? And how are you developing the leadership capabilities to do that as well?

Felipe Engineer  14:19  
JOHN, I think people like I see it in your book and the about you section, you say you're a lifetime student. And some people say that, and people that aren't that way, because everyone isn't that way. There's a lot of variation to see what you've achieved and where you've been five countries. You know, the successful book, multiple podcasts are probably a multiple podcasts a day, you know, being on TV, traveling and getting a chance to live in in Japan for over a year. And then studying with an amazing mentor. I mean, that this did not happen overnight. You you've been like, just like he was really engaged and fascinated. I liked the parallel in the book between his story and your story, even though you're not blatantly telling your story. I see a lot of you in him, and how you you're fascinated with Japanese culture. Like he was fascinated with American culture. And he picks up Spanish. I mean, you go to Australia, it's a different type of English, it gets its own category. Yes. Right. Alright, so I see a lot of parallel in the way that YouTube came up. And as I was reading the beginnings of your book, I said, I'm not surprised that the two of you became very close, because there's just so many similarities, like birds of a feather do flock together.

Katie Anderson  15:31  
It's really that really astute of you because I agree completely. Like on the surface, you know, you think this, I'm pretty tall, Caucasian American woman in her mid mid 40s. And he's this shorter, you know, Japanese man in his mid 70s, and different cultures, different generations, different genders. And yet, the fundamental part of our purpose in life and the things that have drawn us, including, like, I would say, our work and our weft is, as I talked about in the book, are really the same. I've always had this for me, the strong work threads and things that have really, I guess, helped propel me through life is this desire to experience other cultures. And I've purposely made these decisions from a teen from the time I was a teenager onward to pick up and move to other countries on my own, except for Japan was was with my family, but all the other times where me as an individual, and then this this life, long passion for learning and for helping other people learn as well. And you know, that one, that first time that we got together in Japan, it was about three or four months after my family moved to Tokyo, and I made my husband take the day off of work and take the Shinkansen there. I genuinely believed if this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend the day with Sal Yoshino. And but it was so clear in that first meeting, that we there was so much synergy in our just how we approach life and the things that we were both passionate about, and a friendship really was established from that point forward.

Felipe Engineer  17:12  
Yeah, that's where I sometimes tell people that I have these like little lucky moments and people wiser than me say it's not luck. There's a little bit of destiny, a little bit of openness. I think you have the book, you call it discovery, right? 

Katie Anderson  17:27  
Yeah. The known in the discovered? Yes, it's what we do. So I was, how did I frame it? It was it was earlier today, actually, I said it was a combination of like, purpose and serendipity, you know, like, it's this intersection, or no of purpose and intention or serendipity and intention, I don't know, there are multiple things like it's, you can have luck, or situations or things that happen, like opportunities that present themselves to you. And then it's what you what you do with them. So and also how do you put yourself in situations so that you have the possibility of things but, you know, I people remarked to me, often while I was in Japan, they were like other other foreigners who were living there, like, Oh, my gosh, you're doing so much with your time here because I like hit the ground running, I was like 18 months, I want to do as much and learn as much and meet as many people as possible and write my blog, and you learn Japanese and all of that, that I set out with great intention and purpose to to really take advantage of that opportunity. And from that purposefulness has now resulted in really tremendous things with my relationship with Mr. Yoshino and the book and the Japan study trips I lead now. And that all came out of me being really actively pursuing these possibilities, I suppose, is the big advantage. 

Felipe Engineer  18:59  
Yeah, we'll be in there. Because I think, you know, you had intention. You had a big you've landed there. I mean, it wasn't like an accident. Right? What? What can you think back? Like, where you got interested in spending time in Japan? Like, as early as you can remember?

Katie Anderson  19:16  
You know, I for me, it's all it's been traveling as a whole all across all cultures that I had the opportunity to go to Japan actually, when I was in high school, my mom's brother was a career expat in the construction industry. He worked for Bechtel Actually, there you go. And so we had this incredible opportunity to since we had relatives living in different countries to go to go travel and stay with their house. And one of his first assignments was actually in Tokyo. And so when I think I was the must have been a freshman in high school, went to Tokyo or we went to Japan for a week. And I hadn't been to Japan since then. Although i'd traveled in Asia and lived in you lived in Australia. For four years and other Spanish speaking countries and some other other English speaking countries. But once I knew, you know, of course, my interest in Japan was enriched from the time that I was studying the twittered production system and applying that in healthcare operations and improvement. And I always had an interest in going back to Japan, but it was, you know, then I was settled down, having, you know, married with kids and working. So we were doing a little bit easier travel, but then when the opportunity for my was my husband's job to move to Japan for his work, I was so excited. I couldn't imagine a more perfect fit for another abroad experience than Japan for myself, both from a professional interest in Toyota and Japanese culture, but also from the personal side of learning the language and getting back to the culture. And so it from that point forward, now, it's been like six years, I can't believe it's been that long. It's now Japan is like, in meshed in my my life's tapestry from here on out. 

Felipe Engineer  21:11  
Oh, no, that was really good. I mean, it's, you're so excited talking about it. I'm really, you're more excited talking about your time in Japan, even than your book.

Katie Anderson  21:24  
Oh, that's a lot. And I look, I sometimes I get very excited. You know, when I was bad, I was really grateful that I was had a chance to be in Japan this year, I was there at the end of January. And I was there for 12 days, planning for my sold out study trips, which of course didn't happen in May. And October, actually, I was supposed they were supposed to be kicking off this week. So my my second trip for this year. Although that seems seems like a lifetime ago. Now, since we've had, since we've had to pivot on that, you know, but I'm really it was a really great trip. I'm sad that the things that I'd planned didn't come to fruition for this year, but they will in the future. But I also had an opportunity to spend some really good time with some friends there who may one one family who has left now subsequently to after 15 years in Japan to go back to the United States and just caught up with some friends. I'm really glad I had a chance to be there earlier this year. And this is the longest time now since I went out to Japan in October six years ago to first go look for apartments and schools for my children, that I actually have been away from Japan, it's been almost going on 10 months now. So I usually back like at least every sort of six to eight months. So that's the world we're in. So fall down seven times get up eight. Oh, get back there.

Felipe Engineer  22:48  
Absolutely. I know. You'll get back there. Yeah. Yeah. And what's what's something that you can share with people? Like, number one, how can people get engaged with you to get more and find you and find resources to get connected with your work? Let's go there. Yeah, go shameless plugs here, Katie.

Katie Anderson  23:06  
No, great. Well, so the easiest Well, there are two easy ones to remember. One related to the book is just the books URL which links to my website. So learning to lead leading to learn calm, so you can have all the information on the book and there's some additional resources that did some stories that didn't go into the book and some other resources there. And then my website is k b. j. Anderson with n o n k v. j. Anderson calm and I have a ton of resources there you can link to me email me again on Twitter and LinkedIn are my most active social media platforms. So I'm at KB J. Anderson, and forward slash KB, J. Anderson. My middle initials are B and J. My my maiden name was Brian Jones. So I'm Katherine Brian Jones Anderson. So that's where the KPJ a comes from. So those are the best ways and then you can subscribe to my blog as well. You know, I try and put something out every two ish weeks. But and there's a lot, a lot more but and I love to hear from people and engage in conversations and dialogue is this is what gives me joy about coming on podcasts such as this as well as not just talking to the host, but also hearing from people about what what resonated with them.

Felipe Engineer  24:25  
Yeah, people, please, we encourage you to make comments, Katie and I will respond we promise Yes, I do. I respond to every comment on anything I post, just if there's something there. And I've been changing my approach, Katie starting to ask questions because I want people to dialogue a little bit. I know how I think but I'll think better when people can react to what I'm thinking and, and exchange the dialogue with some other folks.

Katie Anderson  24:51  
That one of the I think the beauties though, is we with all of us being in our home environments is there is sort of shattered preconceived notion that we needed to be separate, be a different person that work from our home lives. And, you know, there's some challenges around that as well for people. But I love seeing like, we had this meeting, I facilitate a consortium of local companies. Actually, there's a company from the Sacramento area, but mainly down in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay area for lean learning through the Association for manufacturing excellence, and one of our member company representatives, he was at home and he has a six month old baby and so he had the baby with him for part of the meeting. And he was the baby was so cute but fussing a little bit. And we're like, don't worry about it. Like it's great. Like, this is, you know, it's fine. Make it work.

Felipe Engineer  25:46  
I know I get the I'm just not good enough Katie to be sub different at work than I am at home. And my son is always like when he I've taken on some work things in the past, and he meets people that know me. And he says he's always amazed like, wow, Dad, you are the same everywhere.

Katie Anderson  26:03  
Totally, I, I've always been the same person as well. You What you see is what you get. And you know, I'm authentically, authentically myself. There's some careers that I would never make a good spy. Let's put it that way. Because I like it. My mom, even my mom's like, yeah, you're transparent. Like you can't hide what's going on. Like I'm either really excited or not and like, but I think that's also one of the beauties of who I am. And it's tough to, you know, use what you see is what you get. It's hard for me to hide anything.

Felipe Engineer  26:43  
Yeah. Don't, don't even bother. Don't waste your energy. No, I did want to ask you like, we've got a lot of people working in the healthcare industry, especially for healthcare building. And I wanted to pick your brain and share with folks any insights into the healthcare before COVID, after COVID. Anything and how hospitals are designed and build from a leadership perspective. Is there any I'm just going all over the place? Katie, you just wherever you want to share on on that topic? I think a lot of our listeners would love to hear, you know, what's going on behind the scenes?

Katie Anderson  27:17  
Yeah, well, you know, I haven't been as personally behind the scenes in healthcare. As much in the last handful of years, I certainly do go in and help support different hospital leadership teams and operations and have many hospitals here in the in California as part of our ama consortia. So most of my insights are is really secondhand from their experiences. You know, I, I would say that, you know, because the obviously the hardest hit, or what some of the hardest hit, especially in the early days, with COVID, it was all hands on deck in activity into being able to support our communities and provide health care. But really, you know, it was great, like Stanford children's, we had an opportunity to go see how, you know, remotely, we're all watching sort of on a zoom call, using their management system to support them through this. So yes, we're having a big crisis, but how can they leverage the systems and structures that they've put in place for communication and for continuous improvement, to help enable them to move through a challenging time. And, I mean, this is sort of not just healthcare, I would say, but organizations who have embraced concepts of continuous improvement in making the visible invisible and creating systems and structures for transparency and tracking work and tracking people's problem solving and engaging them are going to be the ones that were able to recover or respond to challenges in the environment so much faster. And so, you know, I would say that, that was that's been true of the healthcare organizations who've been, I've been in touch with as well.

And yeah, so it's, it is good and it's not a reason to not start now either. You know, if you're in an organization that hasn't yet you know, really created the system those systems instructions, structures and just getting started well, now's as good a time as any because there's nothing there's nothing that a crisis won't help do. But you know, accelerate the the fire the burning platform of why why something's needed, or its changes needed.

Felipe Engineer  29:39  
I love that you hit on transparency. I think that's probably good for every industry. I've got some friends that do a lot of consulting with multiple industries, not just construction. And that's a that's a theme that keeps coming out, like easy way and you do any kind of systems thinking design thinking, and I know that you you hit you hinted at it, but Oh, learning organization, if you can just allow people an environment where they can learn and increase that transparency, it can have really big consequences for improvement.

Katie Anderson  30:11  
Absolutely. There's a mystery quote that Mr. Yoshino may made at some point, and it's in the book about making the invisible visible. And that's the whole point about so many of the tools and structures that Toyota had was how do you how do you make work visible? How do you make thinking visible? I mean, that was the whole premise around the a three report, how do you have a format that in which you have to make your thinking visible and to communicate that? That's, you know, all of the things that the workplace, you know, on the shop floor, how do you have red lights and green lights to signal things? So, again, all of these tools are, are challenging us about how do we take the invisible and make it visible, otherwise known as transparency.

Felipe Engineer  31:02  
It is a general, a lot of organizations when they started, if they've been around for a little while, they they build on tradition to what worked. But everything doesn't scale. I find the transparency does cut through and help to scale. And I don't want to say it's a silver bullet for all things. But I haven't seen where transparency didn't help.

Katie Anderson  31:22  
Certainly having visibility into what's actually going on can only help help move towards clarity, rather than trying to hide it. And and it gets to the point to around this the premise or is there like a fundamental mindset at Toyota and other companies as well, but I think is not the common mindset about no problem is a problem. And bad news first. So how can we make the problems visible? Because otherwise, we're just hiding them? It doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means we're not addressing them. And so how do we have a culture and the environment in our organizations that makes it safe to bring forward problems or issues, and that we're not penalized for mistakes or failures, but that it's really looking at the process so that we can make improvements and fix things?

Felipe Engineer  32:17  
Yeah, and a lot of that comes down to the the predispositions of some of our leaders, which, you know, probably spend some good quality time coaching that idea that failures Okay.

Katie Anderson  32:28  
Well, it's it's hard, right? I mean, we have we are rewarded in our society. I mean, I think most societies for having the right answer being successful, like what does that mean in from like that our schooling environment all the way through, you know, as you're getting trained, being right, your strength is about having the answer, not having the right question. And I really think this the the first that first quote that I heard from Mr. Yoshino when he was on stage with john Chuck, this is at the conference, I met him that that chance meeting that turned into this pivotal life experience, he made a comment on stage about his role as john Chuck's manager, john Chuck, being the first non Japanese employee of Toyota back in the 1980s, when Toyota was starting to expand to the west. And Mr. Yoshino made this really kind of simple but insightful comment that I've distilled down to a leaders role is to set the direction or provide that challenge, you know, sort of what direction should we be going, providing the support of their people to be able to move towards that challenge, and then also developing his or herself at the same time, and that's so simple in concept, but, you know, so challenging in practice, because it goes against a lot of our natural habits of what we've been rewarded for you set the direction, but also provide all the answers.

Felipe Engineer  33:58  
So we have that whole idea of sink or swim. And we say in the construction industry, we kick you into the deep end of the pool with no life preserver nor question care, not whether you could swim or not. And if you survive, you're one of us, but if you drown and die, you weren't meant to be here.

Katie Anderson  34:15  
No, you weren't strong enough. You know, I think of our you know, the broader broader environment right now to where it's sort of weak to be seen as not having the the right answer. But in fact, if we can, as leaders and as people have better questions and help help support other people, the richness of discovery and knowledge that comes out of that is so you know, exponentially more than any one person could, could come up with. by themselves. There was I'm pausing because I was I was as we were talking, there was something else that had come to my mind but I'm sure it'll I'm sure it will come back because this is one of my one of my Passionate topics, oh, what's around the concept of another thing I, you know, we have to balance out like sort of that telling and asking, and you know, back to shine, whether we need telling. But we, we also need asking, it's applying that in the right situation. And as in a leadership role to it or, or as a coach, we need challenge and nurture. So we need to also push people into, we got to push them beyond their comfort zone, because it's where that struggle cap is that where the learning happens, you know, if it comes super easily, you know, you probably already already were an expert in that area, or you're not achieving what you might be able to do. So how do you push the challenge, but also provide that nurture, so you're not just throwing them in the deep end, as you said, and, you know, sink or swim, you know, but like teaching them along the way. 

Felipe Engineer  35:47  
And we have to sort of toggle back and forth between those two and know that both are needed to move forward. And I love john Chuck's book managing to learn where he hits on that in that book. And that's a book still to this day, unlike any other that I've ever read. And some people we give that book to as a gift in our organization, and, and they love it. And some people we give it to and they don't like it. They don't like the the leader, it's the leader dialogue, but they don't like it don't like that the ken Sanderson doesn't look prepared. And he's has like doubts. And it says a lot about how people react to that narrative. And it's, it's a great story because it you kind of fall in one way or the other. You rarely get somebody who has no opinion of it. They have a strong reaction to that. Yeah. And I see the a three process the same way in the same way in your book, how their responsibility. Yoshida says at the beginning, why he started this, and he didn't realize it at the time was in a reflection is when it happened where he said, When I came to Toyota, people just took care of me. It wasn't like the work was easy by no means. But he said people went out of their way to onboard me and to make sure I was ready. Yep. And we have a new generation entering the workforce today. And a consistent thing that we hear across industries is that large companies don't onboard people, or at least not in the way that that those coming in, feel like it was adequate.

Katie Anderson  37:25  
For sure. I have two comments on what you just said first. I don't know if you're aware of that. Is Sal Yoshino actually is the the model for john chicks can Sanderson character so, you know, is Sanderson. It's actually a she is a kind of a blend of Yoshino and Gish. The Yoshino is assistant manager, who was the direct supervisor of john Chuck, he sort of melded their two characters to create Sanderson. So you actually are reading the book of this is Sanderson and sandersons learning journey here in the book. So, I'm not surprised you see similarities in that. So I, and then too, I couldn't agree with you more. And I mean, I even think back to my own early days, and you know, I'm in my mid 40s. Now, so my, my early onboarding over 20 years ago, at different in or even just in the last decade, of different organizations do you know, you do a half day or full day, or orientation, which is really from HR to onboard you to how to fill out your you know, health insurance forms, and some like, you know, OSHA requirements, but, but nothing really about the culture, and then you may or may not have a meeting with your boss, and then, you know, kind of things are happening very ad hoc, it depends on sort of the team that you're joining. But then you contrast that to, you know, he or she has experience of many months of being on boarded, and getting some real practical experience and what, you know, the impact that that had, and that was sort of how they also looked at the training programs for, you know, when they were teaching the Americans about the Toyota Production System as well. And I think that there's many repercussions to that, too. I even my experience, when I got promoted into a managerial role, is even though I, you know, been a strong, independent contributor, I didn't know how to do budgets or manage teams, and there was, there was like, little to no support for me to move into that role. And I look back on that time now, and I was doing the best that I could, but I really wasn't given that support. So I was given the direction like do X, Y and Z with your group, but the the support to be able to learn how to do that was was pretty limited. And I think about how much more successful I could have been in my role if I really had had some mentorship, deeper mentorship along the way I had other mentorship and sort of the content expertise that I was still leading. The teams that I was leading, but not really on that, that management side. I think that's a real problem in our society today. And also what makes me so passionate about how do we help people who are transitioning from being successful experts in whatever they were doing, you know, as independent contributors are now, now moving up through the management ranks, because leadership is something that has is cultivated, you know, you're learning to lead, so that you can lead to learn and going back to the title of the book, but we, we often forget about that. We just kind of throw people in the deep end, they're like, Oh, I didn't make it work. But you've maybe lost amazing opportunity for someone who really had the intention and the heart for developing other people, but they just didn't understand or know how to align their behaviors or felt so overwhelmed by what was going on that they weren't as successful as they they could have been under a different mentorship model.

Felipe Engineer  41:00  
I had somebody asked me today, and they said, Do you even want direct reports? And I said, Well, I mentor over two dozen people. And I said, What do you think? And there wasn't obvious. Just like, it's just funny to me that we don't think about that. The people that we promote, you could be really good as a technician, subject matter expert, but we rarely evaluate people on their, their ability to lead other people. Somebody other skills, like the budgeting things can be taught, but everyone does. I think I had an experience when I was a young kid with a hospital story. I was changing windows, I grew up in the Midwest. So we used to have changed storm windows on our house. And I was tall enough that I could do it without a ladder. So my parents thought, all right, go ahead. You got this and I accidentally broke on and I had to go to the hospital because I could cut to the bone. And I remember, I'd watched a lot of Discovery Channel, Katie, like, no shock, but I'm big nerd. And I like watching things on the learn. And I told the I had seen a program where they had some like experimental and non experimental, but there's like a paste that you can put in that instantly stops bleeding. And I remember the doctor that finally came in after like, seven hours of waiting. I'm sure Mark and I can go on a tear about you know, how long can you wait while you're bleeding from your finger? hospital. And the bleeding never stop because I lost so much skin. So the doctor comes in and right away at the doctor is half asleep, Katie. And I said to the doctor, I was probably 15. I said When's the last time you slept? And he said, I've been on for three days. And then it's like, we're gonna have to stitch that. And I was like, You can't stitch this. You're like trying to close a chasm, you're gonna give me a weird scar, I'm not gonna close my hand. I was like, bring me that special cream that just stops the bleeding. And let's see what he was like, how do you know about that. So then they never see him again, they send a nurse in with the stuff in my finger, I saw the scar to this day. On this finger, I might zoom, bring it forward. You can see. But I have full function of my hand. I mean, it barely missed a vein. And it's that whole thing. So that the reason I'm sharing this story is because in the American Medical industry, as part of the hazing for new doctors is that they have to work three days in a row. Right. And it's not a doctors know that. Not sleeping is not good for you. But it's tradition, right. So just keep doing it. So because I had no one taught me how to budget, I'm not going to teach you how to budget. And then I'm not gonna encourage you to teach the other people. And then you have a company like Toyota, this is so radically different. And I remember hearing stories when I first started, start studying Toyota a decade ago that that you would spend sometimes depending on your role, you might be six weeks training in an offsite facility before you even got to where you are going to work. And I kept thinking like, what a massive investment. And like I asked friends in the construction industry, including professional architects and engineers, how much training Do you get, on average per year? And the most common answer what do you think it is? And days? How many days? No, like three? That's two. Yeah. So you're right, you're right there, it's two days. And then at the executive, the leadership level, you probably see a little bit more a little more uptake, right, they get some more training. But you have the vast majority of people interacting responsible for your customer value. They're only getting two days to reflect and learn. It's amazing that we deliver things, isn't it? 

Katie Anderson  44:36  
No and right are our outcomes are only as good as the process that gets us there. And, you know, I like how I was talking with someone earlier about how do we how do we get out of this? Or how do we have a change because also there's just like this sense of urgency. There's not time to give. We don't have time to train people. We don't have time to go offline. We don't have time to ask more question. But it's like this, this vicious cycle that never ends because we're then not creating the learning capabilities and we're not developed cultivating leadership and we're not having time to make the invisible visible or to go out to go see to go to the actual workplace because it feels more. It feels easier to just stay where we are, although, you know, we're stuck where we are. But there are other ways to go see right now in a virtual world. And yeah, you know, the only secret to toilet is its attitude towards learning. 

Felipe Engineer  45:31  
And I think you, you know, what you described really fits that fits that saying, as well done, I got a friend that he's all excited about Tesla's market evaluation, beating Toyota for the first time ever. And I told him, I said, Ilan has got a long way to go to catch up. That looks like a dumb, right? Like, they just like, I don't wanna take anything away from Tesla. Absolutely. No cool concept, what they're doing and what they're trying to achieve with the people. But you've got a lot of people at Toyota that even when they retire, they don't stop doing it. No. They they go out and they can't turn it off. I think that, yeah, that is the so encouraging, and there's no reason to stop. Right?

Katie Anderson  46:19  
Well, once you're a lifelong learner, you're a lifelong learner. Right. And I mean, that goes Mr. Yoshino as well, you know, the last 10 years, he's worked as a lecturer at the university to teach and he sees it as his passion, and his sort of life's mission now to help teach this type of thinking to young Japanese students who have actually been raised in a much more traditional, like, yes or no have the right answer type of education, the environment. And so he approaches his students and the way he engages with them in the same way he would have if he was working with his direct reports and helping them find their purpose their, their, you know, their work threads, and how are they learning? And how are they developing? And what are they discovering? And how are they integrating those two? It's, it's quite, it's quite inspirational, really, about how do we, how do we keep that curiosity and commitment to helping other people throughout our lives.

Felipe Engineer  47:24  
I heard from a philosopher Katie to pile on to that, that said that you studied different languages and cultures, and you've been around the planet, the English language tends to be a very linear language. And it kind of is more causal. And it takes you to, like logical ends, where some of the other Eastern languages, especially in some of the Asian languages, there's a natural reflection just built into how people speak. And this whole concept of I bumped into a bartender once when I was in Missouri of all places. And the bartender was half Japanese, half American. And she was telling me that when she was talking about stuff while I was waiting for the line to go down, and and I said, Hey, I learned something about Japanese people bond, say, and I said, can you tell me about and she started laughing so loud, she said, Every time she was a little kid, and she misbehaved, her parents told her go to the Hon say, Yeah, she had to reflect. So from very early on, she had all these great experiences on reflecting, yes, that was not something that I remember growing up doing, and my parents saying, hey, you need to reflect on this. Like, never, for sure.

Katie Anderson  48:36  
And first, I actually want to tell you that my the the working title of the of the book, was practicing Han se, because to me, that is the meta story of the book was the practice of reflection and self reflection, and was fundamental not only to the creation of this book, but also to the learnings that happened along the way. And so but I also wanted it really fundamentally the Han say, was about pulling out the concepts of learning and leading. And so I settled on that for the title, but all the reflection questions, then I pulled in that title there for practicing Han say, to encourage people to not just read the story and say, oh, is a good story or an interesting story, but to then, is a challenge for practicing Han say on themselves to reflect on their own experiences and learn? So that's just one as it relates to the book, but practicing Han se was my working title. And then yes, at home with my 6 year olds and nine year old, we have been really intentional about as well, one of the first thing that one of the nice elements about COVID is we have a lot more family dinners, you know, my husband's not commuting to work and I'm not traveling on the road as much. And we have family dinner almost every night together, which has been great. And we have a practice of asking each other questions but not just cursory. Like, how was your day but there's, you know, what's, you know, what's one thing you are grateful for? What's working One thing you learned, but absolutely, I think having those intentional reflection questions at dinner, so not just how was your day but like, what's, what's one thing you're grateful for? What's one thing you learned? Or what's one thing that was challenging? And I learned that using the one thing has been really helpful and actually learned it from a woman who is my coach and mentor, who is part of my chain of learning. Actually, she was mentored by john shuck, so she's part of my direct lineage to to Esau Yoshino, but Margie helped teach me with a lot of the facilitation skills and style that I have. And I love this question is like, what's one thing because sometimes people get overwhelmed. When you're like, you ask a question, you know, what do you think about or how was your day? Or what are you learning? It's like, Hi, I have to think about everything. But if you say, what's one thing, most people can think of one thing. And so I actually use that with adults, too, when I'm facilitating a workshop or one on one coaching or in a group because people can usually identify one thing. And then then we build on build on it from there.

Felipe Engineer  51:06  
That's a good move. I'm gonna steal that.

Katie Anderson  51:07  
Yeah, that's great. Please do that's the one that bring in a question. But open ended. But what's one thing or?

Felipe Engineer  51:14  
Yeah, I even do some things where we'll show like, a photograph of a process. And I'll just ask people, like, Where do you see yourself doing well in this? Or where do you see it missing? to get people to see an align on? What can we fix? Because it's invisible? Right? Everyone's just like, go to work. You know what to do? It's like, I don't think we do. If it was that easy, we'd already have it. Yes. yesterday.

Katie Anderson  51:42  
Right. And it's so overwhelming to to like think oh my gosh, especially if you are you're a big picture thinker. And you can see the unplaced that you want to get to. Well, that can be overwhelming. Okay, well, what's one thing you can try? What's one thing you can do differently tomorrow, and it helps break it down and feel more manageable and achievable. And then you know, slowly by slowly we we move slowly by slowly, step by step. Now, we move we move in that direction.

Felipe Engineer  52:09  
I do want to pull out of you one. One way, I know there are many. But what's one way for a leader with direct reports to reflect and better communicate their purpose? To give like, a way you could pretend it's me too. Because Yeah, that makes it easier.

Katie Anderson  52:30  
So I have a clarifying question to sound like, there were two questions in there. Like, one's one way to reflect and then another is one way to share their purpose, or?

Felipe Engineer  52:40  
Yeah, well, I think a lot of people that our leadership positions, and this is just my assumption, are not clear on their purpose in that, like the read in the story, Yoshino was just like, such a long time ago to be so knowing where you want it to go. And like you knowing you wanted to travel at such a young age. I think that's really rare. And I look back on my life, I had to do a reflection in Business School, like connecting they call the connecting the dots where you had to go back like a decade, and write some big things and then talk about what came to mind and how they're connected. And I've never done that in my entire life until I was forced to. So you can think of me Katie, if you had a forceful reflective communicate my purpose. How would you?

Katie Anderson  53:30  
It's both reflecting on and then communicating the purpose. So I, I you want so one of the things Mr. Yoshino have many, many missions, that many things to me, but in his reflection in this experience of working on the book together, he said that the process of now looking backwards, he's seeing connections that he hadn't even before. And also him talking to me, and then me sort of reflecting it back with him. So he's seeing connections in a different way. And, and so we may not know our purpose in the beginning, but how do we take that time to start? I love that concept of connecting the dots, as well. It's what are some of the common themes we've been seeing, because we may not even be aware that there have been some compelling elements of our life that really have driven a lot of the decisions that we've had and made. And so being able to start seeing that interconnection, for example, I my career has not been linear. I started off thinking I was going to get my PhD and do HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH. I pivoted from that, but even though I'm a lifelong learner, moved into consulting and then from that process improvement and then from that really like leadership, coaching and development, all in this new learning and people centered space. But there have been some common threads to me which is connecting with people helping, thinking deeply and so If we can anchor on those elements, and then and really get clear for us, what are we trying to do? Like? Is it important for us to be right? Or is it more important for us to be creating, and helping other people to improve? So one way that I helped, so you asked for one way, so I'm not sort of expanding on many, many thoughts. So this is something that I've brought into my practice a lot more in the last two years. And it's drawing, and using drawing to reflect. And then you can put words on top of it. But sometimes, what we see in a drawing Can, can highlight things that we may not have been aware of, and also communicate elements that words might not have been as easy to convey. And it's a practice that I've reincorporated into my world, buy care through my work with Karen Ross, in our in our partnership for our coaching communities. And it can be really powerful. So now I ask leaders or people in workshops to say draw your purpose. And it may not be the person, you know, fully articulated a time. But yeah, it's really amazing what people draw, even if they're like, Oh, I can't draw stick figures, but it reconnects with the heart in a different way. And then I would say, use that as a communication tool to talk to your people about what your purpose is. And I and I suggest to people to to be transparent also that it's okay to be a leader who is is learning, like us, right? And that's the like, I'm leadership. Yes. And so to say, you know, wow, I'm really trying, for example, and I also help people to see how the things that they say may actually be inhibiting the outcomes they're wanting to see. So I mean, maybe they're telling more, or they think they're asking good, sort of effective questions, but they're really asking very directive, closed ended questions that are really their idea, disguised as a question. And so they could say to the people that they're working with my, my intention here is to help you solve, solve this problem. You know, I have some experience in the past that looks in situations that look really similar. But I want to ask some questions to help you think more deeply, and just to be able to label what you're doing. And it shows humility on your behalf as as a learner, as a leader, who is not showing up as the expert who knows it all. And that it kind of creates a level playing field and you mentioned Shawn at your shine earlier, and there already is this natural, there's this imbalance that happens when in power when we have a hierarchical structure. And so by, by saying that you're learning to and trying something different, and trying to connect, and align with your purpose as a leader, by doing something different, it sort of sort of levels that playing field and people might feel more comfortable coming forward and starts to create that culture where it's okay to not have all of the answers right away.

Felipe Engineer  58:09  
Like that keeps the responsibility with the one that means to do the learning, it doesn't take away from the leader having to learn, which I love that you said and made explicit. Because that there's no such thing as arrived at destination, unless you're traveling somewhere physically. Yeah. Right. I don't know where we're going. I have an idea. With some of intention, I need to do more reflection myself. I'm going to try what you recommend Katie, and I'm going to draw my purpose as well.

Katie Anderson  58:35  
Please, I'd love to see your picture. Yeah, I need to refine my picture. No, I did my drawing like a year ago. It's a globe with people connected all around it. And that's nice. It says minds about connecting people around the world to help them live and lead with intention so very much connecting with what your purpose and then how do you align your actions in that direction?

Oh, I like that one. I'm not gonna steal that. I'm not gonna That's right. You have your own but you can. No, I can't be around the globe.

Because that, you know, that connects to my, my purpose to have been a world traveler. Yes. Well, learning Japanese was well, working towards learning Japanese. I certainly, I did pass the lowest level of this the national proficiency exam. So I was very proud of that after only 12 months of living in Japan. But it was a very good experience as a learner, because the grammar structure of the language is so opposite with the verb always at the end and it's so it doesn't follow you know, the English or the other or the romance languages in the structure. And so it was just had to let go and then also learning to read a whole nother two alphabets and then a symbol language was also so interesting. It's given me great empathy for My children learning to read because I'm, I was an early reader and in you know in the English language and reading came very easily to me. And I can even speed read without even trying and it's just habit just my brain it just sort of happens I can't I can't when I'm aware of it then it doesn't work but like, but my, when I read Japanese, I actually have to look at every letter and then create the word from there. So I would write the Roman characters above because I could read those quickly and compute into the word but to see the Japanese characters, I had to put it together only certain words could I recognize as the whole word. And so to me, it was super fascinating about how our brains process information. And, and it was a sort of a humility for myself too, because reading has always been so easy that Well, it wasn't just like clicking was like, all sudden, I could just read Japanese, but it was, you know, coming with practice, but it took a lot of intentionality and purposeful practice to, you know, move in, move in that direction.

Felipe Engineer  1:01:05  
What's a what's a good translation for Kaizen in English? 

Katie Anderson  1:01:10  
Oh, I mean, so, you're gonna, I'm gonna do a little bit of a spoiler here at the end of the book, but I'm in your wavelengths. I mean, I feel it's alright. Alright, so Well, two things. So the, I got also a little obsessed with the Japanese characters and sort of the symbolism of that, but that the two characters that makeup Chi and Zen one comes from self and the other has a part of a character as whip. And so actually, it's changing yourself is more Kaizen is more about changing yourself for the good, not just change, change for the good, but itself whip for the good. So how do you how do you look within and start with yourself to create change, and so we just translated as continuous improvement. And then how it relates to the book is that the two pillars of the Toyota way, have been translated as they translated but Translated by Toyota in their document, the Toyota way 2001 as respect for people and continuous improvement. Respect for people actually has a richer translation, there are two words, or two meanings for respect. And there's sort of respect for people or person because you have a higher position that I am, you know, I respect you because you have a certain title, or you're older than I am. And then there's a different word for respect, meaning that it's really the respect for humanity, I have a deep connection and respect for you because of who you are as a human being. And that's the meaning that is in respect for people. But our words, sort of, I guess, gloss over that. And then the second around continuous improvement in the toilet away 2001. The Japanese version actually has two words, it's che tau Kaizen. So toe meaning and ga means wisdom. It's wisdom and improved for the better continuous improvement. And, and they left off the word wisdom, they just put Kaizen. And to me that is like, that's the missing secret sauce. Because wisdom gets back to this concept that the only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning. And learning comes from, you know, you develop knowledge, and then it's through that generational learning and knowledge is where the wisdom happens. And so we totally lost the concept of wisdom as part of the purpose of Kaizen, you know.

Felipe Engineer  1:03:40  
It's so that's a really good insight there, Katie. I appreciate that. I I'm huge on context and history and some of your your firing that for all all. Yes, for me right now.

Katie Anderson  1:03:52  
Well, you can I have Mr. Yoshino is the the one who explained explain that to me. Actually, I have to also give a shout out to Michelle Valjean, who was the one who he speaks Japanese, as well. And he was the one who asked that question to Mr. Yoshino. And it sparked our discussion around the pillars of the Toyota way and what that what that meant, but to me that word wisdom is so powerful, as well as the concept of Kaizen meaning, change, change yourself, for the better. It's not at all just about processes and other people or the things in the work. How do we improve ourselves so that we're creating good.

Felipe Engineer  1:04:28  
So I was listening to some other watching a TED video this weekend. And the speaker can't remember the gentleman's name had mentioned, like we've we've hit the age of information. And then we thought we were headed towards knowledge. And he's like, in as you look back in history, we never hit this like golden age of wisdom, at least in recorded history. We don't get it. He's like there's little spurts of it. We just don't holistically get it. And then that led him to pivot out of business and start working in the school system of all places. To give kids access to this idea of how to develop wisdom and knowing when to apply knowledge and when not to. And the only place I've seen it as an adult has been in when I'm studying Toyota, and the other that types of hearing that Kaizen with wisdom are connected. It just makes it so much more obvious why they're lightyears ahead. Yes.

Katie Anderson  1:05:22  
And, and so interesting to me that they were the ones that left that out in their translation.

Felipe Engineer  1:05:29  
Like and john said, you know, the translation problem and managing to learn was a rushed process gave me a little book joke for anyone who's read. This has been great having you on Thank you so much. I feel like there's more for us to unpack in the future, we'll need to have you come on again, when you can and share some more of your your knowledge with with the audience because I got to give.

Katie Anderson  1:05:55  
I'd love I'd love to, it's been a great conversation. And I really do hope people have an opportunity to read and learn the wisdom from Mr. Yoshino in that I've captured and learning to lead leading to learn and, and some of my some of my little nuggets of wisdom in there as well. But certainly, we can learn so much from the past. And then what do we do with that? And how do we how do we look within practice, Han say, and then look to how we can change for the better for the future as well? 

Felipe Engineer  1:06:25  
Yeah, I love that, Katie. Oh, perfect. And for those of you that haven't picked up Katie's book, Get it. Get the book. Now, Katie gives you amazing questions at the end of every chapter to help your learning and reflection. So you can make this a habit so that YouTube can have some improvement. What do you call it? self improvement. Yeah. Self self whip for the Good. Good. Yeah. self worth for the good. That's gonna be the title of the podcast. So we'll just whip it a little Divo reference for the on there. Hello, that though? That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Katie.

Very special thanks to my guest. I'm Felipe, Engineer Manriquez. The EBFC show is created by Felipe and produced by passion to build easier and better. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, everybody. Let's go build!