GA 242 | How to Leverage Different Lean Experiences with Katie Anderson

He had done something wrong, but the supervisors and managers, they came to him and they were not blaming him. They just were looking at the process and they saw that the cans looked very similar and they said, you know, oh, this is our responsibility. We did not set up the working conditions for you to do this right. So it's our responsibility.

Today. I'm excited to welcome Katie Anderson to the show. Now we're going to be continuing our AME series of interviews. So Katie and I had a lot of fun chatting face to face. We've had lots of conversations over email and phone and Skype and all that kind of stuff, but I never met face to face. So it was really, really fun to connect with Katie finally. Katie actually runs her own consulting company with KBJ Anderson Consulting. And Katie's also really dialed in with the AME community. In fact, she leads one of their consortia out in the San Francisco area. So during the episode we talk quite a bit about what that is and how that might work in your particular area. Katie also lived in Japan for a her husband was working over there, and so she took that opportunity to really connect with some of the world's leading Toyota production system experts. And so Katie shares those stories and talks quite a bit about these Japan trips that she leads now. So I think you're going to find a lot of value in this. Katie is full of energy and passion, and so I know when I was face to face with her, I just left feeling super energized. So I'm hopeful that comes through on audio now. Show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 242 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 242. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Katie, welcome back to the show. How's it going?

It's going great, Ron. It's really fun to meet you in person after talking for so long.

This is the third one I've done now here at ame and it's so much better when you can just see the person.

You know, it's a little weird. It's like.

Normally I'm like hidden behind Skype, you know, and all that, you know, so very good. Well, hey, thank you for coming on. I see a red badge. So first time to ame.

It is my first time to ame. I have always wanted to come to an AME event, but just hadn't happened. And now I've joined forces with AME to be the facilitator of the Bay Area Consortium up in San Francisco. And so I'm excited to have a formal role here.

Well, I'm gonna. Well, I'm gonna dig into that consortium because I want to more and get everyone familiar with what you guys are doing there, But. So you came on back in July 2017, episode 173. We're going to link to that in the podcast show notes gimbalpodcast.com I don't have no idea what this episode number will be, so just look for Katie Anderson towards the top of the page and we'll link to that. So, but you know how we like to start, Katie, is with a quote. Did you have one?

Yes. Well, I'm thinking of this quote that I say in my head almost every day, and it's one that I learned from my coach and mentor, Margie Hageny, and she learned it from her coach and mentor, Judy Brown. It's getting ready to talk is not the same thing as listening and as an extrovert. And I imagine this might be the case for you too, Ron. It's something I have to remind myself about. How do I stay present in the moment? And how do I not get worried about what I'm going to say next that I stop listening? So even for a podcast here, I will be repeating that to myself as well.

My friend, Brandon Brown. Do you know Brandon?

I have not met him, but I know of him.

So he's a prolific, you know, lean thinker guy. And what he's taught me, just by his practice, the way he goes about things, is that silence is okay.

Yes.

It is so hard, though.

I know.

You know, like, silence is hard, but, you know, but that's what it is. We're always trying to fill spaces. That's why we say so, you know, because we're scared of silence.

I've brought in a practice that I also learned from Margie because it's a great countermeasure for those of us who are used to having to fill that space is count to 10 if you ask a question. Give people space to think. Especially when you're up in the room facilitating an event, you know, and someone says, any questions? Oh, okay. Nope, move on. Usually around 6, 7, 8. In your head is when people speak up because they needed to think of something or have the space to, you know, raise their questions. So getting ready to talk is not the same thing as listening.

I love it.

I love it.

All right, Katie. For folks that didn't listen to episode 173, tell us a little bit about who you are, your background, how you first came to learn about all this continuous improvement stuff, and then what you're up to these days.

Great. I came into the lean world about 12 years ago. I had a prior career in health policy and healthcare consulting and then joined at Stanford Children's Hospital on their performance improvement department and got on my own personal Lean Journey, which mirrored the organization's lean journey as well as subsequently took another role at a large healthcare system also in Northern California, and then started my own consulting practice just about five years ago. Really focused on the people side of lean. How do we create organizations filled with problem solvers, and how do we show up more effectively as leaders to do that? And separately, but related, we as a family had a chance to move to Japan for my husband's job, which was super exciting for me as a lean practitioner. I mean, could there be a better place for me to go? And we lived in Tokyo for 18 years, months. And during that time I set out with intention to make as many connections as possible, learn as much as I could, and started writing a blog. And now I'm leading trips to Japan to bring those experiences to other people as well. And so we can talk a little bit more about that later today, too.

Oh, I've loved reading all your stories. You're a very good writer, by the way.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's hard. You know, writing's hard. Communicating by written word is hard. But you do a great job. So. All right, well, so let's talk a little bit about what you've been up to. You know, I understand you just went on a pretty big trip.

I did.

So tell us about that.

So I, amazingly, had not been on an airplane for over two months, which has been a bit unusual for me. But I was out in Europe, in the Netherlands, for two different experiences. One was the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, and then another was for a university out in Nijmegen, both talking about how do we show up more effectively to create problem solvers and sort of the coaching roles that we need to play, either when we have a role called coach or as a leader. But what was super exciting for me, in addition to teaching workshops, was leading a double header breakout session with ASAO Yoshino on asking effective questions. And for your listeners who don't know who ASAO Yoshino is, open your book, Managing to Learn by John Shook. And in the acknowledgments in the forward, he says that he attributes his knowledge of A three thinking to his first two managers, one of whom was ASAO Yoshino. And when I lived in Japan, I had the deep honor and pleasure to establish not only a relationship with Mr. Yoshino, but a friendship. Wow.

How did you meet him? Like, what did you do to call him up?

No, it was serendipity of life, you know, sometimes it just you have to take those experiences. So we had just found out about my husband's opportunity to move to Japan. This was in 2014. And I was at the Lean Coaching Summit and John Shook was there. And it turned out that ASAO Yoshino was in la. He invited him to come to the conference. They were on stage. I met Mr. Yoshino afterwards and he gave me his card and said, come look me up when you move to Japan. I'll take you to Toyota and we can spend the day together.

Wow.

I was doing like a super dance inside. You know, you're like telling your husband.

Can we go a little early?

Yeah, I know we gotta go. I was super, super excited. And so a few months after we arrived and got settled, we went. I actually took my husband too. I said, you have to take the day off of work. This is a super unique opportunity. We jumped on the Shinkansen bullet train and went down to Nagoya. Mr. Yoshino met us. He had a rental car, a Toyota, of course, and took us out to Toyota City and we did the tour of Toyota and the museum there, and then went back to the local university where he teaches English and American culture to young Japanese students.

Interesting.

And we spent the day. And after that, I said, you know, carpe diem. I'm here in Japan and I'm gonna go down and spend time with him as much as I can. So about every two months or so, I would just get on the bullet train, 90 minute journey down in Nagoya, and we'd spend the day together. And we developed a friendship out of that. And gosh, I. I've been back to Japan four times since. We've moved back to California two years ago. But he's been out to the US a few times, has stayed at my house, and then we've met up in Europe twice as well.

How old is he?

He's 74.

Okay.

And what's to get around?

Pretty good.

Yeah. He has a ton of energy. It's. He's like my Japanese dad. It's really fun. And what we have been doing lately, which is really exciting, is we have. We're collaborating to write a book. Okay. And we. It's hopefully It'll be published next year. We've been working together, doing a lot of interviews online. We talk about every one, one or two weeks and been transcribing that. I've been helping pull out the stories that he hasn't even thought about for over 30 or 40 years from his experience working at Toyota, helping train the new NUMMI managers when they went to Japan for three weeks, his experiences of working with John Shook and other things throughout the totality of his career at Toyota. And so what we're going to do is bring forward those stories connected with why are they relevant to us today? Sort of those timeless leadership principles, but anchored in the development of them at Toyota from his perspective, coupled with my perspective from today.

Do you have like a working title?

I don't have a working title of a few things and I don't want to put anything out there yet.

But can you, can you give us a little sneak at maybe like one of the stories that maybe, I mean, I don't know, you're allowed to or.

No, of course. I mean, so he's. What's. What's really fun to see too is he has his third career now, which is going around the world and speaking about his experience as well. So we just want to reach a broader audience. So, you know, one of the stories that he had not thought about until one of our interviews a few months ago that he's been sharing, sharing more broadly now was it was one of his first few months at Toyota. And what they do for new trainees coming out of university is they put him on a three month training program, much of which is in the Gemba. Okay. And so he was assigned to the paint shop. I forget what I think was the Motomachi plant, but I don't quite remember which one. And his job was to put the toner in with the pigment in the paint. And they two very similar looking cans. And, you know, one time he put the wrong can into the mix. Okay. And about two hours later, one of the managers came running in saying none of the paint was sticking to the cars. And, you know, this is a problem. And it was maybe impacted about 50 cars at this point. And it turned out that he had, you know, done. Done something wrong.

Yeah.

But the supervisors and managers, they came to him and they were not blaming him. They just were looking at the process and they saw that the cans looked very similar and they said, you know, oh, this is our responsibility. We did not set up the working conditions for you to do this. Right. We knew because of our experience that this, you know, the difference between the cans. But we should have anticipated that you were a new person and wouldn't know that, and we should have labeled them or done something differently. So it's our responsibility.

And for him, they're apologizing.

They're apologizing to him that they had conditions at work that permitted him to make that mistake. And what a really important and foundational experience for him, coming in as a newbie in the mid-60s at Toyota to have. That was the culture and that that was really an impactful experience for him about, wow, that's the kind of leader I want to be. And it was around, you know, blame the process, not the person, and take responsibility. Your job as a leader is to set the conditions for someone to be successful at work.

Yeah.

And so that was really powerful to me about how. How something very subtle about the responsibility that we take as leaders can make a real impact across a broad organization.

You know what I love about doing these interviews face to face is, like, really looking at people when you're talking. And, like, I want to ask you a question. It's just off the wall, like, definitely not planned, but, like, you're so, like, passionate Right. About this topic, you know, And I'm sure just like, life in general, I'm guessing you're pretty passionate about life, but where does it come from? Like, where do you think your passion for this stuff comes from?

You know, that's because it's kind of contagious.

I mean, I'm passionate about it, and you're, like, pumping me up.

I know. I feel the same way. You know, you and I both have a lot of energy, and I can even feel on our past calls and, like, build off of each other, but where does that come from? You know, I have always gotten a lot of energy from seeing people make small improvements in their own work and getting excited by it. And one of the things in my prior career when I said I was doing health policy research is that I wasn't connected to people. I was doing important work, but it was disconnected to an actual human experience. It wasn't tangible. And when I shifted working directly with people, that's where it really lit up for me. I've always just enjoyed supporting people, engaging with them, and more importantly, helping them find the pathway to what's great for them. And it just. It gives me a ton of energy.

Wow, that's so cool. Y' all listening need to hire Katie to come and, like, talk, like, pump you up, man. Talk a little Bit about this ame. We're here at ame, the big conference right now, but talk about this consortium. And I know you're, you're dialed in with the San Francisco group, but what is it?

Yeah, so I was really excited when. Well, actually it's related to Japan. So I'll tell you the sort of the background of how I got involved with AME's consortia program. Michael Bremmer, who is one of the facilitators of the Chicagoland Consortium, he got connected with me while I was writing my blog, living in Japan and we became sort of pen pals then. And a year and a half ago I was in the Chicago area and we met up in person and he was about to launch the Chicago Consortium and he said, hey, you would probably be perfect for this role in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why don't you look into it? And as soon as I talked to Ryan Mecham, who is the AME National Consortia Director, I knew this was a perfect role for me because, you know, building on our talk about passion and connecting people to learning experiences, that's exactly what the consortia program is. My role is to help connect companies in the Bay Area with each other and to facilitate practitioner to practitioner learning experiences. And what AME is really looking to support through this is, you know, we have this amazing conference. There are people from all over the country and different, different countries, even internationally. And there's a lot of value in sort of an annual event like this. But where deep learning comes from is that more regular connection and experience, exploring topics together, going to each other's workplaces, learning from each other, each other's strengths, talking about the things that are challenging, determining that there may be a learning need. And maybe we pool our resources and bring someone in to help us collectively on that. And it's really based on what the members of the consortia want and need.

Yeah. So how many companies are in yours in San Francisco?

So I have now we started off with six. We just launched in April of this past year of 2018 and we've grown to 10. Interestingly, in the San Francisco Bay Area we have a majority of them are healthcare companies and then we have some biotech and other manufacturing and the other consortium, they tend to be more manufacturing right now. But we are looking for companies of all different industries and types. Really what the uniting thread is that they're all committed to their continuous improvement, excellence towards excellence, and wanting to share and learn together.

How often do you meet?

So it really depends on each of the consortia with their. What they decide to do, how we in the San Francisco Bay Area decided to experiment the past six months was meeting every sort of six to eight weeks on a regular basis to talk about a topic of their interest coupled with a go see by the host company. We've also had a few workshops. Mr. Yoshino came and did a broad event for a broad. It was open enrollment and then we had a special consortium only event as well. And so some other things. Yeah. And we have a special guest named Ron coming in to do a Toyota Kata experience for the consortium in December. So we're really. Yeah, we're excited to have you out there.

Yeah.

So it's really what the members want and need in my role is to help facilitate. To make that happen. I anticipate us having some deeper dive more roundtable discussions as we evolve as a group on topics that the. The companies are struggling with or trying to figure out. And so we have our next board meeting in a week from. Well, as we are recording in a week so early November.

So how many are across the country right now?

I think they're a six. I may be wrong. They're kind of. They're growing, but they're six or seven right now ranging from, you know, we have Cleveland and Chicago and Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Chicago area. I think I already mentioned that.

So what if you want to start one and I'm in Dallas.

Yeah. So great. So contact Ryan Mecham of the of ame. Okay. They are. He is actively looking for people who are passionate. They could either be independent consultants or working in a company.

Yeah.

Or retired. You know, it's. There is a variety of what the facilitator experience looks like. And he's looking to grow the consortia program across the country right now. So if you go to ame.org ame-consortia c o n S O R T I A you can get more information about the different consortia programs that are already in existence. Contact me directly if you're in the Bay Area, because we'd love to have you. And you can also find Ryan's contact information there if you're interested in being.

What's Ryan's last name again?

Mecham. M E C H E. Wait. M E C H E F. Yeah.

Okay.

I'm a sort of speller and so.

That we'll get everything linked up on. On a show notes page. But now you're gonna, you're gonna do a special yes page here, aren't you?

I am so if, if, if your listeners want to go to my blog, I'm going to put a page together. It has all the information here. KBJ Anderson a N-E-R-S-O n.com backslash Gemba Academy. And I'll have some resources for you and some other special gifts.

So yeah, and we'll link to everything for the consortium.

Yep. Ryan and Japan trip and some special things from Mr. Yoshino as well. From our. Yeah, our recent event.

Yeah, awesome. Okay. Talk about this Japan trip.

Yeah, so I'm dying to know. I'm super excited. I mean I had this idea when we moved to Japan that perhaps in my wildest dreams, my experiences there could lead to something like this. And so it's really thrilling to me to now bring this together. I just let a trip to about 15 people this past May to Japan and I'm leading a trip in May of 2019 as well. And it's a week long intensive learning experience and really be prepared to be transformed. It's the week of May 12th to 19th and there will be a combination of going to see some more sophisticated manufacturers who are really doing deep work in the technical side of the Toyota production system. But the focus of this trip is around people and how do organizations engage people in continuous improvement, creating cultures of respect and engagement and excellent customer service. So we're also going to a local elementary school. We're going to the town of Ashikaga where I have personal connections which they consider themselves the 5s. I'm doing air quotes, the 5s capital of Japan where they use the concepts of 5s as a way to invigorate the society and also create improvement in industry as well. Revitalize is the word that they use. And then we're going to have some amazing cultural experiences as well. Plus Mr. Yoshino is going to join us for three days of the trip on the bus, at lunches, at dinners. And so people will have not only a chance to hear from him, from formalized lectures and learning experiences, but just talk with him one on one.

You speak Japanese, don't you?

I passed the lowest level of the Japanese language proficiency exam one year after moving there. So I can.

Well, you weren't there long though.

No, no, I can chit chat. I could say Ron and I are here talking today and you know, I had a good dinner last night and I came here on airplane and I have two children, which was great because it gave me an entry point into creating connections with people that you were.

Trying at least Yeah, I was trying.

And also, you can. You can learn a lot from people. I could go talk to a bartender or a taxi driver and create a human connection that you can't if you don't speak any of the language. And how did you learn? I had. I got hired a tutor and I practiced. And also I set a goal for myself to take that test, and it held me accountable for, you know, learning the katakana and hiragana and learning how to read. Yeah, 50 kanji. And I would. I still do this. When I walk around Japan, I'm like, trying to read everything and sound it out. I have a long way to go, and I've lost a lot of the language. But I still have periodic calls with my business.

Have you ever interacted with my business partner, John Miller?

No, but I. Well, I have online.

Yeah. So, you know, he was born and raised in Japan, so he speaks fluently.

Yeah, Just call up John, practice. It would be a bit embarrassing to say, hi, John, I talked to you on the telephone today.

He would love it, man.

No, I'd love to be connected with him and talk about Japan.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So, yeah, I don't want to talk offline as well. I want to go myself, selfishly.

Come on. Yeah, So I have all the details for the trip again on my website. I'll link to this on the KBJ Anderson site, but you can go directly to learn about the Japan page or the Japan trip on my website@kbjanderson.com backslash japantrip.

Okay, so perfect. Perfect. So good. So good. So what? Kind of related, but a little bit off the topic. I'm asking folks this week to share just some advice for folks who are maybe beginning their journey. You know, we got a lot of people at AME in particular, you see a lot of red. I mean, some people are very new, you know, I know you're red, you're not new, but. Yeah, but there's a lot of people who are brand new. Like, what advice do you have for those folks that are just starting this journey or safari?

Right. I know. And, you know, you can see Companies who are 10 years down the line and think, wow, how am I ever going to get there? It's like how some of us look at Toyota. I always try to remind people and myself it's about getting a little bit better. So how are we going to get a little bit better today? And also choose a goal, like a target condition, might you say, that's one year out. Okay. And so we have a vision of where we want to be. But what's one year out? And then what are some steps that we're going to take, you know, this week, this month, towards getting a bit better. And don't try and do it all. Yeah, but like choose a few things and focus on that and then start building the scaffolding to make the improvements and create the system. Iterate, iterate. And also not try and not try and bring in everything, you know, oh, we're gonna do Hoshin and we're gonna do, you know, Kaizen events and we're gonna do Toyota Kata and we're jumping at all the sort of tools that you might see.

Yeah.

And go back to some of the key principles around how do we engage people who are closest to the work in solving problems? And also how do we have a learning mindset around problem solving? And that can be applied at the front line or at the executive level. And so how do we start bringing in that practice at all levels of the system?

And what about on the flip side, the super uber 20 year veteran company who probably doesn't think they know at all because if they get it, they know they're always learning. But what advice do you have for those folks?

We all have opportunities for ongoing improvement and so to again start challenging themselves around what does better look like for them and what does better look like for their customers. You know, this morning the AME conference started off with the topic of innovation. So if we get complacent around what we're doing today, we may miss out on where we need to be tomorrow. So great. If you've created stability in your system and you have connection from strategy down to the front line and people solving problems, that's fantastic. Keep that up and start using now some of that free brain space to be thinking about where do we need to go and how do we make those connections of those topics that we make not even be able to put together now.

Yeah, I love it. Give the website one more time with the Gemba Academy one.

Okay, so that's KBJ Anderson. A N-E-R-S-O N.com Gemba Academy.

Yeah. All right, very good. Katie, I know you're on LinkedIn and Twitter.

All the rest of it, it's all ABJ Anderson.

Okay. Yeah, we'll get everybody linked up with you. Thank you again for awesome meeting you.

Face you too. And I can't wait to have you in the Bay Area in December. I know it's gonna be super fun.

It's gonna be beautiful.

Hopefully.

Yeah. Right.

But generally, yeah.

Awesome.

Good. Yeah. We get to actually shake hands.

Yes. Okay. Take care.

Good. Thanks, Ron.

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