Katie Anderson: ‘Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn’ Audiobook Launch & 1st Anniversary

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My guest for Episode #420 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Katie Anderson, appearing for the sixth time and the first time as a live-streaming guest! Katie is a leadership & learning coach, consultant, speaker, author | Japan Study Trip Leader. She's the founder and principal consultant at her own firm. You can find previous episodes here.

She's the author of the book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning. Tomorrow is the first anniversary (or birthday) of the book! To celebrate, there's a short-term Kindle book sale (99 cents or 99 pence in the UK) from Wednesday to Friday this week July 14, 15, 16.

We're also celebrating that tomorrow is the official release date for the audiobook! It's available through Amazon or Audible.

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Topics, questions, and links related to today's episode include:

• You asked yesterday, in your email newsletter, “What does leadership mean to you?” — how do you answer that question?
• How has your answer changed thanks to the influence of Mr. Yoshino?
• What have you learned in the past year since the publication of your book? Or I should ask, what stands out most in terms of what you have learned?
• Did the audiobook process yield any further content to the print edition?
• What was the process for creating and recording the audio book?
• Is there something new, work related or otherwise, that you've started learning recently? Has helped you think about learning, coaching, and practicing differently?
• You and Mr. Yoshino were guests together on “My Favorite Mistake” — if I had a podcast called “My Most Recent Mistake” — what is one that comes to mind?
• Best Thing / Worst Thing — What's the best thing and the worst thing about…
  • Writing and publishing a book?
  • Working in healthcare improvement?
  • Being active on LinkedIn?
  • Living in Japan full time as an American?
  • The gelato post that Katie wrote
• Tell us about some of the coaching you've been doing, including the K2C2 Coaching Communities…
  • The “Leading to Learn Accelerator”?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

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Watch the Episode:

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Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)

Here is the transcript redone as a clean verbatim version.

I have kept the entire conversation intact (including the tangents about the FaceTime interruption and the audience question about Japanese universities) but have removed the timestamps, corrected the spelling (e.g., “poka-yoke,” “Hansei,” “Daruma”), and fixed the punctuation for readability.

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Announcer: Welcome to the Lean Blog Podcast. Visit our website at www.leanblog.org. Now here's your host, Mark Graban.

Mark Graban: Hi everybody. Mark Graban here. It's episode 420 for July 13th, 2021. This is probably the last live episode that we'll do over the summer. We'll continue revisiting past episodes from the 15 years of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast. For show notes and links and more go to leanblog.org/420. Today is a conversation with Katie Anderson. This was live-streamed earlier today through LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. And that's… it's probably not something that's to become–that won't become standardized work for this podcast, but we'll continue experimenting with that in different ways in the future.

So here is that episode, the recording of the live stream with Katie. Everybody welcome to this special live-streamed and recorded episode of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast. I'm your host Mark Graban. This is episode 420 of the podcast. So you'll be able to find show notes at leanblog.org/420. So before I give a little bit more of an introduction to our guest, Katie Anderson… Katie, how are you doing?

Katie Anderson: I'm great, Mark. And I'm really excited to be here today. And I believe this is my sixth episode with you. So this is exciting to continue our conversations.

Mark Graban: Yes, it is the sixth time that you've been a guest. And I think we'll be able to explore some topics and questions that we haven't covered before. So I'll put a link in the show notes if people want to go listen to those previous episodes, because the first time I interviewed you, you were actually at the time living in Japan.

Katie Anderson: I was. I think it was in the first six months of me living in Japan back in 2015, which now is starting to feel like a long time ago. It continued my journey. And that time was the genesis of so much that we're going to talk about here today. So I'm looking forward to looking back and looking ahead.

Mark Graban: And so we can kind of trace Katie's journey a little bit through these different podcast episodes. And to tell you a little bit more about her, if you don't know Katie, she is a leadership and learning coach. She is a consultant. She's a speaker, she's an author. She has been a Japan study trip leader. And I know she was very much looking forward to being able to do that again in the future–fingers crossed. For those who are just listening, she is the founder and principal consultant at her own firm. And one of the things we're celebrating today is she is the author of a book titled Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning.¹

And tomorrow is the first anniversary of the book, right, Katie?²

Katie Anderson: Yes. I can't believe it's been a year already that the book's been out and it's a really exciting week here.³

Mark Graban: Another thing that makes this exciting, not just celeb⁴rating the first… is it a book's birthday or an anniversary? I'm not sure.

Katie Anderson: I don't know. After having been someone who's given birth, maybe… well, maybe a book is like birthing a book. We could call it the birthday or its publication anniversary, the launch.

Mark Graban: So the launch, first anniversary of the launch this week. Tomorrow is the launch of… I'll just let you tell it.⁵⁶

Katie Anderson: Oh, of the audiobook version. So last July in 2020, we published the print version and the ebook version of Le⁷arning to Lead, Leading to Learn. And I had so many req⁸uests for an audio version. So it was one of my top priorities for this year. And it's narrated by me with guest appearances by Isao Yoshino, who is the subject of my book, and John Shook who read his foreword. And I'm really thrilled to be coordinating the release of the audiobook on the anniversary or birthday of the book's release.

Mark Graban: Well, congratulations on that milestone. And one other thing Katie is doing to celebrate the anniversary of the book, which is also available as a Kindle book… if you want to tell them real quick about the Kindle book sale?⁹

Katie Anderson: Oh yes. So thank you, Mark. In celebrat¹⁰ion of the anniversary of the book's release, we're running a three-day Kindle sale. It will be 99 cents or 99 pence in the US and UK Amazon markets. So if you're looking to get your copy, Wednesday, July 14th, 15th, and 16th of 2021, there'll be a 99 cents and pence Kindle deal in your region. So I'm really excited to be able to do that.

Mark Graban: And I'll make sure there's a link to that in the show notes where people will be able to find that on Amazon. So we're going to dive into some questions and we've got the opportunity for the audience to submit questions. Before I talk a¹¹bout that, it's just cool to scroll throu¹²gh. We've got people here from India, the UK, Serbia, Syracuse New York, Louisiana, Pittsburgh, Ghana, Bangladesh, Croatia, Ontario, Texas, my home state originally of Michigan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico City. This is pretty amazing that we get to reach so many people from so many cou¹³ntries. And thank you for joining us here today.

I've got some questions I'm going to kick things off with, but if you would like to submit a question for Katie, use the chat. I'm going to do my best to help scroll through and manage this. But please clearly label if you're submitting a question–put an all caps “QUESTION” to make it clear because sometimes people want to just comment and that's great, but if there is something that you're submitting as a question, please clearly label it. I'm more likely to be able to get to that question. It's part of the experiment of doing something a little bit new.

Yeah. So Katie, first question for you. You sent out an email newsletter recently and you asked a question of your audience and your readers in your community: What does leadership mean to you? How do you answer that question?

Katie Anderson: So, you know, leadership can mean many things, but what I've really come to believe is it boils down to three essential points. And this is something I discovered through working with Mr. Yoshino and writing the book and learning so much about what leadership meant from his perspective ov¹⁴er 40 years at Toyota, as well as my own experience working with leaders aro¹⁵und the world in my coaching and consulting practice. Leaders have three really essential roles or purposes.

The first is to set direction or provide clarity of purpose, of direction, of targets. The second is then help their people, so support people to achieve those goals or move towards the direction. And then the third is to develop themselves. And so if we do all those things like set a clear direction, develop and support people, and then develop ourselves as well… to me, that is the essence of leadership. We're helping people move towards a new challenge, a new destination, but we're also developing their capabilities at the same time and not forgetting that we need to develop our own capabilities and leadership and coaching and problem solving as well.

Mark Graban: So from those three things, are they equally difficult? Is one of those, do you think, more difficult or does it depend on the person and their circumstances?¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

Katie Anderson: I think it really depends. All of us have different challenges and different things that come more easi¹⁹ly and things that are more challenging for us. And I'd say when I talk about lean and continuous ²⁰improvement in organizations, I'd say the same thing. You know, people say, “Oh, it's so easy for Toyo²¹ta” or “It must be easier in Japan” and that's not actually true. The sort of principles and the… how to be a better leader, how to be a better learning organization–the things that challenge us depend on our own circumstances and abilities.²²

So, for example, for me, I'm an extrovert and I found that it was harder for me to sit in silence and to not interrupt people. I re²³ally wanted to hear what they had to say, but my own desire to contribute sometimes overcame that. That might not be the same challenge for someone who might be a bit quieter. So everyone has different challenges, but how can we then learn to provide that clarity? What does it mean to develop and support other people? And then what are the things that are our challenges and opportunities for ourselves to learn and develop?

Mark Graban: Now either from your time living in Japan and traveling to Japan with the study trips and all of the time that you've spent talking to Mr. Yoshino, do you think your answer to the question of “What is leadership” has changed or evolved through that influence?²⁴²⁵

Katie Anderson: I mean, absolutely it evolves because we learn through our own experiences and what we're exposed to. And so if our think²⁶ing doesn't evolve, then we're sort of stagnant. I would say it's nothing in the last, maybe 10 years, anything that's dramatically ²⁷new. It's just maybe a deeper appreciation for concepts and for practices and for what it really means to show up in these ways. And so, you know, my own challenges and opportunities to work with people… I've learned about myself and I've really learned from Mr. Yoshino and his experiences too. So again, not… I think these leadership lessons are really timeless.²⁸²⁹³⁰

Actually, one of the taglines I was thinking about a year and a half ago when I was working on the book was like “time³¹less leadership lessons,” because they aren't anything new. However, when we see them from different angles and maybe ³²hear different experiences, we can have a renewed appreciation for what it means in practice.³³

Mark Graban: And when you thi³⁴nk about… so we use that word “practice.” You used the word “deliberate” a lot, so we can maybe, or “intentional” actually is the word you use more often, right? Intentional practice. We can combine those words. I like that word practice a lot. That's why I've titled one of the books that I collaborated with others on Practicing Lean. And leadership is something also, I just want to hear your thoughts on the idea of maybe not just practicing lean, but practicing leading, practicing coaching as you've been doing a lot of recently. What are some of the thoughts that come to mind? The thinking of this evolution that we go through… It's not “Yes, No, I haven't been trained, now I'm trained. Wasn't good at this, now I'm good at this.” What are your thoughts on that practicing?

Katie Anderson: I love that word practice as well. You know, I think it's… I talk about how do we connect purpose, process, and practice, and it's through the practice that we then achieve higher levels of performance. Yet we're never really reaching that destination of perfection or the ultimate expert. We're just continuing to learn and evolve along the way. And so I think when we think about it as practice, it really helps ground us that we're always learning and where there's always new things that we can do, or the opportunities for improvement. And it's when we sort of stop thinking that we have opportunities to improve that we really, I guess, lose that humility and lose that real connection for what it means to be a leader. So I love that word practice.

And you mentioned the word “intention” and that's, you know, that really is my key word and what I consider to be my purpose, which is helping inspire people around the world to live and lead with intention. And to me, that's about understanding: What's your purpose? What are your values? What's important about who you want to be? And then how do you align your actions in that direction? Because sometimes we have the ³⁵intention internally of the impact we want to have, but our actions that we take might not actually serve us in that direction. So that's our opportunity for improvement: creating greater alignment between action and purpose to deliver the impact we want.³⁶³⁷

Mark Graban: And to me, doing something with intention makes me think of our friend… you can call it the PDCA cycles or the PDSA cycles. I like to say Plan-Do-Study-Adjust. And I think doing something with intention certainly involves some planning and then some doing o³⁸r some testing, but then being inten³⁹tional about the study and adjust and making sure we're not just going and doing randomly or random things. We're not saying “just leaders, go coach and develop people” like… whenever, I don't know, something will come up, something will happen. Like, we need to go create these opportunities as a leader, right?⁴⁰⁴¹

Katie Anderson: Yes. And I prefer calling the scientific method Plan-Do-Study-Adjust as well. And I'm actually advocating for us to reframe where the acronym starts with Study and Adjust (SAP⁴²D) to emphasize how important the study and t⁴³he learning component is. We sometimes get caught in these plan-do, plan-do cycles cause PD… you know, we don't ever get to the S and the A, the study and the adjust, or the check and act. And I like to say that reflection is the beginning and not the end of learning. So we need to really deeply understand, study, and reflect on this concept in Japanese about Hansei, which is self-reflection, and how do we bring that practice more deeply into what we do every day as individ⁴⁴uals, and then at the organizational level as well?

Mark Graban: I mean, I see what you're saying about starting with study, because I think there would be a trap. I mean, there's the words, and then there's the intent and how this is taught and coached as we all practice this. I think there, I could see where there's a trap where people say, “Oh, plan, I have a plan, let's plan to do something.” Well, wait a minute. You know, I think I was taught that the initial plan does involve: make sure you understand the current state. You could call that study. I think the intent or the mindset…

Katie Anderson: There it's a, you know, it's a continuous cycle, so it's really where you start. But I like SAPD because it really reminds us to start with studying and to not skip that step. However, as long you're doing it continuously and studying and adjusting is part of your⁴⁵ continuous improvement cycle for yourself and the organization, you know, it doesn't matter. But I'm an advocate for SAPD and ⁴⁶want to start a movement.

Mark Graban: And if people… I mean there are these different traps, I think, to be careful about jumping to do planning and doing without studying and adjusting. Or, you know, I think one reason some have shifted away from saying “check” or even W. Edwards Deming, from earlier works he would talk about Plan-Do-Check-Act, and then he started writing Plan-Do-Study-Act because the one explanation I've heard of the danger of misinterpreting the word check is like it's sort of a rote “chunk the box” Plan-Do-Check that you did it. I'm like, well, no, that's not really what's mea⁴⁷nt.⁴⁸

Katie Anderson: Right. Well, and I've b⁴⁹een talking to Mr. Yoshino about this as well, because at Toyota when Deming was teaching them, he was using Plan-Do-Check-Act as the cycle. So that was what got embedded at Toyota and continued forward. And he and I have had some conversations recently about how the word “check” can make it sometimes feel even punitive. It's a “check the box” or it even shifting some of his language, but it is deeply ingrained. So in the book we talk about PDCA, although when I speak in my coaching and consulting, I talk about PDSA or SAPD.

Mark Graban: And a lot of explanations of PDSA I've even seen, you know, from Toyota people, you get into the fine print… by “do” it talks about doing a test. And the small test of change. The one proposal I've made is that we could run the risk of confusing with Parent Teacher Student Association, but the PTSA of Plan-Test-Study-Adjust. I'm like, well, if we say “do,” but then we explain “do” means “test,” I'm like, well, we could just say “test.”

Katie Anderson: Then we're getting… yeah. Or experiment. P-E-S-A that's all one word. Yes. Does it flow? It doesn't flow quite as well off the tongue.

Mark Graban: Maybe we would just have to practice saying it maybe.

Katie Anderson: Yes. And again, we're using English words, so it could be different, even different acronyms in different languages as well.

Mark Graban: So I'll come back to you. You talk about these ongoing conversations that you had with Mr. Yoshino and your collaboration and your friendship, and the coaching and the mentoring that goes on in both directions. Since the book has been published, since the book was written more than a year ago, you continue to have these conversations. I mean, what's something that stands out to you? Something that you've learned from these ongoing discussions with Mr. Yoshino that maybe wasn't even yet captured in the book?

Katie Anderson: So it was really interesting as we were writing the book and a lot of the stories that emerged and how… I've written them in a linear way, but many of the experiences came out over years. And really putting together the stories for those of you who have read or now listen to the book, the “waterski boat decade” really pieced together. And new information was even coming out in my conversations with Mr. Yoshino like a week before we published.

Mark Graban: And for those who don't know the whole story, when you say the waterski decade, if you could explain that a little bit.

Katie Anderson: Yeah. So a quick comment. So Mr. Yoshino, his last almost last decade of his time at Toyota–so the end of the nineties and into the early two thousands–he had an idea for a new business venture for Toyota. And it was a water ski boat, a high-end Lexus engine waterski boat for the US market. And it ultimately was a huge failure for a variety of reasons. And you can explore that in the book, but Mr. Yoshino always was very transparent about the fact that he had this big business failure that cost Toyota millions of dollars. And he personally felt a lot of responsibility for it, but there weren't a lot of details around what that was.

And so it took us years and years to sort of unpeel and uncover. Actually, one of the biggest gifts and joys for me that I was able to give Mr. Yoshino is a shift in his own thinking about what this failure meant. And one day he had this more joyful expression on his face and talking about it. He said, “Yeah, I've seen seeing this from a new angle and you're helping me. Your questions are helping me see this experience not always from a bad lens, but from a positive lens and the richness of the story.” And so that's an example of things that were emerging. But there was a certain point I remember sitting around like, okay, Mr. Yoshino, if anything else comes out, we're just going to have to write some articles. We got to publish this book.

So things that have come out in the last year, I would say, are less of details around stories, more discontinued reflections on what the principles and practices of leadership and leading a purposeful life have meant, particularly in a pandemic. Most of this book was constructed pre-COVID. I was revising the book when the pandemic really hit. And so really reflecting for both of us on what does this mean for us living in this new world? What does it mean to publish a book in a pandemic?

We had plans to be together multiple times across three different continents last year in 2020. Of course, that didn't happen, but we've continued to collaborate virtually. Mr. Yoshino, just the other night, we were talking about the concept of patience. He was saying he was finding it hard to be patient. And I reminded him of a quote of his from the book that he learned many years ago: that being patient requires a lot of patience. And, you know, I think that's really true that sometimes it's hard to be patient. He only recently got his vaccine at the age of 77 in Japan. This is in June. And he's ready to see people.

And thankfully we reflected on gratitude as well, that he's remained healthy during this time. And I think the concept of challenge and the Japanese proverb “Fall down seven times, get up eight” has really been true for all of us in different ways. This last year, we all had challenges. Some of us had bigger challenges than others. And continuing to do so… how do we continue to get up and move forward and learn from those experiences? And even if there are challenging times, how can we move forward in life as well? So I think those have been some of the big reflections too. And how can you still find the good in circumstances even when they're not feeling so good at the time?

Mark Graban: And we've got a question that came in kind of related to this kind of ongoing continued learning. And one thing I just noticed here, it seems like the chat coming from LinkedIn into the restream platform somehow got disconnected. So if I flip over to LinkedIn, I can actually see some questions there. So Ann asks–and we can delve into the audiobook process a little bit here–because we do like talking about process. With the new audiobook version, did the audiobook process yield any further content to the print edition? Or maybe another way of asking that is like, did you go off script and add some things or were you pretty much word for word just from the book?

Katie Anderson: Yeah. So thank you. That was really, actually, it was fun to do the narration of the book. There were… I read it verbatim for the most part. The only thing that I did add at the end was more resources, which I did. I mentioned the workbook that I've created, it's a companion guide, but that's really the only thing I went off script for. Even though there were some sentences as I was reading them like, “Oh, this is a bit wordy and challenging to say.” You know, there's some of those things that in writing seem fine, and then when you're trying to say them are more challenging. But I really did for the most part… I mean, I think it's probably 99.9% verbatim reading.

Mark Graban: So there were some Plan-Do-Study-Adjust cycles. You're planning your reading and writing to be read is different than writing to be spoken in a lot of different ways.

Katie Anderson: For sure. And, you know, I have some Japanese words throughout the book and I studied Japanese when I was living in Japan and subsequently, but I've gotten quite rusty over the last year and a half. And there were some names and some words that were tongue twisters, or I wasn't quite sure if I was saying them accurately. So I would go back and keep reading them again. So, you know, there's these things where you read it in your brain and that's fine. And then when you're saying it, you realize, “Oh, I'm not quite sure if I'm saying this right.” But in the spirit of good is better than perfect and not getting it out, I hope people will give grace if there's some small mispronunciations here and there.

Mark Graban: Well, and you know, one of the things we step back to ask about the book process… there's the writing, but then you chose to publish the book and then you created and published the audiobook. I mean, I guess you always do have the ability–I'm not trying to put pressure on you, but maybe for the second anniversary–I mean, you can always go back and fix the typo with print on demand, or you can do a revised edition at some point. You've got a lot of freedom and flexibility. That's one great thing about software.

Katie Anderson: Yes. Well, you know, you asked me earlier about my greatest mistake or my recent mistakes. So I did find some after we published the book and I'm so grateful for Karen Martin. She's a great lean thinker and author who's come before me. And she reassured me that there were going to be typos in the book, despite countless people. You know, we had hired editors and proofreaders and Mr. Yoshino and I were reading it multiple times. Still things snuck through. And so actually in the first few months, we went back and corrected a few rounds of some edits. So if you have a book that was published in the first round–you ordered it in July of 2020–you have a few more typos in there, a limited edition.

And we did go through and make some of those changes. Although I have to say, when I was reading the book for the audiobook, I found a few small edits or small typos, which we made as well. But, you know, it's a good reminder of the fallacy of human inspection. I always think about that. How do we poka-yoke, how do we error proof? And that's despite many, many, many people reading the book before publication.

Mark Graban: So, I mean, even with my book Measures of Success, which I published myself, there were… I had a professional editor working with me. There was a copy editor from a firm that did the book layout. There's even a sub-specialty of proofreader, which is, I guess, a more specific role. And still like Karen was saying, and I would have coached you the same way, even books published by large publishing houses… I mean the first edition of Jeff Liker's amazing book The Toyota Way had a typo on page one. I forget what the title of it was.

Katie Anderson: So it always makes me feel better. But I'm so grateful and glad that I chose to establish my own publishing company and retain the decision-making for all of that. I had opportunities to go with some publishing houses, but I really wanted to retain the creative control. And it was an exciting business venture for me to learn something new around the world of publishing. So that's been a fun journey and I've enjoyed it.

Mark Graban: And they also maintain business control when it comes to pricing and other decisions that a publisher might end up making for you. First edition of my first book Lean Hospitals also had a typo on page one. So, I mean, yeah, I could understand like a proofreader gets fatigued by the time they've read 30 pages and maybe they haven't taken a break, but it just goes to show like the brain and our eyes play tricks on us. And it's really hard to inspect quality into any sort of product or process.

Katie Anderson: Yes. Yeah, for sure. And I'm also excited now to be seeing the book come out in other languages, although I will not have the publishing control over that. So it's already out in Spanish published by the Lean Institute Colombia, and then I'm just signing deals right now for it to be translated into Polish and Japanese. So I'm really thrilled about that.

Mark Graban: That is great. So let's step back, you know, I'm curious 'cause I've never done an audiobook. What was some of the process that you went through in terms of not just the technology involved, but the approach that you took to turn the printed page into… how many hours of–I guess the first question, I'm asking too many questions–how many hours of listening is it and how many hours did it take to record?

Katie Anderson: Yeah, so I did not sort of document specifically how many hours, but the final audiobook is about eight hours of spoken time. And I would imagine it's about double that because of… there were some sections that I had to rerecord and then if you're stumbling over a sentence, you just keep saying it over and over again. So, you know, you can't do all that in one sitting. So it was over a period of like two weeks that I did the majority of the recording.

But going back to one of your first questions, what was the process? Number one important step for me was hiring an excellent audiobook producer. And so as the publisher and then narrator, it was important to have a professional high quality producer who would then manage all of the sound quality, the editing, then the final construction of it. So I had a great partner in that.

And, you know, where I was going to record… I was hoping it would be able to be done in my home studio. So what we did is… well, I actually recorded here on this microphone that I have, but I also got a boom and I had a special screen over it to help with reverberations. So we set that up and then we tried a few different rooms with different configurations, with blinds pulled and with different rugs and carpets. The one that actually was the best was the room that I'm typically in, in my office with the blinds pulled and with a thick rug on the carpet. And so it worked fine. Although we discovered in one of the early recordings that the chair I was sitting in made a slight squeak. And so that was a PDSA/SAPD opportunity. So I had to rerecord some of that and then we made some adjustments.

And then I asked John Shook if he would be willing to read his foreword, which he did, which is great. And then we had Mr. Yoshino read his letter to the reader and then the introductory quotes to each of the key anchor chapters. So you hear their voices throughout the book as well.

Mark Graban: Well that's great. And one thing I hear you saying, and I think this applies both to printed books or Kindle books and audiobooks. There's this balance of like when you self-publish, that doesn't mean do it all yourself?

Katie Anderson: No, no.

Mark Graban: Just to emphasize that point for anyone who's thinking of, “Well, you know, I couldn't do that.” And I think that's where self-published can be just as professional as a full-blown publishing house, because you've got access to talent that would otherwise be working sometimes as a subcontractor to a big publishing house. So self-published certainly doesn't mean unprofessional anymore.

Katie Anderson: There's such a wide range. I mean, you could just upload a Word document and truly self-publish it. I wanted this book… I founded a publishing company and I'm a publisher and I hired a team across everything to do that in the same way that a publishing house would have those people in house. And so, yeah, absolutely. I think what's great is that you can retain more flexibility and control. And as you said, and I really value that. One of the things for me as well, I also had to make a financial upfront investment to be able to hire those people. For me, knowing this book wasn't about the money. I really wanted to get the stories out and I wanted to tell it the way I wanted to tell it. So I'm really grateful for how many people have been excited by the book and reading it. And it's been wonderful.

Mark Graban: I'll also maybe adjust my own language instead of saying self-published, it would also be accurate to say “my company published the book.”

Katie Anderson: Yes. Well, Miller Creek Press. Yes.

Mark Graban: Yeah. So one other thing I wanted to ask you, we talked earlier about practice and we talk about learning and you're often coaching people who are new at their practice of coaching others or doing things related to lean or other leadership activities. Is there something new that you've started learning and practicing recently, even if it's something let's say outside of a workplace setting? Just you want to think of the power or the benefit that comes from being a new learner and going through something. Is there something that you've gone through recently or in recent years?

Katie Anderson: Well, I'm laughing because it's just been a tough year. I think for me, it's like… I'm a mom of two kids and I'm like surviving through the pandemic with homeschooling while running my business and publishing books and all that. To me, that was a really new challenge for me. I have not necessarily taken on a lot of other new sort of hobbies or activities. It's just for me really the opportunity to practice what I teach and preach from a work perspective in the home as well. Because especially with my children and we had a lot more time together–they usually are at school for part of the day, right now they're seven and ten–so figuring out how to also stay present and grounded and balanced for myself and still… all of these things that happen in a sort of chaotic business environment too. How did I do that across all spheres of my life? And so I would say this year has been a real opportunity to practice all of the leadership and coaching skills that I bring forward in my professional life to also manage across my personal life as well.

Mark Graban: So, yeah, so these are situations that you and many other people were thrust into as opposed to choosing to take on some sort of new skill or hobby or practice. But I love the way how you point out though, given those circumstances, you still had opportunities to, if you will, practice what you preach.

Katie Anderson: Oh, absolutely. I think some of my best opportunities for practice are in engaging with my family. Because… and so I do what I should demonstrate to others or I advocate, which is taking an intention pause, and reminding myself: What's my role in this moment? How do I want to be? How do I really want to be showing up? What impact do I want to have? And then are my actions really in line with that? And it can help just slow down and remind me like, yeah, actually right now, I want to lean into being with my kids and saying yes, and I can say no to work right now. Or right now work's more important.

Or, you know, I was picking my son up from the airport. He spent a week with his grandparents in the Midwest, and I found myself starting to ask closed-ended questions like, “Did you do that at camp?” And I had to remind myself: I want to hear what he has to say. Ask open-ended questions. So the very same thing that I teach all the time… this shows how ingrained our habits are. Right? I had to reframe and say, okay, yep, and really work on those “what” and “how” questions. And we had a more enriched conversation. So it's opportunities for us all and…

Somebody is calling me.

Katie Anderson: …darn it. I shut down everything. And then FaceTime still is connected to my computer. So, sorry. Now we have my recent favorite mistake.

Mark Graban: Well, so yeah, so again, and it's okay, Katie, because one of the themes of when you and Mr. Yoshino were on My Favorite Mistake, that podcast, and we talk about mistakes… one of the underlying themes of the podcast is we all make mistakes. And so here's an opportunity, like, what was I going to do? Get upset with you because your phone–that wasn't even your phone, it was your FaceTime–making a noise? These things happen. So sorry for the listeners if that jolted anybody.

But we all have recent mistakes. I mean, I clicked… and there's a reason why we try to join things like this 15 minutes early before going live, whether it's a webinar or this. I had clicked the link to go into the Restream live studio. And I thought, where's Katie? And I started to reach for my phone. I was about to text Katie and say, “Hey, do you have the right link?” And she had already texted me three minutes previous. So it says “waiting for host” while it was completely my mistake. Like Katie had clicked on the correct link that I had sent to her. I made the mistake of going into the general live studio instead of, I guess the live studio for the scheduled event was different. So, you know, things happen. And I'm not going to repeat that mistake. I've learned from it.

But with the FaceTime thing, I've completely disabled that through my computer and through my iPad, because I don't… to me, that's not a compelling feature. Like to me, that's an annoyance. It's not a bug because it's intentional, but I don't like that feature of all my devices making noise when a phone call comes.

Katie Anderson: Yeah. No, I agree with you. I'll be talking with you offline about how to disable this feature so we can do some study adjusts for next time.

Mark Graban: And as a diligent person and as a lean thinker who practices what she preaches, I know that that noise, that sound won't interrupt any future live streams or webinars or anything like that.

Katie Anderson: No, I shut everything else down too. I just hate how it's all… you can't act like it was shut down, but it's created an automatic… anyway, we'll move on from that.

Mark Graban: I think we've contained… well, actually, so we had talked about problem solving and quote unquote containment. Did you click the “do not disturb” within the Mac? That might be a short-term containment in case somebody else calls you, but…

Katie Anderson: I'll get the tutorial from you once we're done.

Mark Graban: Okay. All right. So we're gonna move forward a little bit. I want to kind of explore a couple of questions. So in episode 419 with Allison Greco, sort of have this idea that came to me for a segment. I don't know if we'll do this every episode, but we'll go through it today. I call the segment “Best Thing, Worst Thing” where we explore on some topic or theme… “what's the best thing about such and such” and “what's the worst thing about such and such.” So Katie, we've talked about writing and publishing a book through your own publishing company. First off, what's the best thing about writing and publishing a book?

Katie Anderson: The best thing for me in my perspective is the opportunity to learn and reflect really deeply on a topic. And to… I'm quiet 'cause it's a big learning experience. But to write a book requires–you know, this is 80,000 words–requires a lot of processing and reflection and being willing to throw out things you've written. And to actually… someone warned me that we'd write the book twice, the first version and the second. And that's totally true, sadly, but it was true.

I feel like I learned so much more deeply with having to create a perspective, figure out a way to weave a compelling narrative. And so I've learned so much. And so to me, that's the best thing. I guess twofold: like the opportunity for learning for myself and then to have that be something that others can learn from and value as well.

Mark Graban: I mean, the thought in my head was a similar thing about all of the learning that takes place. Like you feel like you know enough about a topic to write a book, and I've heard others say the best way to learn about some topic more deeply is to write a book because you… like, let's say it was my book Measures of Success and the Process Behavior Chart methodology. I knew it, I thought, well enough to teach it and to write, but then I dug deeper and I learned more. And then I learned more about how to teach it, like getting feedback from early readers. And so I don't know if this was your worst thing, but this idea of having to go reread what you've written and throwing or putting stuff aside because you think like, “Well, that's good, but it doesn't fit the flow.” Maybe it doesn't fit anywhere. Was that editing or self evaluation or self-criticism the worst thing? Or was it something else?

Katie Anderson: You know, for me, it's hard to say the worst thing. I think part of the process was feeling stuck at that juncture. I had a vision for how I was going to structure the book originally when we started. We started with interviews and then I was like, “Okay, well, we're going to write it based on different leadership topics.” I write about this at the beginning of the book. So each chapter would be like a leadership topic. And I was starting to write, and then I was getting really stuck at being able to… stories and experiences don't fit neatly under one sort of lesson, maybe a small vignette perhaps. And figuring out how to write that way.

And I was trained as an academic writer. My first career was as a researcher and academic researcher. I wrote academic papers published that way, have a master's thesis. And so I also had to unlearn some of my more formal writing. Writing my blog and articles, I feel like I had found my narrative voice, but I really had to lean into that as well. But yes, I think the worst part was the… gosh, it, at the very end, the tedious editing in just reading and rereading. I remember just last June in 2020, just reading manuscript after manuscript, like your eyes start to glaze over because the creativity sort of is lost at that point.

But I guess the two hardest things for me was coming across that barrier… but when I found the narrative structure using the concept of the metaphor of weaving–of the warp and the weft, the known and the discovered–and then really leaning into the narrative as a chronological narrative rather than leadership stories. And then just the tedious worst part was the proofreading and final editing, which as we've already discussed today, still resulted in small errors making their way through. But that's just the nature of it.

Mark Graban: Yeah. One of the other worst things is discovering, like, once you thought those initial publication typos and defects have been caught, and then three months later, somebody points out another one.

Katie Anderson: Poor me, narrating your own book and you're reading it and then there'll be a few points I'll be like, “Oh, shoot.” And then I would pause the recording and highlight. So yes. Opportunities abound.

Mark Graban: Yes. And so the worst thing, and this is where I figured out this framework… Best Thing, Worst Thing… Worst Thing isn't always horrible, but it's all things considered worst of some really good things that are happening.

Katie Anderson: Yeah. Well it's like reframe failure: failure is not failure if you can still learn from it. So, but you can still have a failure, but it doesn't have to be the worst thing ever in the world. So it's a framing. Yes.

Mark Graban: And that other calling that other podcast “My Favorite Learning Opportunity” doesn't have it.

Katie Anderson: No, no, it's fine. All right. The next best thing.

Mark Graban: All right. So Best Thing, Worst Thing about working in healthcare improvement when you were doing that. You have experiences that I haven't had where you actually worked full time within healthcare organizations. Best Thing, Worst Thing about working in health?

Katie Anderson: Yeah. Great. So after my career in academia, which was all based in public health by the way, I moved into working in hospitals and healthcare systems and worked internally for almost a decade doing continuous improvement in healthcare. I would say the best thing is it is so easy to rally around the mission and the people are passionate about really doing good for patients and it's inspiring, mission-driven work. And that is absolutely the best thing. You feel like you're making a real impact on important, tangible things for people. And I worked at a children's hospital for six years. And so you really feel that. I feel that as well. So absolutely the best thing.

Mark Graban: And of that, is there a worst thing that comes to mind?

Katie Anderson: Well, I think when I was reflecting on what was the worst thing, I had this vivid memory of me sitting in the office with the peri-operative business manager when I was looking at the peri-operative services and doing a whole multi-year improvement effort and some value stream work. And we were trying to figure out, or I was trying to discover, like, what was the price of different pieces of equipment and material and supplies. And it was like, “There is no price.” Like… do you mean the price that we set or the price that we pay, or the price that we charge by different insurers? The complexity that our insurance and payment system creates. And healthcare to me is the worst because it obscures obstacles. You know, we can't… there's no clarity on what things cost, what value is. And so there is no sense of… it makes it very hard. And there isn't a lot of equity as well around that. And so I think that that is one of the most challenging and worst aspects of the healthcare system and trying to do improvement in health care.

Mark Graban: We could do a whole series with different guests from different countries. Best Thing, Worst Thing about your country's healthcare system, because that would bring out there's always something. It's a best thing or worst thing, US included. All right. So one other Best Thing, Worst Thing about being active on LinkedIn.

Katie Anderson: Oh, that's a good… So the best thing is the community that's developed. And I love just connecting with so many people around the world and being able to share ideas. And I learn so much. You know, some people who I know who had only recently joined LinkedIn, they thought, “Oh, it's just for if you're looking for a new job.” Realize it's actually this amazing community for thought leadership, thought partnership, and learning together. And so to me, that's the best thing about being active on LinkedIn and the community it's developed.

Is there a worst thing? I think it's the same as worst thing across any social media platform: is that not everyone leads with kindness and that some people's intention is to put people down or to be mean or to call out. And I'm not saying that we can't disagree or have different perspectives. I think that's actually really important, but how do you do that in a respectful way with good intent and align your actions with that? And so I think there are some people who perhaps, or I know not just perhaps, who don't do that. And so I think that's a negative across all social media.

Mark Graban: There are, yeah, there are ways to disagree kindly. And one thing I think is the worst thing of social media is when people end up taking the stance that says, basically, “Nobody else understands this but me.” I'm like, that's not a good look, whether that's being said directly, or even sometimes being implied.

Katie Anderson: Yeah. Well that shows a lot about who they are as well. So yeah.

Mark Graban: So these things happen sometimes on social media, but moving on to one… I'm going to throw one other one at you that I didn't give you a heads up on in advance. What was the Best Thing, Worst Thing about living in Japan full-time as an American?

Katie Anderson: Oh my gosh. The best thing… there's so many best things. There are. I mean, I really, I love Japan. It's been really sad for me–well sad for all of us across the pandemic–I really miss being there, the food, the culture, all that. The unexpected best thing though was riding an electric bicycle called the Mamachari around Tokyo as my main form of transportation. I was not expecting that to be part of my experience. And it was delightful. I'm a big cyclist and it was delightful to be able to really access the city on an electric bike and had, you know, seat in the front and seat in the back for my young children who were one and four at the time. And it was just… it was so much fun. And when we returned to the United States, the one thing I was really not looking forward to is like driving in my car just a mile to go somewhere. And we actually bought a different type of electric that was more California suited with a big cargo on the back that my kids could hop in and I still ride it to this day. And I love it. So electric bicycle commuting in Tokyo is my unexpected best thing about living in Japan.

Mark Graban: And was there a worst thing? Like I'm thinking, I'm not telling you what yours… I'm thinking of a gelato story. I don't know if that's the one that comes to mind for you, but what's your worst?

Katie Anderson: I can tell that story. I wouldn't call that the worst thing. Oh, I mean, there's all these small, small, small little things. Gosh, I don't even know what I would consider the worst thing, but I'll tell the gelato story. I mean, I think it's more just like challenges in… with any situation–I've lived in many other countries, you know, I got my master's degree overseas and lived in a few other countries as exchange student and working–but this is just your different expectations from a cultural perspective. And I think it was like our first month in Japan, I went to go to a gelato store and I wanted to take the flavors to go. But if you had two flavors in the same cup, you could not get a lid. You can only get a lid if you had one flavor.

And they actually–I have this on my blog, I have the pictures–but you know, they even had a little visual symbol that had a picture of two different flavors: no lid. And so I think it would be those learning to navigate the differences and cultural expectations. And, you know, we as Americans are used to a lot of customizing. Oh, you and I have talked about this on a past podcast. Like we're used to a lot of customization and that we equate with sort of customer service. While in Japan, they have like wonderful customer service. They treat you so respectfully and so nicely, but it's really not customized. You get what you get and how they've defined it. And so it's very consistent that way. Whereas American service is very inconsistent, but highly customizable. So it's just a… I wouldn't call that the worst thing though. Cause that's just a natural living part. I'll have to come back with you on that one.

Mark Graban: Okay. Maybe we will record some bonus content sometime. I will make sure there's a link to Katie's blog post about the gelato. You can see the pictures there. We'll put that in the show notes. So before we wrap up… and again, our guest has been Katie Anderson, first birthday anniversary tomorrow of her book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. There's also a companion workbook available and the new audiobook is going to be released tomorrow. How can people, where can they buy the audiobook if they want to do so?

Katie Anderson: If you can go to the book's website, it has links to everything which is learningtoleadleadingtolearn.com. Also the book in print and ebook and audio is all available through links on Amazon in your country, as well as if you go to Audible in iTunes, it's available as well. And again, remember the Kindle sale will be happening if you're listening right when this is published July 14th, 15th and 16th of 2021. And then you can also find more information at my website, which is KBJanderson.com. So yeah, I'm excited. And tomorrow for those of you following me, I'll be filling in the eye of this little Daruma, which was for the audiobook release. So I'm excited for filling and completing another goal.

Mark Graban: For those who are just listening, that's a very shiny, if not blinging, gold reflective Daruma, right?

Katie Anderson: It is. And so it actually is, was originally silver. It's starting to look a little gilded, but I got this when I first was starting my Daruma collection in 2015. And I bought this little guy at a bookstore in Roppongi near where I was living, and a really great Starbucks there. I hope it's still there. And yeah, so I was waiting… as he was waiting for a good goal. And so I assigned the audiobook release to him. So yeah, it's the shiniest Daruma in all my collection.

Mark Graban: Cool. We do have a question that came in from the audience from Nikki. She says, “My son started studies on Japanese language and culture and plans on studying abroad in two years. What can you say about school academic standards? He's going to be studying marketing and business administration.” I know your exposure was lower grades of education, but if you have any thoughts on the education system or where Nikki might find some resources and information?

Katie Anderson: Yeah. I'm sorry, Nikki. I don't... I'm not really the best place to answer that question. I don't really have any experience with the higher education system in Japan, but I know there are some great resources out there. But really excited that he's going to be studying in Japan. I know he's going to have an amazing experience. You should definitely go visit.

Mark Graban: Well, look forward to borders and travel being reopened. I know I am very much looking forward to getting back to Japan at some point. I know they're going through yet another wave of COVID. And we think the Summer Olympics–at this recording, the Summer Olympics are still going on–with a lot of restrictions and cautions in place. So we, I know we both want the best for Japan and others around the world who are still struggling with COVID.

Katie Anderson: Yes, for sure. And, you know, I'm hoping that next year I can lead my Japan study trips again. In May and October, I have some new dates, but again, we have to see how the pandemic evolves and global health. So top priority, and we'll eventually see each other in person and be able to travel again.

Mark Graban: So one of the things I wanted to ask you about Katie, you have the opportunity through Zoom and other platforms to do a lot of coaching. You've been doing this during the pandemic, and I think some of that was even going on beforehand. Can you talk about some of the different coaching approaches? I know you and Karyn Ross have collaborated on what we call the K2C2?

Katie Anderson: Yes. Yeah. Katie and Karyn's or Karyn and Katie's Coaching Communities, which we haven't done for about six months, but Karyn's been working on her new book. And so we'll start up again soon with that. Yeah, no, it's been great. Karyn and I started those coaching communities even before the pandemic. It was a really great experience to be doing. And I'd done remote coaching as well, but to really be developing communities remotely, I felt like we were able to really do so much more last year in supporting people and even about how to move through the pandemic and how to also learn how to do remote coaching and facilitation.

And I've had some of my own programs as well. What I've built around the book called the Leading to Learn Accelerator, which is bringing in concepts of the book in my own coaching practices and more. So it's been a… but we all have to… I definitely had to learn and pivot. I remember the very first time I did like a four hour workshop online. I realized that, wait, I need to do some things slightly differently. So it's been a good learning. Oh, maybe that was the thing I learned new this year was how to really, how to facilitate more effective remote learning experiences. How do you take an in-person experience, still have experiential elements and really make that in a positive way for people to learn from everyone's home office or wherever they're located.

Mark Graban: And then you've got something else called the Learning to Lead Accelerator. Can you tell the audience a little bit about that?

Katie Anderson: Yeah. And I'm excited. I led this for individuals to join the program in February and March of this last year. And I'll be offering it again later this fall. And I've actually been bringing it in-house to a few organizations where it's a combination of taking the stories from Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn and then also going through a journey of applying the practices and principles in their own lives, bringing in elements of what I coach and teach in my coaching practices with organizations and individuals, and so really deepening their experience. And they use the workbook as well in that. And that was great. We had leaders from 20 countries… or 20 leaders from like 10 different countries in it. And so it was really exciting and I'm doing some PDCA right now, PTSA on it, and looking forward to launching it again this fall. So if you're interested, reach out to me and let me know, and I can send you some more information when we have that ready.

Mark Graban: All right. Well, great. And the book website again is learningtoleadleadingtolearn.com, correct?

Katie Anderson: Yes. Just the same name as the book learningtoleadleadingtolearn.com. And my website is KBJanderson.com. And you can also of course, reach out to me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And now I have my YouTube channel too. So lots of good stuff.

Mark Graban: Yeah. I hope everyone will go check it out. Congratulations again on the birthday anniversary–I'm going to call it that now, the birthday-versary–of the book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. Congratulations on the launch, the production and the release tomorrow of the audiobook. I hope that goes really well. I hope people will check that out. If they've been listening to the podcast, you can get more of Katie directly into your ears in audiobook format, a little bit from John Shook as well, a little bit from Isao Yoshino as well.

Katie Anderson: Yeah. Thank you so much, Mark. It's always a pleasure and honor to talk with you. And I appreciate all the support you've provided to me as well as an author and publisher and more, and a friend. So thank you.

Mark Graban: Well, thank you, Katie. Congratulations on everything. Thank you for doing the high wire act that is a stream today. I appreciate you doing that and being a guest.

Katie Anderson: Yet again, so fun. Great. Thanks Mark. And thanks everyone. I look forward to connecting.

Mark Graban: Thank you everybody for watching or for listening. You can find show notes for today's episode at leanblog.org/420. If it's your first time listening to the podcast, please do follow or subscribe in your favorite podcast app. And if you like the episode, please rate or review the podcast. Please share the episode with a friend or a colleague. So thanks again. We'll see you next time. Thanks again to Katie Anderson for being here today. Again, congratulations to her on one year of the book being out and congratulations on the release of the audiobook. To learn more, to find links for all of that, including the short term three-day Kindle book sale, you can go to the show notes online: leanblog.org/420. Thanks for listening.

Announcer: This has been the Lean Blog Podcast. For Lean news and commentary updated daily, visit www.leanblog.org. If you have any questions or comments about this podcast, email mark@leanpodcast.com.

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