142: Katie Anderson

Listen to full episode:

Joe Krebs speaks with Katie Anderson about her book "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn" and how the Agile Kata relates to topics in her book, such as Learning, Culture and continuous improvement at Toyota.

Joe has a book “Agile Kata” in the making, if you like to be the first to know when it launches, please visit www.agilekatabook.com.

Transcript:

Agile.FM radio for the agile community.

[00:00:05] Joe Krebs: Hi everyone, I'm back with another episode in the Agile Kata series. We're going to explore the topic of cultural and learning and how that relates to color and scientific thinking. And today I have Katie Anderson with me, who wrote the book, learning to lead, leading to learn lessons from Toyota leader Isao Yoshino on a lifetime of continuous learning.

And there's a lot of words in it that are relating straight with Kata. Katie, you have been on this podcast before we talked more in depth about the book. This is a little bit more in depth about Kata and how it relates to your book that doesn't mention the word Kata, but there are so many connections and synergies.

We got to explore that area a little bit, but first and foremost, welcome.

[00:00:53] Katie Anderson: Thanks, Joe. It's great to be back and dive into this conversation with you. I'm so passionate about how, as individuals, leaders, we create learning in our organizations and the patterns and routines about how we do problem solving and coach for problem solving is just so fundamental to that.

[00:01:09] Joe Krebs: Absolutely. Now, I have to admit, I listened to your book recently the audio version of it. And in the, so I was listening and in all aspects of life, but then it all came together in the last chapter when you summarized the learnings from the book and summarized, and the word kata wasn't mentioned in the book.

But it just screamed cut up everywhere. And I was like, I have to have Katie on the show again, and we need to talk about this because it is about continuous learning. It is about failure. It is about what is it failing or falling seven times and getting up eight times. Why? And things like that.

So all of those characteristics you're mentioning in the book are important. Did Isao ever mention the word cut out in your conversations?

[00:01:52] Katie Anderson: So no, and actually when Mike Rother's book came out and, it was a little before I met Mr. Yoshino, but we as caught the term Toyota Kata and the word Kata, actually means something in Japanese.

It's the routines and practices that, support something usually used in martial arts. And the way Mike Rother used it was around how do we create learn habits of learning the patterns that we go through for problem solving and coaching for problem solving. And in the English language, that's now become ubiquitous with, with Kata means that around problem solving.

Mr. Yoshino though, there isn't something called Toyota Kata it's what Mike Rother and other researchers, when they went to Toyota to observe what was happening, trying to undercover that, uncover that secret sauce. They, he observed this pattern of how leaders and managers were showing up.

To help people go through a problem solving process. And he said, there is this unspoken or undocumented routine that people are doing. And if you read my book, you will see from Mr. Yoshino's 40 years at working at Toyota. So we cover from the late sixties to the early two thousands, all of his experiences about, how to learn how to problem solve and then how to coach other people through problem solving. Go through this same format. How are you asking really effective questions? How are you guiding people through a learning process and not coming up with the answers? How are you setting the direction, providing the support, and then also continuing to develop yourself as a coach and a leader as well?

So the reason I didn't use the word Kata or Toyota Kata in the book was because it didn't exist at the time. There wasn't that label that we now have at the time that Mr. Yoshino was in Japan, or at Toyota.

[00:03:35] Joe Krebs: And the book itself was called Toyota Kata because of publishing, not necessarily something that is Like a tool that was developed from

[00:03:43] Katie Anderson: no, absolutely.

So I take people to Japan on my executive Japan study trips and I'll have people in the past. I've had different participants say, are we going to see Toyota boards up at Toyota? I'm like, no, you won't because this was a framework that was developed to help us outside of Toyota. To learn the pattern to practice the kata, the routines that support this.

And so then there, there are a variety of tools that can help us do that, but they don't, that's not what exists at Toyota, but that pattern of the mindset and the behaviors exist, but there, Toyota leaders are not walking around with the five question card and going through this. That's a tool to help us learn that pattern that is inherent.

I opened the book, you'll remember this Joe of a quote from Mr. Yoshino from early days when I was interviewing him, half a decade ago, he said the only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning. And that's exactly what Mike Rother was documenting and Jeff Liker and others and Jim Womack and so many people, they were documenting and seeing this attitude towards learning, but it's really hard to describe that, right?

It's easier to see the tools and the outputs of it.

[00:04:52] Joe Krebs: Yeah. So this is very interesting, right? Because you actually in that chapter, right? In, in that final chapter of your book, you do mention words like setting the direction, a challenge. Personally or for the organization or as a team is important experimentation is important.

Now, within the book, there is I don't want to take the entire book away. There's a ton of things to be explored, but there is an example of a failed experiment, a very costly failed experiment from Mr Yoshino. And that is from a Kata perspective. Obviously an experiment that failed that's at a large scale, right?

And a big learning, I would assume would come out of this exploring new business ideas within an organization, even on smaller scales, I'm sure there were tons of experiments going on in his life and what you have observed, obviously working with the organization and with him directly. How important is that from a learning perspective, that experimentation piece?

[00:05:51] Katie Anderson: It's fundamental, right? The reason we don't know the answer is because we don't have the answer yet. And so we need to know directionally where are we trying to get to and then learn our way forward. And so a lot of, if you take away the, the terminology, so much that you've learned through reading this book and from my conversations in the series, are those same patterns?

Like, how do you set a target? But doesn't don't worry about it being too precise. You'll learn your way forward as you start doing the experiments. It's about how do you ask those questions? How are you go through the process of learning? You'll remember there's a story where Mr Yoshino was asked to Put together a report and a document and his boss who had asked him to do this.

When he went forward to present, he said, what was the process that you took to prepare this report? And he knew he should have gone out and actually done interviews, gone to that quote unquote Gemba and said he went to the library because he didn't feel like he had time. And the boss said, no, that's not the right process for the learning.

And so it's that same model in the Kata Kata world or Kata framework that. You want to coach people through the process of learning and not necessarily giving them the answer, but giving them the framework and the structure to be learning their way forward to that answer as well, or to a new answer that you don't even have, right?

Oftentimes we're in these complex environments. We're not just giving people assignments for learning their way to us, a set predetermined answer. It's about learning our way forward to innovation and to continuous improvement.

[00:07:16] Joe Krebs: I remember that that scene in the book.

And it was also, it was interesting for me coming from an agile and from a cutters perspective. One thing was in, in that particular dialogue, I remember it crystal clear now that after you said it is probably not enough research was done on the existing current condition, right? So like, where are we right now in, in terms of the process?

It was just not enough to read about it and go to the library. So one of those learnings, right? And that is the scientific thinking of Kata to say step back, slow down, go through where you are in, even in your learning journey. Now that's a key aspect of this one.

[00:07:54] Katie Anderson: Absolutely. And I want to emphasize too, that like Kata, as we, that using that term Kata, it's nothing new.

Absolutely. Different. So it's not separate from like how we approach continuous improvement, how we approach the scientific method. It is the routines and practices that help us get there. And there's people in the lean world or the agile world. And honestly, it doesn't what we label it.

Those are like the tools and the processes. But Fundamental thinking and human behavior aspects are all interrelated there too. And so again, Kata is just those routines and practices that help enable us to be better problem solvers and better coaches of problem solving.

[00:08:33] Joe Krebs: I always refer to it as a universal pattern rather than a tool.

It could be described as a tool, but sometimes people feel like a tool is like a, like an actual thing, a tangible thing. It's a thing. It's a thinking pattern, in my opinion, most likely gets you through scientific thinking. And if we can agree on that scientific thinking is a good idea it's a good idea.

[00:08:53] Katie Anderson: Yes, absolutely. And so there are tools that support that you can have a kata storyboard or a question card that helps you practice, but it's the same thing with anything like learning a sport or something. You have tools that help you practice that pattern in that routine. So it becomes habitual.

[00:09:08] Joe Krebs: By in a second, second nature of what you do and then sit, therefore you don't need the clients anymore. I think that's a, that's an important thing. Now, what you just described, this is also something I found as a quote. Be patient, it takes time to develop people and accomplish challenges.

That was one of those things I carved out and I think that plays very well with what you just said. It's even though it Kata the routines, the questions, it might be simple. There might be a card, there's a starting point. It's not a quick fix. No. Why is that to establish a learning culture like to stay here on topic for culture and learning and everything.

What makes this so fundamentally simple, but it is so hard to do so patience becomes an important thing.

Absolutely. It's a long term it's a long term way, creating new habits. It does take time. And we, and I talk about this a lot in recent episodes on my own podcast chain of learning.

We are caught in this like doing trap opposed to the being trap we get. Very focused on the achievements, the goals, the outcomes that we need. And it's not that we don't have this vision that we want to be someone who's, taking the time to ask the questions to coach, but we just get stuck in this, focused on the outcomes and the doing.

And so when we can take a step back and say. Actually, when we do slow down to ask more questions to help other people learn how to solve problems, we collectively actually will ultimately get there faster because we're going to have better ideas. We're going to have more clarity on what's the real problem we're even trying to solve.

And then the creative input. of people on how to get there. So we'll come up with better ideas as well. And so we just started this, we get this short fix, cycle, vicious cycle where the practices of the kata really can help us slow down and remind our, remind us to ask those questions.

Have we clearly defined a target? Do we really know what that next step is? Have we defined what the gap is? What are the next steps we're taking, doing? And just get us into that pattern opposed to just jumping to solutions or to action when we really don't even know where we need to go.

And also to frame things as experiments. And I think that's a really important part of this is framing everything that we're doing as an experiment. If we do this thing, what do we expect to happen? And then it gives us a place to come back and say what did we learn from that? And how is that helping us move forward?

And I think let's stay with this experimentation piece for a sec, because I also think that's a cultural thing, right? So we, or I have observed that failure in an organization of an experiment is very often as a negative. Association with it right within the business world. Not so much within laboratories or so.

I would assume that's not my that's not my expertise, but it's not very common to have a culture within organizations to foster like. So when you're saying like I don't know if I quote this right here for seven times, get up eight. How many people can fail for seven times within an organization without ramifications within an organization?

So how important is that from a leadership's perspective? And obviously Isao Yoshino was part of a leadership team to create a culture like that. So that experimentation is happening and But not tolerated, but encouraged, right? And also the failed experiments that go along with it.

Potentially.

[00:12:21] Katie Anderson: Yeah, there's so many different ways that I could start going into that framing of that. But absolutely. So starting with absolutely moving from a culture of blame to a culture that embraces failure as a source of learning is critical. So if we're looking at the process and not blaming the person.

Second, it's about. Making sure that our experiments are not so like we're doing micro experiments so that the failures are more of a micro level, right? Opposed to, sometimes we do so much planning, planning for this massive thing. And we haven't done any tests of along the way.

And so then, it's much more the impact of a failure is so much bigger at that end, rather than if we had done some micro tests along the way and having that learning. And I think in our culture we do we put so much emphasis on the planning side. The plan and the do, and we don't have as much of that study and reflect.

And so because of that planning, then we're taking action, but if we fail on that, it's so much bigger. And so then it feels more, catastrophic. And of course we don't want people getting hurt, things happening. Like we don't, we need to, those are bad. Those are really bad failures.

And that's hugely problematic and we should have been doing better tests of change before that. But even as you, you mentioned, earlier in this episode, that. Mr. Yoshino was in charge of this large new business venture that ended up costing Toyota like tens of thousands of dollars when it failed, but also you have to be willing to run those experiments because if you're, if you want to create innovation in your organization, you have to be willing to take some risks.

You don't know if something's going to succeed or not. And so they also knew that they, Mr. Cho, who was the president of Toyota at the time said to Mr. Yoshino, You were something, you tried, we gave you a mission and you did your best. And thank you. And the Toyota too, there were some things, some management decisions that impacted the business venture not working out.

It wasn't just the result of one person. So that's super important from an organizational standpoint as well.

[00:14:16] Joe Krebs: It's also leadership, right? You have a challenge for a team or an individual to be able to experiment within certain boundaries, right? And be safe and knowing what the challenges are and have a direction, not just experimenting for the sake of experimenting.

[00:14:30] Katie Anderson: Absolutely. Yeah. And the leader's job is to set up the working conditions for people to be successful. And so that's part of their role. What are the structures and conditions that allow people to do their best work and to learn along the way? Yeah.

[00:14:43] Joe Krebs: It was also interesting for everybody listening to this from a lean perspective, like this plan, do check act kind of cycle would be part of each of those experiments that would be taking place within the Kata, within the pattern.

You will find lean concepts in what we're talking about here as a general thinking process. What's also interesting was the words you used throughout your entire book about Lerner and coach and coachee or learner in this environment, because that is all, when I started reading or listening to the book I was like, always reminded is this about learning.

This is not about a manager and a subordinate. It's about a learner from a cultural perspective. And that obviously links directly to Kata as well, whether it's a learner and as a coach from an agile perspective, the learner could be a group of people. rather than a single person.

How important was that in your conversations? And by writing the book and what you have learned since the book was published that this, the constant reminder of that we're learners in a day to day practice of improvement.

[00:15:45] Katie Anderson: It's so interesting. You haven't, I haven't thought about that terminology. That's something I think I brought in more in terms of describing you, Mr. Yoshino, when he taught, he does talk about, being a manager and a subordinate, and those are just terms that they use, but because this pattern was already embedded into their ethos of how they are, that, that terminology doesn't matter, but it does matter more for us.

And so I was really intentional when I was writing the book about how can I translate. These 40 years of Toyota and experience in a way that's really going to resonate and connect with people and our generation who didn't grow up in the Toyota world to understand the real meaning behind things.

And so I the word learner and coach are, are, those are really important to me to really emphasize that this is all about the only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning. And so how do we stay in that mindset? And so the words that we use can really be helpful and yeah.

[00:16:41] Joe Krebs: What was interesting though, was that the roles shifted with throughout the book, right? So sometimes we saw him being a learner versus a coach, right? So we saw the change of the roles, which was fascinating. And that is also what we have in an agile, in a Kata environment all the time.

[00:16:57] Katie Anderson: Absolutely. And that's where the, how I came up with the title of learning to lead, leading to learn. And it's. It's a cyclical situation because you're always you're if you have the learning to lead with a, first thing you learn to do this, learn the practice, the kata routines, you need to learn how to be a leader, how to be a manager, how to be an agile practitioner, all of those things, but you also need to lead with an attitude towards learning.

And then as Mr. Yoshino said to he was always learning how to be a better leader at the same time. And so we're never stopping learning. We're just in different roles. Sometimes we're the one being mentored or coached and other times we're doing that coaching or we're in teams and we're like doing it all together.

So it is, and that's where that concept of that chain of learning. It's actually a phrase that Mr. Yoshino said to me about how he felt so grateful to be joining Toyota. This is in his early years in his twenties, joining a company that really. Emphasize this chain of learning, how are we all learners and leaders together helping improve and grow and become better people solve more problems.

And that's, that was really the inspiration for my podcast title too, because how do we all, we're all connected in that way.

[00:18:02] Joe Krebs: Yeah. And we all connected through Kata, through your book, through the work we're doing through podcast. This is awesome. Katie, I want to thank you for some of your thoughts and also bringing, thinking to everybody who has read your book and maybe listens to this podcast. It's Oh yes, I've listened to Kata and this is the connection to it. But also for everybody in the agile community to say wow, man, maybe I can use the basic pattern of Kata to improve my role within the organization, right? So I myself have worked with agile coaches that are using Kata for improving their own personal development within an organization. And then they're using it also for teams to improve for high performance. So the sky's the limit, apparently.

[00:18:47] Katie Anderson: Absolutely.

It's the pattern. It's the pattern of problem solving. It's the pattern of innovate, how we create innovation. And it's the pattern of how we help each other get better. at getting better. And so no matter what you call it, just practice the routines and the patterns. It's going to help you no matter what your industry is, what your, the focus of your work is, whatever challenge you're moving towards, these routines and patterns are just so transformational.

[00:19:13] Joe Krebs: Yeah.

Katie, you mentioned it already. There is a podcast out there. You have the chain of learning. There is a website that is a kbjanderson. com and uh, but if somebody just Googles the title of your book, learning to lead, leading to learn, they will find you as well. So thank you for coming back on the show and do that Kata special with me. .

[00:19:33] Katie Anderson: Thank you. Thanks Joe. It's a pleasure.