This week marks five years since the first time I met up with Isao Yoshino in Japan! It’s a fitting week to publicly announce my forthcoming book – based on years of conversations with Mr. Yoshino – Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning!
WEBINAR FRIDAY APRIL 24TH 10am PT / 1pm ET: Join me for my first webinar based on the book and my coaching practices “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Becoming an Intentional People-Centered Leader”. Hosted by PA Consulting.
Looking back on the start of a friendship
On that overcast April day in 2015, I insisted that my husband take the day off work in Tokyo to travel 90 minutes on the Shinkansen bullet train to meet Mr. Yoshino and tour the Toyota plant in Toyota City. You can read about our first meeting in this very first blog post I wrote five years ago!
I thought that initial meeting was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was beyond excited to get to spend one day with this 40-year Toyota leader whom I had met the prior year at a conference before our family moved to Japan. Neither he nor I expected that this first get-together would turn into an important friendship — one that would later extend beyond Japan and across the world — and definitely didn’t plan for our five years of conversations to inspire the development of a book.
Looking Ahead – Announcing Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn
This week, marking the anniversary of our friendship and the start of the blog posts that would become the series “Toyota Leadership Lessons” and now a book, I’m thrilled to publicly reveal the title and cover of the book, and to invite you – my blog readers, supporters, and subscribers – to join the book’s launch team! Thank you for following my journey for the past two years as we set out on the project. I’m excited to finally fill in my big daruma’s right eye when the book is released.
“Fall down seven times, get up eight” – and yet again!
I had big plans in March to announce the book’s cover and pre-order at the Lean Summit — and invite you and other supporters and followers of my blog to join the launch team. Then, COVID hit. I was thrown off-kilter for a few weeks, as I’m sure you were too, and questioned if now is really the time to release a book.
But in reflection, I realized that Mr. Yoshino’s stories and insights about persevering through challenges, finding purpose, and learning, and leading are perhaps needed even more now that ever. Like the Japanese proverb “Fall down seven times, get up eight”, which I’ve written about in reference to writing this book before, I have gotten back up and am moving forward with an adjusted plan. While there might not be the in-person book release events that we’d planned for this summer, holding onto Mr. Yoshino’s stories to wait for a “perfect” time was also not what I wanted to do.
In the past four weeks, we have finalized the cover and title, John Shook has written the foreword, and I just sent another round of revisions to my editor on Sunday night!
We are now targeting July for the book’s release!
It’s been an honor and privilege to bring Isao Yoshino’s stories of learning and leading, and our shared reflections, to you and to the world.
Book Website and Launch Team Invitation
Please visit the book’s website to learn more about the book – plus see some photos from past five years and some pre-release quotes from the book! On the website, you will also find a link to join the Launch Team.
I’d love your support as a Launch Team member! You are welcome to join by clicking on the link in the website, or by clicking here to directly join the Launch Team distribution list.
By being a part of the Launch Team, you will part of a core group of supporters who can help us ensure that the book’s message reaches the people it needs to and that we have the best book launch that we can! You will also get some special insider stories, information, and opportunities along the way. Being on the book’s Launch Team is totally optional, and if you do join, should not require a lot of work or extra effort on your part.
Once you join the Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Launch Team, you will also get an invitation to join the private LinkedIn and Facebook launch team groups.
(Note – no pressure at all to join the Launch Team! I will continue to keep blog subscribers and readers informed of major milestones along the way too).
More to come
Isao Yoshino and I have been talking weekly and he is staying healthy and doing his best to pivot and adapt to a new world as much as we all are (teaching online, home all day, etc.).
Here is a photo of us from Monday of this week, marking the anniversary of our friendship!
Thank you in advance for your support and interest in the book. It’s been a journey – and honor – to create! Here are some posts that also provide some of the back story of the journey we have been on together!
Gemba Academy Podcast: The Importance of Hansei and Revitalization
