It was an exciting week last week for me! Not only was it the five year anniversary of my first meeting with Isao Yoshino in Japan, I announced the cover and website for my forthcoming book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning AND led the first public session based on the book.
Webinar: Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Becoming an Intentional People-Centered Leader
In today’s post, I share a link to the webinar from April 24th, hosted by Patrick Adams of PA Consulting, and some of the key messages and slides from the session.
For copy of the webinar slides, click here!Â
I also invite you to become part of the book’s “Launch Team” – a group of supporters who will help us spread the word about the book as we move towards the book’s mid-July release date and also get some behind-the-scenes stories and information about the book.
Connection with Patrick Adams
Patrick was one of – if not the first – people to sign up for my sold-out Japan Study Trip that should be starting in just over a week. While disappointed to not be able to share that experience together due to COVID-19, I’m so grateful for getting to know each other over the past year and I look forward to a time in the future that Patrick, Mr. Yoshino, and I can meet up in person in Japan for an amazing week of learning and culture together. (You can see some prior videos that Patrick and I recorded about the Japan trips I’d planned for May and October 2020 here and here!).
How it all began with Mr. Yoshino
The first time that I heard Isao Yoshino speak was back in July 2014 at the Lean Coaching Summit – less than six months before my family moved to Japan. At that event, Mr. Yoshino took to the stage with John Shook and talked about their role as “manager” and “subordinate” and shared many stories and some profound insights. I captured this in my very first article for the Lean Post following the event titled “Building Capability, Transforming Organizations”. Little did I know at that time what close friends and professional partners that Isao Yoshino and I would become!
Fast forward to April 2015 and my husband John and I jumped on our first bullet train ride to Nagoya – a route that I would later term my “Yoshino-san commute” for my first visit with Mr. Yoshino and my first tour of a Toyota plant in Japan. You can read about that initial meeting with Mr. Yoshino in this blog post – which became the first in a series of Toyota Leadership Lessons and evolved into the book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. It’s been such an incredible journey and friendship.
But now I’m going back in history! Let’s get back to the webinar and the key points we covered.
Key points from webinar Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Becoming an Intentional People-Centered Leader
In the webinar, I first introduced how Mr. Yoshino and I got to know each other and the process of learning and creating the book together over many years. The process of reflection – of hansei – is foundational to learning and has been a way for Mr. Yoshino to look at his experiences of 40 years of learning and leading at Toyota – through success and failure – from a different perspective.
6 Behaviors to Align Yourself with an Intention of People-Centered Leadership
I then shared six ways that you can demonstrate people-centered leadership, all framed around the three roles of a leader that Mr. Yoshino set out back in July 2014 when he was talking about his role as John Shook’s manager:
1. Provide a challenge, direction or target
2. Set the conditions for success and take responsibility when mistakes happen
3. Teach the process of learning
4. Be curious, ask questions, let people learn
5. Go to gemba (go see) to show you care
6. Never stop learning and growing.
Nurture AND Challenge
Importantly – and perhaps even now more than ever, we need NURTURE as well as challenge to move forward and create for the future.
3 Practices to Help You Develop The Habits of People-Centered Leaders
I also discussed three practices that I’ve found invaluable in helping me – and others – develop habits around these practices of nurture and challenge including:
1. Take an intention pause
2. Pay attention to the quality of your questions
3. Listen openly (not just with your ears!)
Check out the webinar video if you want to learn more details around all of these points and hear some inside stories from Mr. Yoshino that are highlighted in the forthcoming book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.
Join me to learn and practice
If you are looking for ways to practice some of these concepts, I regularly offer coaching communities of practice with my friend Karyn Ross (which we call K2C2 – Katie and Karyn’s Coaching Communities), and other workshops (now offered remotely) and webinars.
Visit my Public Events page for up-to-date listing of upcoming publicly offered learning experiences.
Visit the K2C2 Eventbrite page for upcoming dates and registration for K2C2 cohorts and workshops. K2C2 Cohort #6 starts on June 4, 2020. We practice “right-sized pricing”, which means pay what you can (even if nothing at all). Community is our first priority!
It’s all about learning
And remember, people-centered leadership is all about learning to lead – and leading to learn!Â
As Mr. Yoshino once told me, “The only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning.” It’s what we do to learn and to support the learning in others that is the “secret sauce”.
