Katie Anderson shares her journey of gaining a profound understanding and connection to Japanese culture. Her unique opportunity to live in Japan allowed her to form a meaningful relationship with Mr. Isao Yoshino, a prominent figure at Toyota.
Deep passion and connection with Japan
Nick: I remember watching a video of you in Japan, and you were outside one of those barbers that have the lights and the whole lean process. And the energy you had just explaining, like, ‘Oh, this means this, and they have this to tell you how long it's gonna take.’ And I was like, who is this person? She got the most energy on the planet.
So I thought, wow, she really has this passion for, not just her work, but how things are done in Japan. So shall we start with a little history with the work that you do and your connection to Japan
Katie: Sure. And you know, one of the reasons I've started to call myself a learning enthusiast is because it really connects both my passion for learning and sharing learning with others, and just my innate enthusiasm that comes through.
I don't know where it comes from, but it's sort of my my secret sauce, perhaps, and we can explore more of that how we, you know, come and find our purpose together. But my connection to Japan began really 10 years ago, this month, July, we just started.
We're recording this in July of 2014, when I found out for my husband's job, that we had the opportunity to move to Japan for two years, and I had a consulting practice that I just started focusing on helping organizations bring in concepts of kaizen and continuous improvement in the Toyota production system into their organizations.
And that's what I'd been doing for years in healthcare and systems in the US and in Australia. But I was so excited by that opportunity. And so six months later, we moved to Japan, and I had met Mr. Isao Yoshino, the subject of my book, at a conference.
Serendipity, the stars were aligned, six months around the same time we found out about moving to Japan, and he gave me his card, his meishi, and said, ‘Look me up, I'll take you to Toyota City and show you around when you get settled.’ And I really thought wow, this is an incredible opportunity for me to not only learn for myself, but also to share those learnings with others.
So that began this deep passion and connection with Japan, and then personally with Isao Yoshino as well. And now Japan's forever woven into the core of who I am, you can see, I’m obsessed with Daruma dolls. I love so much about that Japanese culture.
And my passion is also about connecting those concepts for people who don't live in Japan and who aren't Japanese. Similar to you, we have this shared sort of passion about how do we make that connection in a way that makes sense to other people and that it's tangible and that it's not so foreign, and that it is accessible as well.