Lead Smarter Podcast

welcome to Lead Smarter

the podcast where you'll hear powerful

no nonsense conversations about leadership

with today's top experts

and real world leaders like yourself

get the inside strategies

insights and secrets

they've Learned on the journey to lead smarter

let's dive in

today's guest is Katie Anderson

a leadership coach speaker

and author who helps leaders stop defaulting to doing

and start building real learning cultures

Katie is the author of learning to Lead

leading to learn inspired by her work with a 40 year

Toyota leader in Japan where she studied

what actually drives sustainable performance

people learning and systems

not heroic leaders swooping in with the answers

in this conversation

we talk about why leaders get stuck in the doer trap

how learning gets squeezed out in

results driven organizations

and what it really takes to create conditions

where teams think

adapt and grow let's get into it

hey Katie

thanks again for joining me

on the podcast

and for getting the chance to get to know you

I I really enjoyed our first call

and I am excited to talk to you

about your perspective on leadership

and some of the work that you're doing

with your own clients

and developing a community of leaders

um one of the things that we were talking about

when we first met you talked about leading to learn

and redefining the role of a leader

I wanted to ask you

you describe leadership as setting the direction

creating conditions and developing yourself

why is that shift so difficult for new leaders

yeah well

first let me give you some context of what that phrase

leading to learn means and where it came from

so I it comes from the title of my book

learning to Lead Leading to learn

which I wrote

out of a collaboration and partnership with a 40 year

Toyota leader that I got to know

when I was living in Japan

a decade ago and I was really interested

in why Toyota was such a successful company

both in terms of its products

but also it's really famous for its

its culture and a lot of organizations

around the world are trying to adopt

the Toyota production system

of the Toyota Way

which has often been known as like lean

or lean manufacturing

there are a lot of different words for it

but at the essence it's this learning culture

and so I was really intrigued to understand what

what's the secret sauce right

and so I was going I was asking Mr Yoshino

who's the subject of my book is how Yoshino

and he kept saying there's no secret

there's no secret and he said

actually the only secret to Toyota is its

attitude towards learning

and he said

we don't even notice and we take it for granted

and then everything else that I put together

from my experiences

and working with global organizations

being an internal change leader

and leader within healthcare organizations

and more came back to this simple comment that he made

that I synthesized that a leader's role is simple

it's to set the direction provide support

which is to create those conditions

for people to be successful

and three to develop yourself

and so you know

it all goes back to those three simple things

but they're actually they're

they're simple but not easy

and I believe

these are not just challenging for new leaders

to adopt but for leaders at all levels

because we are used to doing the doing

and to being the expert

and the person jumping in with the right answer

and saving the day what leadership requires us to do

whether or not you're the leader of like a project team

or stepping into a management leadership role

or even a senior executive

is that it's no longer about you

executing on everything and solving all the problems

and you know

being the technical expert

and whatever your field or domain is

it's about setting the clear direction for the

for the team like where do we need to go

what do we need to accomplish

and then help coach support

create the

the conditions and structures within the organization

for people your team members to be able to do that

and that requires us to develop ourselves

and so that shift though

from being an independent contributor

to being in a team leader or manager role

is a big shift and so

I think it can be really hard'cause

a lot of our identity can be wrapped up into well

if I'm not the one doing the doing well right

what you know

what like like how important am I

am I not valuable and so it's like

shifting our mindset to

what is the purpose of our role

and how do we actually create impact

and you create exponential impact by actually

creating a lot of people's capabilities

to do the doing

I I actually started myself as a

let's just call it like an ops manager

so what you're describing to me

I've always tried to figure out like

is there

is it more of a benefit to have been the person

who gets their hands dirty

does the things

and therefore they know the experience how to do it

is it more of a benefit to be that

have been that person and then lead

or it's

more of a liability'cause then you wanna jump in

and you wanna help you wanna do it yourself

versus somebody who's there to be a leader

and only support and is like

counting on the expertise

and the reason I asked this question is'cause I will

try as a leader

to surround myself

with people that know what they're doing

way better than me

and sometimes completely better than me

because I don't know anything

about developing a website

or coding in this way

so I can't lead you in that activity

but having been somebody who was

responsible for this thing

I might know what the experience is

what to look out for and

and maybe just if I think about it

rather than trying to take over for you

or do the thing for you

but now I know what it's like to have been you

and what I would have benefited from

if I had a leader that was giving me the spaces I need

in the areas that I work on like

do you see it as more of a benefit

to have been the person

and so that you know what that experience is

or is it would it be better

are you know

am I more likely to be effective as a leader

who's leading a team where

my whole purpose

and my whole experience is to be that leader

to give you that space

and not risk maybe trying to step in by accident

because I think I know better than you no

I I don't think it's a binary question

I think it's a really it's like a it's not an either or

they come with different benefits

and different challenges just as you laid out David

like when you have the technical knowledge

of the purpose of the group

like the product or service that you're building

from the technical right side

and you're

it is your habit comes from that place of doing

so that can be harder to

you have to even be more intentional about like

what's my role when am I the expert doer

when is my technical expertise needed

and when am I actually there to be the team leader

and creating the set the direction

provide the support right right now inversely

you know that it can be

so it can be really beneficial to have someone

whose expertise actually is just in leading teams

no matter what the the the discipline or the doing is

and that can be powerful where that maybe is

there is some downside of that is

it's harder to say the clear

like what's the direction we need to go

or to be that person who's jumping in

when there is help needed

so you just have to balance knowing where

what kind of support your team needs

and just told yourself you know

where do you pull that support in

and just being clear on that

but it can be much harder if you know the work

to not jump into the work

but I have to say

a lot of us have what I call the telling habit

even if we have no idea of what the work is

cause we have a ton of great ideas and so right like

like oh

I'm gonna jump in with all my ideas

have you tried this have you tried that

what about this what about that

even if we don't really even know the technical side

or the the real problem to be solved

so I say we all have to break the telling habit as well

um it just depends it can what the situation is

I completely agree

can I remember myself at almost like I

and I think maybe even other leaders

that you're describing

have this urge to contribute and as opposed to lead

and I was actually gonna what

what do you see leaders getting wrong

when they confuse being a strong contributor

like an individual contributor

versus being an effective leader

where do you see them getting that wrong most often

yeah you know

it it all in my my experience

both from my own self

when I fall into what I call this doer trap and right

the leaders that I work with

it doesn't come from like a malicious place

like I'm not intentionally trying to like

take it over and control it

it actually comes from a place of

wanting to help and like help move

either help move the project along

or you see someone

struggling and not have the right answer right away

so I wanna like

just jump in and like kinda give them the answer

but you know then

you're not really

teaching them how to get to the answer right

I think the where I see the the risk is

is when that's habitual and we're like jumping in

and we're think we're being helpful

but we're actually maybe in the in the mediacy

we're helping in that moment to get to the answer

but we're actually not creating sustainable conditions

for ongoing capability

problem solving collaboration and and what not

so it's that it's seeing the immediate thing

and that immediate reward versus the bigger picture

I find myself having a hard time finding that balance

I've just I was just having a conversation with my team

so I've got a new team member and she's being trained

and I am the team member that LED her

or has LED her in the past

like that's helping her come along is very much a doer

like effective

like knows that if she doesn't get the thing done

that it's possible that nobody

it'll slip through the cracks

so sometimes instead of taking the time

and maybe she doesn't even have the time

to make sure that the team member

who's getting trained knows how it

how it gets done sometimes she just executes

it I find myself sometimes going

swinging too hard in the other direction

like

asking questions that make this particular task

take way longer than it should have

but my goal is that that person knows

not just how to do it

but the context of why we're doing it

and then knows how to make decisions

how do you find the right balance on that

how do you know

when you should be giving them room to learn

versus when now's the time

I actually have to stop and get this thing done yeah

it's you know

it's it's about being more intentional

so like more proactive on it

rather than reactive

and have that be your default state

so yeah I mean

I totally totally can relate to that too

one of the

one of the questions I ask leaders to reflect on

it is not like

you don't have to give up your expertise

or your technical knowledge

but knowing and how to navigate this continuum

it's about when is it my problem to solve

or my technical expertise is needed in this

and when am I there to develop

the expertise of someone else

and right and so you can still be an expert

but be showing up in more of this leader as coach role

rather than

I'm showing up as the expert who's taking on

the execution of this of this task

so that's one thing so just like it's okay

you can still own your expertise and be more coach like

and then it's like yeah

we have to make we have to make trade offs right

like sometimes

we have a timeline

that allows us to have more space to

or ideally we build in some of this to our timeline

so we're not always so compressed

that we can ask more questions

and give someone some time to try something

or go figure something out and come back

and in do having more of the

sort of like that exploratory process in getting there

and other times like really it's like

this is due tomorrow and we don't have time

and then we have to say

this is not our time for learning

this is a time for executing

and we need to bring in our best expertise

to make this happen the trap is when we see

and everything is this like five alarm fire

that's like has to be fixed now

and then we never build that capability

so it's like

getting better as a leader of judging when

things are urgent critical

like a true crisis or emergency

or a deadline that has to be hit now

and then

how can we build in more space through the rest of our

our processes

so that we're not caught in that constant fire

just putting out fires and running around right

and we don't have any time to build capability

or ask questions cause we just gotta get it done right

we all been there like that ah

you know but there's a time and place for development

like

the kids running across the street and the cars coming

is not the time to say do you think you should stop

and you know that's right

no

I'm willing to bet I mean

I know you are working with Toyota

I'm willing to bet that that's a

probably a pretty heavy focus

like putting the systems in place

so that you can be as proactive as possible

so that addressing those kinds of moments

where everybody has to stop

and I've got to do this thing

that's an exception rather than the norm

I'm guessing that's correct

a big part of it a huge part

and especially in my time in Japan

and visiting Toyota a lot

and talking to Mr Yoshino

and others who have worked there

that is built into the culture

and they have a lot of time for what they call hansei

or it's the Japanese word for reflection

that learning process

it's built in to how they structure their work

there's time built in

it's part of your expectation of your daily work

for doing continuous improvement

or kaizen and that includes the experimentation

they've

they've created the structures in their organization

where then learning that is the secret

and they don't even notice

it's because it's already there

so we have to be much more intentional

about creating that because it maybe doesn't

exist as easily in our in our organization

and just to ask people to like

do more learning and problem solving isn't helpful

if we don't have the systems

structures and tools to support that as well yeah

and many of the clients I'm talking to

they're in much obviously Toyota's huge

so they're obviously

people I'm talking to are much smaller organizations

I am in a much smaller organization

yeah well

me too but I

I love the idea of like intentionally

proactively planning on learning

being part of what the process is like

it's part of it rather than it's always an exception

like the it's literally

learning is the exception for any process I'm in

typically to the process whereas like

you're talking about

literally taking it one step further back

and just creating room for learning

yes which is it sounds simple

but it's really genius

and I know that I'm not seeing it happen most

in most organizations I'm looking at well

we and and so I

I

this is across the board in most western organizations

I would say we

because we're in this habit of execution and doing

so we like plan do plan

do do

do do

do do

and really so there's the plan

do study

adjust cycle of learning right

it's like the right scientific experiment

Toyota puts a lot more emphasis on the study and adjust

phase like the plan

do study

adjust and like and we

and I I experience this for myself

I teach this and yet I still experience

we equate the action of doing with the impact

but really right

the balance impact comes from the collaborative

sort of synergistic action of doing and learning

doing and learning doing and learning

doing and learning and adjusting

and so if we miss out on that study part

we're just like throwing a ton

like ton of arrows and darts out

but we don't really know are we doing it right

we need to adjust like what's going on

and so

right everybody wants to correct

and have the accurate thing being done

but nobody wants to spend the time to do the correction

yeah yeah

right so that that that's a big

big barrier for us so slow down pause

take a even if it's like 2 minutes

do a little bit more reflection

it's like it doesn't have to be

I mean sometimes it needs to be bigger

but like if we can start building in these micro habits

it really does it does accelerate impact in the end

cause we're getting smarter

I think this might actually what you just described

kind of lead into the question

I wanted to ask you next which was

why does focusing on results first

often undermine the outcomes

that leaders are looking for yeah

you know so I

I talk a lot about people first

it's people and then process and then results

and if we're focusing

on the results or the business outcome only

you can be actually driving the wrong behavior

and we see this you know

in you know

things like oh

we have to have you know

on time delivery well

then people are maybe shortcutting quality

or other things because you

that's the metric that you've put on that's like

that's the result that matters

or we have these very convoluted processes

and not very efficient or whatever

if we focus just on the results

we might be able to get there

but if we focus on the people and the learning aspect

we're going to be able to build that sustainability

to get there better and faster

and in the long run and more effectively yes

we want results but if we're more process oriented

we're going to be more effective

ultimately over time in getting those results

that that makes sense and I wish

I don't know what would you recommend for a new

a small business like myself

or small businesses that are listening

who don't already have this built into their

their processes they're

they're in the western world way of thinking

where we should correct

I don't have time for correction

I don't have time to do it right

but I do have time to do it twice yeah

how how would you get somebody that's new

to try to adopt those processes to yeah

well first value it yes

defend adopt for sure

and I mean this is for I think any I mean

I'm I have a small business as well

I have to talk with my team members about how we

do this and you know

as well like

how do we build in that reflection and learning time

so you know the first and foremost is like

how much

what is the what is the impact of doing things twice

of all the waste like

think about like the time it takes to do the rework

or the amount of money you're spending on supplies

and parts for doing that

like quantify that cause that's real like that

and if you can right do it better the first time

then then you're actually saving a ton of time

money and and frustration for your people too

so it's even sort of like

learning to see and quantify the waste

in our organization you know

all those all those levels

and then the the thing that I

I recommend people do is start framing

so to start bringing in this sort of like

learning mindset

if we can frame what we're doing as a hypothesis

we're gonna do this and we expect X

like we're gonna do X and we expect y to happen

and then we can say in our short reflection

did what we expect actually happen as a result

if not why not

oh that's interesting

what do we need to do differently

so the more we can frame our action

is a hypothesis of what we think

the impact of the action will be

we can have a place for reflection

it doesn't have to be super complicated or anything

but like

you know I expect that if we do something different

we expect it's gonna improve by a certain amount

or I as a leader I you know

I expect wow if I can hold back in like

offering my solution and ask a few more questions

I expect that my team members

are going to come up with some better ideas

and let's see how that happen

like what what happens as a result

I'm curious right

so it helps yeah

that curiosity so really simple

and it can happen across complex problems

issues or simple smaller processes or behaviors

I I am thinking of like what you're describing to me

I think it to me makes sense

specifically like an operational sense

like I can see the benefit of that very easily

I can see how to communicate that

and it makes sense to the team members involved

and I know that well

some of the challenges we talked about is almost from

like a leadership perspective

where

we've got to try to build this into the processes and

and make time and space for that

so that the corrections can happen

and we can get the benefits over time

if you were talking to a leader small business

and that leader drives their business by results

maybe even by results that's been locked in by

let's just call it like the CFO

how would you articulate the value of building in

learning to a CFO

who's trying to identify it

by the numbers yeah

well again

I go back to this thing like

if we're continuing to have all this waste

and we don't have people who can see the waste

then what like

what's the quantifiable business metric on the time

the the the the product

like I guess the supplies all all those things

so quantify that and then go back to well

if we focus on having more learning

we expect that we're gonna see a reduction in waste

you know

if you know we frame it around that and then say OK

well did that actually happen

can we actually measure are we actually seeing

that our team members are having

are able to use their creativity to

focus on process improvement

and then what is the result of that

so you can definitely quantify it and that you know

no matter what organizations I've been working for

large healthcare organizations

we're always like well

what's the value of like focusing on people

and learning and process improvement

there's tangible and intangible value

but all of that can be translated to

ROI for the business really

and we just have to get better at that

value chain leadership behaviors leads to like

our people's capability

which leads to process improvement

which leads to tangible and intangible outcomes

which leads to true like results for the organization

and the more we can start looking at that

how we tell that story and measure it is really helpful

I wish I was in an like

that sounds like a fantastic way to kind of

tie everything together and I can see myself in

in my own business I can see my

my clients go into their business

and when they run into a problem

all hands on deck like heads down

focusing on the problem and being able to like

still maintain not just a process

but like a process that ties through to the entire

through the entire organization

the growth of the organization

and not letting yourself get derailed

I don't know if I'm asking a question

but it seems difficult to me to maintain that level of

like widespread focus and diligence to growth

and not letting people who

maybe are in small businesses

used to just firefighting

like you like we talked about

jumping in and solving the problem

while trying to hold on to the value of

let the process work the kinks out

yeah it

I mean that's just

it's like it's like

it's growing pains within your organization because

you know when you're super small

you know you are kind of the doer

the Jack of all trades right

and and if you want to set the organization

the business up for that next level of growth

it also means there has to be a shift in how

what how you're

you're performing you're acting

what the responsibility of your team members are

the systems and structures

you need for the organization

because if you if you're trying to have a larger

a larger company you're at that next level of growth

but you're still functioning at that other level

it's gonna crumble right

so it's not gonna happen

this happens at all different levels of

you know stages

if going from like a small

super small company to that next level

and then even to like a broader enterprise

like you have to solidify and shift

and that's gonna be hard cause we're

we have to let go of some things

sure redefine what that means and then

and grow capabilities as well at all levels of the

of the organization it sounds like

like I'm assuming

you've had these kinds of conversations

with leaders themselves

who are trying to evolve themselves

their own businesses

it sounds like these would be difficult conversations

to have and sometimes well

it can be difficult conversations to have

because sometimes they may recognize

you know I don't have a

the skill set

or the habits to take it to the next level yet

yep and that's probably where you come in

you're trying to give them

the advice and the roadmap to get there

because maybe they haven't done it themselves yet

yeah on that uh

before we wrapped up

I really wanted to ask you about if you could take uh

one sixty seconds and you could go into the past

and give yourself one piece of advice only

cause that's all the time you have no

and to prepare yourself to be more effective

in whatever direction in life you're trying to go

what would be the one piece of advice

you'd give yourself

yeah well

the one piece of advice really

would come down to what we've talked about here today

because what what I've been sharing is

is really from Learned experience

it's that your value doesn't depend on you

your expertise of doing your value is about

how do you create those conditions

for learning across an organization

so you gotta

get out of that habit of sharing all your great ideas

all the time

doesn't mean your great ideas aren't great ideas

but that is that the right place in time

and so break that telling habit

and really focus on your intention

like what's the impact you wanna have

and how are the behaviors or how you're showing up

does that really align with that

and those can be those aha moments

and when I had those realizations for myself

I started to make those shifts

so I realized how I'm showing up is no longer serving

the impact I wanna have

or need to have at this time in my life

that that is great advice to yourself

and and now that you're back into the present

I wanted to ask you

what is a book you're reading right now

that you think would be good for other people to

other than your own which I do want to point to

I want you to tell me other than your own book

what's a good book for somebody to read who's

I'm trying to develop themselves

yeah so I mean

there's so many books

it's not a book I'm currently reading right now

but it's a book I often go back to

so the Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

he's been on my podcast as well

and it really talks about some really simple

coaching questions

that's like the book I wish I had written

cause I

I think it's very simple and practical about coaching

questions

you can ask that really help bring things forward

so um

it's a classic it's been out for a decade

but if you haven't read it

The Coaching Habit is very accessible

by Michael Bungay Stanier

and then go listen to him on my podcast

chain of learning

and for your own book uh

where would listeners

where should listeners go to pick up leading to learn

and learning to lead yeah

so it's learning to lead leading to learn

so you gotta learn to lead first

and then you can lead to learn

but it is a cycle so learning to lead

leading to learn is available on Amazon or in your

favorite you know online retailer it's also on audible

so if you prefer to listen

you can listen to me read the book

and get some insights from an awesome little clip

it's from Mr Yoshino as well

and it's available in ebook

hardback soft pack

um paperback

whatever softback paper

all the ways all all all the ways and and audio too

so yep the easiest place is probably um on Amazon

but there

it's available across online retailers as well

and you can go check out my website in the book

like learning to lead

leading to learn.com and then KBJ

Anderson dot com as well

perfect well

thank you so much Katie it's been great talking to you

um thank you for the advice

and for the resources that we can go check out

I'm gonna point listeners to go check that out

after this episode

thank you again and looking forward to chatting again

yeah thanks for having me David

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