Chain of Learning: Leadership Strategies for Transforming Culture, Developing People, and Getting Results

Help and support. Two words we use almost interchangeably.

But do they mean the same thing? And does the distinction even matter?

It does. Because your help can be the very thing that keeps someone from developing their own competence and confidence.

You want people who are capable and confident to solve problems at every level, without needing you to do it for them. But the project gets done, or the problem gets solved, and the person still can't do it without you. And you find yourself unintentionally owning the responsibility of doing it all.

Providing support is an essential part of people-centered leadership. You meet them where they're at, and keep the ownership where it belongs.

You’ll Learn:

• Why providing help and support are not the same thing
• Why your intention to be helpful can still lead to overstepping ownership of others' thinking and problem-solving
• How to assess what someone needs from you as a leader in the moment
• Why the difference between helping and supporting isn't about time or effort, but where ownership resides
• How asking a follow-up question, instead of giving your answer, can become one of your most powerful coaching practices for developing people

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/88
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
00:52 When your good intentions become unhelpful

03:35 How being the expert can take ownership away from others

04:45 The difference between providing help and support

05:55 Why ownership matters more than time or effort

07:20 When doing it yourself keeps your team dependent

08:05 Three responsibilities of leaders who develop people

09:15 When caring becomes carrying: The Doer Trap

11:45 Why productive struggle is essential for learning

12:55 When to let people struggle and when to step in

13:20 How AI can shortcut learning—or support deeper thinking

14:35 Why stepping in limits your leadership capacity

15:15 How to assess whether someone needs help or support

16:35 The power of asking instead of answering

17:15 The “Jedi mind trick” that helps people find their own answers

18:15 What providing support looks like in practice

20:05 One question to try in your next conversation

How do you build deeper human connection in your relationships so that you can more effectively lead change and help others?

That question sits at the heart of some of the most influential books in my work, including Helping and Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein: how we help, not as the expert with all the answers, but by asking better questions as a leader and creating the conditions for other people to develop their own ideas.

Edgar’s work has profoundly shaped how I think about leadership, learning, and helping. And in the later years of his life, his son Peter Schein became an important partner in continuing to develop and evolve these ideas of humble leadership and organizational culture.

Peter spent 30 years in Silicon Valley in corporate strategy and development before partnering with his father to co-write seven books. He recently released the third edition of Humble Inquiry, continuing to bring these foundational ideas forward for how we lead, learn, and create change today.

In this conversation, Peter and I explore how to move beyond transactional relationships to build genuine personal ones. We get underneath the meaning of many of the words we use today—curiosity, vulnerability, and psychological safety—and why seeking clarity gets you further than seeking certainty.

You’ll Learn:

• Why "don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution" teaches people not to speak up
• Why you're most vulnerable when you don't know what you're missing
• How "Sharing the MIC" makes humble inquiry practical: Motivation, Intervention, Contribution
• The difference between helping as the expert with the answer and helping as the process consultant who creates the conditions
• Why going to see isn't the same as transparency

ABOUT MY GUEST:
Peter Schein is the co-founder of the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute. He spent thirty years in Silicon Valley in strategy and corporate development at companies including Apple, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems, and studied anthropology at Stanford University.

Peter partnered with his father, Edgar Schein, to co-write seven books, including Humble Leadership, and has continued to evolve their work through new editions of Humble Inquiry and The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. Edgar Schein was Professor Emeritus at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is recognized as one of the founders of organizational psychology.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/86
• Connect with Peter Schein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peteraschein/
• Learn more about the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute: https://www.scheinocli.org/
• Read Helping, Humble Inquiry, and Humble Leadership: https://www.scheinocli.org/publications
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:06 Transactional vs. relational leadership and why connection matters
08:10 Why efficiency without relationships limits effectiveness
12:19 When expertise gets in the way of seeing the bigger picture
16:24 Why clarity matters more than certainty
20:31 When curiosity, vulnerability, and psychological safety become buzzwords
22:08 Why you’re vulnerable to what you don’t know
24:36 What Humble Inquiry actually looks like in leadership
27:26 How Humble Inquiry builds both trust and better information
28:35 Why “bring me solutions, not problems” keeps people from speaking up
30:35 How to “Share the MIC” and make Humble Inquiry practical
36:21 Helping as the expert vs. helping as a process consultant
38:33 How AI is changing where leaders and consultants add value
44:03 Making invisible team dynamics visible
49:35 Why being open to what you don’t know changes how you lead
52:26 What going to Gemba teaches us about Humble Inquiry
54:29 Why transparency and openness aren’t the same thing

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Enter for your chance to win a copy of "Thoughtload" by Liane Davey: http://chainoflearning.com/85
Giveaway ends October 9th at 11:45pm Pacific Time.

Your team isn't resisting change. They don't have room for it.

It's not just workload that's overwhelming us, it's what Liane Davey calls our "thoughtload": the invisible tax on our performance and presence.

Liane is an organizational psychologist who works with CEOs and executive teams leading organizational transformation. In her latest book she uncovers how complexity, decisions, and emotional weight are draining us, leaving us feeling like there's too much to do and no space left to think.

We bring home what's weighing on us at work, and what we're worried about comes to the next meeting with us. We end up half-present, consumed by what's going on inside, not what's in front of us.

Liane shares how to lighten the noise inside your head to focus your attention, work through what you're carrying emotionally, and get your energy back.

Urgency, constant change, and the pressure to deliver aren't going away. But thoughtload is something you can manage, before it turns into leadership burnout for you or your team.

You’ll Learn:

• Why the person pushing back on your organizational change isn't a resistor, and what is actually going on inside their brain
• Why we've become intolerant of iteration, and how to position a decision so that correcting course doesn't land as flip-flopping
• How your team can be busy, productive, and still not moving toward the outcome
• How a heavy thoughtload keeps you from having a hard conversation, and how avoiding productive conflict makes your load heavier
• What it means to "metabolize your thoughtload", and why filling every walk and commute with input leaves no room to think

ABOUT MY GUEST:
Dr. Liane Davey is an organizational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author who advises executive teams on strategy, decision-making, and team dynamics. She is co-founder of the firm 3COze and the author of The Good Fight and Thoughtload. Her doctoral research on how team dynamics affect innovation has shaped three decades of her work with senior leaders.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/85
• Connect with Liane Davey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lianedavey/
• Purchase a copy of Liane's book: thoughtload.com
• Learn more about Liane: http://lianedavey.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/JapanTrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:00 Why it’s not the workload—it’s the thoughtload

06:00 How thoughtload undermines team performance

08:00 Why overwhelm shifts leaders from reflection to reaction

11:00 Three ways to manage your thoughtload

12:00 Why being productive doesn’t mean you’re effective

16:45 The problem with having too many priorities

19:00 How leaders can lighten their team’s thoughtload

20:45 Why your brain needs space to process, not more input

23:00 What change leaders miss about resistance

24:30 Why labeling people “change resistors” gets it wrong

29:30 How avoiding conflict makes your thoughtload heavier

32:30 Why managing thoughtload means saying no to good things

36:15 When changing direction is learning—not flip-flopping

37:25 What deserves to be in your thoughtload?

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

People-centered. Learning organization. Culture of continuous improvement. We use a lot of different words to describe what we are trying to create.

But do we actually mean the same thing? And if we all want it, what's stopping us from getting there? And what is the one thing that could have the biggest impact?

So I asked. And you answered.

Leaders and change practitioners around the world responded. There wasn't one shared definition or set of words for a people-centered learning culture. But the same essence was in almost every answer.

The pressures we're all working in are real, and they're not going away. Yet the biggest impact comes from something we can influence: our own leadership behavior. And that starts with us.

You’ll Learn:

• Why "people-centered" and "learning" are intertwined concepts that support each other in creating a learning organization
• How to describe what we're trying to build to leaders who never ask for a people-centered learning culture
• Why "respect for people" means more than treating people well, and how it's fundamental to developing people and organizational success
• How urgency, firefighting, and short-term pressure to deliver results exacerbate our pull toward doing rather than developing people
• Why the environment is seen as the barrier, and leadership behavior is the lever for change

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/84
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

02:03 What leaders actually want from their teams

04:31 Why urgency gets in the way of developing people

06:17 How ego and leader behavior limit ownership

08:22 When fear makes it harder to speak up and learn

10:37 The biggest lever for creating a people-centered culture

12:35 Why we can’t wait for the system to change

14:08 How caring pulls us into the Doer Trap

15:47 What “respect for people” really means

17:28 What people-centered leadership looks like in practice

18:07 How learning happens through the work

20:49 What people need to solve their own problems

22:35 Start with what you can influence

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Overstepping ownership rarely looks like overstepping. It looks like moving things along.

You know how something could be improved, so you give your suggestion. Work gets done, progress is visible, but the person you were there to develop doesn't build the capability they need, and the improvement doesn't sustain.

Every change leader, manager, and executive does this at some point. And when we take on ownership of what isn't ours, we end up the bottleneck.

As a transformational change leader at Kaiser Permanente, Anna Pessah watches this play out every day with the internal consulting team she leads, and with the physician and operational leaders she supports.

We break down this challenge and share the practices to use instead. Leaders don't need to stop helping or teaching. It's about getting clear about what each person owns, and adjusting how you help based on what that leader needs in the moment.

When ownership sits in the right place, people grow, improvements hold, and you have the space to do what is actually yours to do.

You’ll Learn:

• How to make ownership explicit from the start, by contracting up front and saying out loud which hat you're wearing, coach or consultant or teacher
• Why leaders learn good coaching practices best by being coached, and how making your own practice visible lets others model it
• Why the pull to step in gets stronger the more you care about the outcome
• Why a new practice often swings too far one direction at first, and how to find the middle without abandoning it
• When asking coaching questions stops being helpful, and how to be directive without taking over the thinking

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Anna Pessah leads the internal consulting team that oversees the operating system at the North Valley Service Area of Kaiser Permanente, where she coaches physician and operational leaders on strategy, management systems, and the behaviors that support a culture of improvement. She is an industrial engineer from the University of Michigan and an ICF-certified coach. Anna brings a blend of systems thinking, operational improvement, and leadership development to help leaders generate insight, turn goals into action, and build habits that stick.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/83
• Connect with Anna Pessah: linkedin.com/in/anna-pessah
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:16 Why change leaders struggle to keep ownership with leaders

05:22 When helping starts creating dependence

06:15 Building capability instead of becoming the bottleneck

07:12 Why doing more can make your job harder

09:23 Getting explicit about roles and ownership

11:25 Why new practices require reflection and adjustment

13:17 Making your leadership practices visible

16:03 How to give direction without taking over

22:16 What happens when leaders operate at the wrong level

24:05 The personal cost of staying in the weeds

25:30 Why helping can turn into overstepping

27:43 When coaching questions aren’t helpful

31:25 The power of listening—and leaving space

36:46 Why humility is essential to learning

38:18 Recognizing your own pull to control

39:06 Simple practices for keeping ownership where it belongs

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Profit or cash. Efficiency or flexibility. Speed, or doing it right.

Leaders feel like they have to make trade-offs like these all the time. But the choice often isn't real.

Some contradictions are unavoidable. Others only look that way until you understand the real problem. The most effective organizations realize they don't have to pick a side if they can resolve the underlying tension.

Olivier Larue has spent three decades helping companies do this, which he's documented in his three-book series The Toyota Economic System: a philosophy about people and society, the technical design that turns it into results, and the management practices that keep it alive through continuous learning.

The real breakthrough is never the tools, optimizing one part of the system, or making unnecessary tradeoffs. It's how every part connects, and understanding the real problem to solve, so people remain the focus and results last.

You’ll Learn:

• How to tell a contradiction that's real from one that only looks real, so you stop choosing between things you can't afford to lose
• Why an economic lens, not an operational one, changes where you look for the answer
• Why the number and order of Toyota's seven wastes aren't arbitrary, and why the first one drives how you understand the rest
• Why declaring people "empowered" means nothing without the conditions that let them act on it
• How respect for people extends to avoiding layoffs even in downturns, and why that matters in a world of AI and supply chain disruptions

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Olivier Larue was trained by Toyota Motor Corporation and has spent thirty years helping Fortune 500 companies design and implement industrial manufacturing solutions, including more than a decade as a consultant with TSSC, the Toyota Production System Support Center, and hands-on work in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is the founder and president of Ydatum, and the author of the three-book series The Toyota Economic System.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/82
• Connect with Olivier Larue: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierlarue/
• Purchase a copy of The Toyota Economic System (three-book series): https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Economic-System-Environmental-Stewardship
• Learn more about Ydatum: http://www.ydatum.com/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
02:43 How a NUMMI experience shaped Olivier years later

05:14 Why call it the Toyota Economic System?

09:42 Profit vs. cash: the trade-off companies get wrong

12:32 Why Just-in-Time doesn’t mean zero inventory

16:30 What happens when company values and work conflict

20:20 Why leaders have to “earn” how they manage

21:42 Why Toyota’s seven wastes are in a specific order

23:38 The hidden cost of human waiting

27:20 Why leadership skills alone aren’t enough

30:05 Why organizations keep repeating the same problems

31:26 What Andon actually means for empowerment

35:17 The leadership response that makes problems safe to surface

39:16 Why Toyota can avoid layoffs during downturns

44:30 The unanswered question about AI and economic growth

48:30 How enthusiasm turns pull into push

50:44 Why isolated improvements don’t transform systems

54:35 Refusing the either/or trade-off

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Your leadership style isn't the problem. Your default is.

The gap between how you're leading and what the person in front of you actually needs is one of the most common and most invisible places leaders get stuck. Most of us default to one mode and don't notice the mismatch until something breaks down.

Suzie Bishop has spent over a decade at the Center for Leadership Studies helping leaders close that gap and strengthen their leadership effectiveness. Her new book, Situational Leadership, puts nearly sixty years of research into a practical framework for reading the situation, building leadership flexibility, and adapting your approach.

Suzie walks through the four leadership styles, how to read what someone needs in a given situation, and how to adapt your approach to coach, develop leaders, and lead through influence.

The best leaders don't pick one style and commit. They pause, assess the situation, and flex to have the impact you intend.

You’ll Learn:

• Why "leadership is influence" reframes how you lead, and why influence has nothing to do with manipulation or control
• How to diagnose what someone needs, and why one person can require four different approaches in the same conversation
• How leadership flexibility and adaptability differ—and why knowing the styles isn't the same as knowing when to use them
• Why only asking coaching questions can leave people stuck, and how to know when to step in with more directive leadership
• How the "power of the pause" helps you move from reacting out of habit to adapting with intention

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Suzie Bishop is VP of Product Development at The Center for Leadership Studies. She's a Certified Professional in Training Management, a Stakeholder Centered Coach, and a Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coach. Suzie is co-author of Situational Leadership: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change and Unlocking Performance and is currently writing her next book, Match: How to Meet Leaders Where They Are, with Marshall Goldsmith.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/81
• Connect with Suzie Bishop: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzie-bishop/
• Purchase a copy: Situational Leadership: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change and Unlocking Performance by Suzie Bishop and Sam Shriver
• Match: How to Meet Leaders Where They Are by Suzie Bishop and Marshall Goldsmith (November 2026)
• Learn more about The Center for Leadership Studies: https://situational.com/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

02:52 Why leadership is influence, not control

04:43 Creating the conditions without controlling

06:51 What Situational Leadership looks like in practice

07:35 Flexibility vs. adaptability: the critical difference

07:48 The four Situational Leadership styles

11:41 How to recognize your natural leadership tendency

13:08 When asking questions isn’t effective coaching

16:46 How to be directive without taking away ownership

17:37 The cost of not adapting how you lead

21:37 Why organizations need a common leadership language

24:05 Creating the conditions for people to ask for help

25:24 The leadership challenge even top executives struggle with

29:06 How to give direction without taking over

30:33 Influence versus control when you have authority

31:06 Three types of power that shape your influence

32:51 Why trust is your most important source of power

36:02 The difference between flexibility and adaptability

37:08 Practice an intention pause before you respond

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

How many problems are actually visible in your organization?

Research shows senior leaders see just 4%. The other 96% stay hidden — invisible, yet still there. And some aren't even recognized by employees as problems anymore, because they have become the norm.

We all say we want psychological safety. But you don't get it by saying you want it. People-centered leadership is about creating conditions for people to speak up and highlight issues by how you, and leaders across your system, respond.

Recorded live with a group of global leaders participating in my Japan Leadership Experience in May 2026, this special episode celebrates the sixth anniversary of Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. You'll hear Isao Yoshino, a 40-year Toyota leader and the subject of my book, reflect on three of the book's most talked-about stories.

These examples bring two of Toyota's mottos to life, "bad news first" and "no problem is a problem," and show why a leader's response is what turns problems into a culture of improvement:

• How his manager's response to a huge paint-shop mistake in his first months at Toyota shaped how he saw a leader's role
• How andon — signaling a problem and stopping the line — changed the culture at NUMMI
• How he found the courage to highlight his failing water ski boat business to President Fujio Cho

Whether on the front line or in the boardroom, creating the conditions where bad news comes first, and support follows, is what builds a culture of excellence.

You’ll Learn:

• Why a leader's response to a mistake is fundamental to effective leadership and matters more than the mistake itself
• The two actions behind a bad-news-first culture: respond down to help, not blame, and signal up when something's off course
• Why andon is a leadership practice, not just a factory signal, that works from the shop floor to the executive suite
• What the NUMMI turnaround shows about culture change: people adopt a better way when they discover it, not when they're told
• Why "thank you for this mistake" is the keystone move for building psychological safety

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Isao Yoshino spent forty years at Toyota, from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, where he helped shape the people-centered learning culture the company is known for today. He was a key leader in the Kan-Pro senior-management development program and led the training of the American managers at NUMMI, the Toyota-GM joint venture, where he hired John Shook. He is the subject of Katie Anderson's Shingo Publication Award-winning book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/80
• Order your copy of Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: http://learningtoleadleadingtolearn.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
02:18 Andon: Why a leader's response matters

03:16 The paint mistake that shaped Mr. Yoshino's leadership

05:28 Why Mr. Yoshino was thanked for his mistake

09:34 The leadership lesson that lasted 40 years

11:22 Why Toyota starts every leader on the front line

12:18 Inside the early days of NUMMI

17:13 Why workers were afraid to stop the line

23:34 What changed the culture at NUMMI

24:40 Why leaders only see 4% of problems

25:16 Responding down instead of blaming

25:50 Asking for help at the leadership level

28:43 Why President Cho flew to a failing business

34:17 The power of bad news first

35:54 Mr. Yoshino's biggest leadership regret

38:19 When doing it yourself becomes the problem

39:05 The response that creates culture

40:28 The two behaviors every leader needs

42:02 Two questions to reflect on this week

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Efficiency and cost savings aren't what makes operational excellence last. People are.

The leaders who create enduring, high-performing organizations are after something beyond business results. They want a company where people end the day more capable, more confident, more energized than when it began. That's the difference between a workplace that wears people down and one that builds powerful people.

Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years building that kind of culture of continuous improvement at OC Tanner. But the hardest part wasn't creating the systems or processes to get better outcomes. It was his own transformation — coming to see how, without meaning to, he'd become the leader getting in his people's way.

Put people first, and the results follow.

And the deepest transformation you'll ever lead is your own.

You’ll Learn:

• Why operational excellence only lasts when leaders focus on building people, not just cutting costs and eliminating waste
• Why the best leaders make an identity shift from being the expert with every answer to creating the conditions for others to solve problems
• What it takes to move managers from enforcers to coaches and make continuous improvement something your team never fears, even as roles and headcount shift
• How to influence real organizational change when you have no authority to make anyone follow
• Why so many leaders give up on culture change too soon, and how long it really takes

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years at OC Tanner, where he held leadership roles across manufacturing, marketing, and operations, most recently as Executive Vice President of Supply Chain and Manufacturing. He led the people-first transformation that earned OC Tanner the Shingo Prize and made it one of the few companies Toyota holds up as a global showcase for its system outside automotive. Gary is an Association for Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame inductee.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/79
• Connect with Gary Peterson: linkedin.com/in/garypeterson
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join me on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
03:44 Why Toyota saw something different at OC Tanner

05:02 The real purpose of operational excellence

07:19 How Gary knew the culture was changing

09:00 Creating people who change the world

12:13 The outcome every leader should want

13:07 Two pillars that shaped the journey

14:26 Breaking a culture of fear and control

15:35 The five-minute habit that changed everything

17:15 Redefining what it means to be a manager

19:12 Why transformation takes longer than you think

20:05 What to do when leaders don't support the change

22:26 The experiment that almost got shut down

24:19 Helping managers make the coaching shift

25:23 When people outgrow their leaders

28:28 Why improvement should never threaten jobs

30:23 The manager who couldn't stop yelling

32:23 The leadership habit that destroys ownership

35:35 Becoming the leader you never wanted to be

37:00 The habit that was holding people back

38:01 The executive behavior that shuts people down

40:07 Proving your worth vs. creating conditions

45:37 Showing results isn't the same as showing people

49:53 Where transformation really begins

51:16 The question every leader should ask about their people

53:34 When helping starts limiting growth

55:14 The shift that made everything else possible

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Have you poured months into a strategy your team couldn't bring to life? Or watched capable people work harder than ever, and still struggle to pull together as a team?

High performance isn't about a better strategy, more talent, or longer hours. It's about how your team works together, every single day.

Karina Mangu-Ward, author of Teams That Meet the Moment, has spent more than a decade helping complex organizations redesign the messy day-to-day of how people actually get things done together. Her belief: good everyday teaming habits are both good for people and good for results. You don't have to choose between them.

Making this real doesn't require a reinvention. You just need the right structure and the intention to show up differently. In this episode, Karina shares simple, tangible practices you can use in your very next meeting or strategic project.

You’ll Learn:

• The three lies leaders tell themselves about teamwork, and why believing them holds your team back
• How the framework of the "Even Over" ends the swirl when your team is stuck choosing between two competing options
• Why creating a "Safe to Try" process gets a team unstuck when you're chasing consensus and certainty
• What a steady team cadence unlocks when everything around you feels like an emergency
• The instinct nearly every high performer has to unlearn before they can build a team that thrives

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Karina Mangu-Ward is a partner at August Public, an organizational change consultancy that helps large, complex organizations build more human-centered ways of working, whose clients include PepsiCo, Planned Parenthood, and Sundance. She's the author of Teams That Meet the Moment: 9 Practices for Unlocking Performance and Growth in Uncertain Times. Karina's passion is helping groups navigate complexity, gain insight, and unlock highly complex challenges.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/78
• Connect with Karina: linkedin.com/in/karina-mangu-ward
• Purchase a copy of Karina's book: Teams That Meet the Moment
• Learn more about Karina’s company: https://www.aug.co/
• Take the Team assessment: https://assessment.aug.co/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: http://kbjanderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
03:01 Why great strategy still fails
04:13 The hustle culture myth that's burning teams out
05:20 Everyday habits drive extraordinary teams
07:11 Meeting the moment in uncertain times
09:13 The "Safe to Try" mindset that breaks gridlock
11:18 Setting guardrails without limiting innovation
12:06 Why small bets outperform big risks
13:29 Unlearning the need to have the answer
15:17 Why sticky practices beat complicated frameworks
17:16 Simple retrospectives that strengthen learning
20:19 The surprising cost of treating everything like an emergency
22:09 Using "Even Over" to make better trade-offs
25:28 Intention over reaction in decision-making
30:32 When perfection becomes procrastination
31:53 Why working in public accelerates learning
34:22 The power of stories over instruction
37:08 Intention + practice = better leadership
39:14 What trade-off do you need to make?

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Joy isn't a perk. It's a business strategy.

Have you ever wondered whether work has to feel this hard? Whether the team you've built can actually function without you? Whether there's a way to lead that doesn't burn you — or your people — out?

Rich Sheridan built Menlo Innovations around one bold idea: ending human suffering in the workplace. The result is a company where joy isn't a slogan. It's how things actually get done. It's a place built on collaboration, human energy, and pride in what people create together.

Joy isn't constant happiness. It's the long arc of meaning and contribution alongside people who care. And it becomes possible the moment you stop being the center of every problem and start creating the conditions for ownership, continuous learning, and yes, joy.

You don't have to change the world. You just have to change your world.

You’ll Learn:

• The mistake most leaders make about mistakes, and why more mistakes can get you ahead faster
• Why what looks like a questionable decision from below makes sense from above
• The difference between joy and happiness, and why most leaders are chasing the wrong thing
• Why running a small experiment will move you further than creating the perfect plan
• What it really takes to build a company designed to last a hundred years

ABOUT MY GUEST:
Rich Sheridan is the co-founder, CEO, and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations, a software development and consulting firm known for its people-centered culture and focus on joy in the workplace. He is the author of Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer and was inducted into the Shingo Academy in 2022 for his contributions to organizational excellence.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes:http://chainoflearning.com/77
• Connect with Rich Sheridan:https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/
• Follow me on LinkedIn:http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter:http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together:KBJAnderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience:http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip
• Purchase a copy of Rich's books:Joy, Inc. andChief Joy Officer
• Learn more about Menlo Innovations:https://menloinnovations.com/
• Tugboat Institute:https://tugboatinstitute.com/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
02:37 When work no longer feels sustainable
05:26 The moment Rich realized the problem wasn't technology
07:27 What an 8-year-old noticed about leadership
08:23 Why hero-based organizations scale through exhaustion
09:39 When caring becomes carrying
12:21 The codependency leaders develop with crises
14:09 What joy at work actually means
17:13 Working with pride and delighting customers
19:17 Why human energy is a leadership responsibility
21:00 What's the cost of not having joy?
23:28 From constant firefighting to two emergencies in 25 years
25:24 Joy vs. happiness: What's the difference?
27:02 Why joy isn't happiness every day
32:17 The phrase that keeps Menlo moving forward
34:15 The leadership lesson Rich learned from flying
40:39 Why Menlo isn't chasing exponential growth
43:02 The book that changed Rich's career
45:18 Why crisis practices work when there isn't a crisis
47:28 Why your system keeps producing the same results
49:38 The shift from carrying to creating conditions for change leadership
51:46 Why stepping in can hold people back

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

What does it really take to sustain a culture of continuous improvement – through pressure for results, across generations, and into an era of AI?

In this final episode of my three-part series with John Shook, one of the most influential leaders and thinkers in the global lean community, we turned to the questions on your mind.

Before we sat down to record, I asked listeners to submit your questions. We cover four of them specifically here, though many others were addressed in Parts 1 and 2, and together they highlight the tensions change leaders and executives face every day.

At the end, as we promised in Part 2, John shares his parting reflections and advice for all of us leading transformation to create people-centered learning cultures. It’s not just what we should stop doing, it’s what we need to continue. Starting with ourselves.

If you haven't listened to episodes 74 and 75 yet, start there first as you won’t want to miss hearing this conversation in full.

You'll Learn:

• Why leaders should be patient for results but impatient for action
• Why getting to the assumptions that underlie your principles and values is where the real work of culture change begins
• How aligning around the real problem to solve helps close the gap across generations and perspectives
• What the original intention of jidoka — separating machine work from human work — can teach us about navigating AI and keeping technology in service of people
• The real purpose of kaizen and continuous improvement

ABOUT MY GUEST:
John Shook spent eleven years with Toyota in Japan and the U.S., where he helped transfer the Toyota Production System globally. He later served as President of the Lean Enterprise Institute and Chairman of the Lean Global Network.

John is the co-author of the award-winning books Learning to See and Managing to Learn, and wrote the foreword to my book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. As an industrial anthropologist, he brings a perspective that connects culture, systems, and practice to bridge deep thinking with real-world application.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/76
• Connect with John Shook: https://www.lean.org/about-lei/senior-advisors-staff/john-shook/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip
• Purchase a copy of, “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn,”: https://kbjanderson.com/learning-to-lead/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

02:28 [Listener Question] How do you balance patience with action?

04:06 Avoiding solution jumping and analysis paralysis

05:20 [Listener Question] What will matter most for the next generation of organizations?

07:21 Why underlying assumptions matter more than artifacts

08:28 The deeper level of hansei and reflection

08:53 [Listener Question] How do you bridge generations without slowing improvement?

10:43 Quick PDCA vs. long-cycle learning

11:23 Aligning people around shared purpose

13:56 [Listener Question] In our age of AI, how do we stay true to jidoka's original intent, separating machine work from human work?

14:12 AI, jidoka, and protecting human work

15:23 Four questions to navigate uncertainty

16:17 Why respect for people still matters in AI

17:15 Jidoka beyond “automation with a human touch”

18:54 Curiosity, experiments, and learning with AI

19:30 The promise and risk of AI thinking for us

22:08 PDCA beyond engineering and problem solving

25:39 The purpose of kaizen is to do more kaizen

26:18 Creating conditions for people to think and grow

27:00 Shifting from leading change to creating conditions

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Lean has always been about people. We just kept reaching for the tools, without understanding the human purpose behind them.

In part two of my three-part conversation with John Shook, we go behind the scenes of Toyota's culture and leadership — sharing stories of the system-building leaders who actually made it what it is, and exploring what it really means to lead people-centered change.

John shares behind-the-scenes reflections from his time inside Toyota that you might not have heard before. Drawing on his direct experience in the company and our shared experiences living and working in Japan and globally, we explore a critical feature that is often missed: lean has always been a socio-technical system. The tools only work when we understand the deeper human purpose behind them.

In this episode, we talk about the people who actually built Toyota's culture, what John learned from his two very different bosses — including Isao Yoshino, the subject of my book “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn” — and what happens when we lose sight of the human purpose inside the tools we practice every day.

In the previous episode, John offered a powerful reframe on lean's impact — and what question we should really be asking as change leaders. If you haven't listened to episode 74 yet, hit pause and start there first — then come back to this one to pick up where we left off.

You'll Learn:

• Inside stories of how Toyota's culture was built and the system builders behind it
• What John learned from his very different bosses inside Toyota and how their styles shaped his own leadership
• Whether you are a lean “mechanic” or “social worker” and what your answer reveals about your leadership
• Why every lean tool is already socio-technical — kanban, standardized work, A3, andon — and what we lost when we introduced them as primarily technical
• The concept of motainai — waste as a moral failure, not just a technical one — and why this matters for how you lead

ABOUT MY GUEST:
John Shook spent eleven years with Toyota in Japan and the U.S., where he helped transfer the Toyota Production System globally. He later served as President of the Lean Enterprise Institute and Chairman of the Lean Global Network.

John is the co-author of the award-winning books Learning to See and Managing to Learn, and wrote the foreword to my book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. As an industrial anthropologist, he brings a perspective that connects culture, systems, and practice to bridge deep thinking with real-world application.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://ChainOfLearning.com/75
• Connect with John Shook: https://www.lean.org/about-lei/senior-advisors-staff/john-shook/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip
• Purchase a copy of, “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn,”: https://kbjanderson.com/learning-to-lead/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
03:04 Why changing culture is harder than copying systems

04:05 John’s question that still drives him: Why Toyota?

05:10 How John found his way into Toyota and NUMMI

06:15 Why Toyota endured while other Japanese companies faded

07:10 Short-term leaders vs. long-term system builders

08:15 The crisis that shaped Toyota’s future direction

10:05 John’s experience learning from very different Toyota leaders

11:15 Why conflicting feedback accelerated John’s learning

12:10 Bringing your own thinking into the A3 process

13:15 Different cultures inside Toyota and how they shaped leadership

14:10 Mr. Cho’s powerful way of teaching through stories

16:10 Katie’s lion story and breaking the telling habit

17:15 Adapting your leadership approach to the situation

19:15 Reading both the technical and social sides of change

20:20 TPS as a way to expose weaknesses and accelerate growth

21:45 Are you a lean mechanic or a lean social worker?

22:50 Identifying your leadership bias and growth edge

24:05 Why process improvement and OD teams should work together

27:10 Scientific thinking, humanism, and ethics in Toyota leadership

28:55 Eliminating waste as more than a technical exercise

30:05 Mottainai and the deeper meaning of waste

32:25 Why lean tools were always socio-technical

33:40 Kanban, standardized work, and the human side of lean

35:10 The A3 as more than a problem-solving tool

37:35 The most common failure mode in lean transformations

38:30 When lean becomes the goal instead of the means

39:30 Why lean isn’t just for executives

40:35 Improving work at every level of the organization

41:40 Why empowerment without support falls apart

42:20 The Andon system as a model for real support

43:45 Where do you need to grow: technical or human?

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Has lean really failed?

That question sparked one of the most listened-to conversations in the history of this podcast — my two-part series with Jim Womack in episodes 37 and 38.

When I sat down with John Shook — one of the most influential thought leaders and practitioners in the global lean and continuous improvement community — we explored a different angle.

John's perspective isn't a rebuttal. It's a reframe. A counterpoint to the question itself.

John asks: what problem are we really trying to solve?

His answer unfolds across three episodes — the first ever three-part series on Chain of Learning. And I think it will change how you think about your own impact as a change leader.

You’ll Learn:

• Why the question "how many lean enterprises have we created?" may be leading us in the wrong direction — and what we should ask instead
• The difference between "command and control" and what John calls "command and abandon" — and which one you're more likely doing
• Why the key question in problem-solving is not "is this accurate?" but "is this useful?"
• How to recognize your span of influence and build systems at the right level that help people think, learn, and take ownership
• Why purpose → work → capability is the right sequence — and why most leaders start in the wrong place

ABOUT MY GUEST:
John Shook spent eleven years with Toyota in Japan and the U.S., where he helped transfer the Toyota Production System globally. He later served as President of the Lean Enterprise Institute and Chairman of the Lean Global Network.

John is the co-author of the award-winning books Learning to See and Managing to Learn, and wrote the foreword to my book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. As an industrial anthropologist, he brings a perspective that connects culture, systems, and practice to bridge deep thinking with real-world application.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/74
• Connect with John Shook: https://www.lean.org/about-lei/senior-advisors-staff/john-shook/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
• Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: http://kbjanderson.com/japantrip
• Grab a copy of, “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn,”: https://kbjanderson.com/learning-to-lead/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
03:00 Why John Shook believes we may be asking the wrong question about lean

05:25 Why change leadership always starts with changing yourself

06:40 The tension between influencing others and trying to control them

08:15 What a people-centered learning culture actually looks like in practice

09:05 Why John avoids lean jargon and starts with the problem instead

10:00 The Toyota question that shaped John’s thinking: “What problem are you trying to solve?”

11:15 Why learning only matters when it’s grounded in the work

12:30 Toyota’s “attitude toward learning” and why it changes everything

15:05 Why leaders must create the environment for learning and problem-solving

16:00 How organizations drift into “big company disease”

17:05 Why purpose → work → capability is the sequence most leaders miss

18:15 The risk of starting culture change with leadership behaviors alone

19:20 Why focusing on the work reveals what’s really blocking change

21:00 Why John sees more “command and abandon” than command and control

23:20 Focusing on your span of influence instead of waiting for senior leaders

27:15 How every person at work already has “problem consciousness”

29:00 The surprising truth about who is most frustrated in organizations

32:15 Building systems at your level that create ownership and capability

33:20 Why modeling the behavior matters more than pushing harder

36:15 Why sustainable change starts with how you show up each day

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

The way you’re leading transformation might be getting in the way of the culture you’re trying to build.

As change leaders and practitioners, we care about results. But in that focus, it’s easy to stay on the outer work—processes, metrics, systems—and underestimate the inner work – our mindset, behaviors, and relationships – that actually moves people.

Our passion can unintentionally pull us away from creating the conditions for learning, alignment, and growth, and taking ownership back by stepping in to do, to solve, and to own the work.

To explore this, I’m joined by Richard Koch, who has spent 25+ years leading change inside large, complex global organizations—from frontline improvement to system-level transformation. We’re connected by a shared belief: sustainable transformation doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from creating the conditions for people to be successful.

In this conversation, Richard shares what he’s learned from being inside that tension including why the way many organizations deploy improvement teams can unintentionally prevent the problem-solving ownership they’re trying to build.

You’ll Learn:

• Why daily work and small steps are where long-term change is actually built
• How separating leadership development and continuous improvement creates confusion—and weakens ownership
• Where improvement teams unintentionally take over the work and limit capability growth
• What it looks like to support leaders in owning change without stepping in to solve it
• Why the leader must be at the center of transformation—and what changes when that responsibility is held

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Richard H. Koch is Managing Director of Serofia and works with leaders who want to create meaningful progress for people, performance, and the future they are helping to shape. Drawing on more than 25 years of international experience across strategy, leadership, operational excellence, innovation, and transformation, he brings together coaching, training, and consulting in a way that is both human and practical. His approach is grounded in systems thinking, deep listening, and helping leaders turn strategic ambition into real progress through small steps and real work.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/73
• Connect with Richard Koch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardkoch88/
• Learn more about Serofia: https://www.serofia.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:44 Importance of seeing potential in every person

06:10 How seemingly insignificant actions ripple through teams
08:37 Why separating leadership and improvement work breaks progress
09:14 The Inner System vs. Outer System framework and how it drives change
12:19 The negative effect with silos that keeps you away from focusing on the work and the leader

15:14 Why forcing change undermines ownership

17:32 The mindset shift for change leaders and internal consultants
19:07 Why daily work is the path to long-term transformation
21:22 When improvement work splits into process and leadership, change stops sticking
23:19 Why direct observation and connection matter
25:23 Challenge of relying on experts to help solve problems
28:27 How to build sustainability instead of dependency
29:05 Navigating trust, timing, and influence with senior leaders
32:25 Leading with empathy and understanding the pressure leaders are under

33:52 Value of having the right outside partner to achieve goals

35:50 Seeing a leader move from sponsor to truly owning and enabling change

39:36 Importance of staying curious and creating space for ideas and growth
41:00 Taking small steps to make big changes

43:00 The essence of small steps, belief in people, and leading with heart to create the conditions for change

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

The messy middle is part of the learning process.

It’s the point where what worked before no longer fully fits—but what comes next is not yet clear.
Where your thinking is still forming, your ideas are evolving, and the answer has not fully emerged.

And while it can feel uncertain, this is often where the deepest continuous learning happens.

In this behind-the-scenes bonus episode on Chain of Learning, I share a live conversation with, Betsy Jordyn, my business coach and strategic thinking partner, recorded on the final day of a working retreat earlier this month.

We pull back the curtains and invite you into our unscripted reflections from working through the messy middle of shaping my next book—and the leadership (and life) lessons that continue to emerge through the process.

Tune in to hear the real-time learning, reflection, and refinement happening as I shape the ideas behind my next book.

You’ll learn:

• Why the messy middle is often a necessary part of continuous learning, growth, and effective change leadership
• How to recognize when forcing clarity too early limits stronger thinking from emerging
• What it looks like to let ideas evolve instead of defending what came before
• How collaboration and outside perspective sharpen your judgment and deepen your thinking
• Why modeling your own learning process creates stronger conditions for learning in others
• How to stay engaged in uncertainty without rushing to jumping to answers too quickly

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Betsy Jordyn is the founder and CEO of Betsy Jordyn International, a strategic branding firm that helps transformational consultants and coaches refine their messaging, positioning, and offers to accelerate their success and amplify their impact. She is also the host of the Consulting Matters podcast and a sought-after speaker and trainer on brand strategy, executive influence, and the business of transformation.

Will you help me?
I have a quick favor to ask. I’m conducting research for my next book and would love to get your insights on people-centered, learning organizations and the leadership that creates them. The survey takes just 5 to 10 minutes and your responses will directly shape the book and a future Chain of Learning podcast episode.
-> Take the Survey here, open through May 22.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes: http://chainoflearning.com/72
• Connect with Betsy Jordyn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-jordyn/
• Listen to Betsy’s Podcast, Consulting Matters: https://www.betsyjordyn.com/podcasts/consulting-matters
• Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Download my FREE KATALYST™ Change Leader Self-Assessment: https://kbjanderson.com/katalyst/
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Take the People-Centered Leadership Survey

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

01:16 The hidden reality of creativity and why books are written multiple times
02:39 What the messy middle feels like and why this stage matters more than we think
05:04 Re-centering leadership on what’s within your control in a world of constant change
06:00 Why influence isn’t about forcing change, but creating conditions for growth
08:12 Reframing resistance and what people actually need to move forward
10:06 How to keep evolving instead of staying stuck in old ways of thinking
12:26 The process of writing a book and getting clarity on the what the book is about
16:04 Why growth often requires releasing what once worked
17:09 Benefits of collaborating in person vs. using AI as a thinking partner
18:07 Why learning can’t be forced, but we need to allow space for insight
22:07 The concept of omotenashi and looking at a lens of caring from a human angle
24:14 The meaning of Intention = Heart + Direction to create the conditions for learning
29:15 What changes when you respect others’ agency instead of driving direction
32:19 How to have empathy and not push your agenda when leaders are not “bought in”
33:01 Why your expertise can become a barrier to connection and clarity
35:46 How different perspectives reveal whether your message actually lands
38:08 Moving beyond the lingo to prevent barriers
43:27 Why growth requires releasing identities, ideas, and ways of working

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

Caring becomes carrying.

It happens so naturally we rarely notice it. Someone brings us a problem. We care. We want to help. And somewhere in that desire to help, without meaning to, we take on the weight of solving it ourselves.

That shift is subtle. And costly.

Because the moment you take ownership of the thinking, you take away the very capability you're trying to build.

In this episode, I explore a critical shift in change leadership: how to hold the thinking process so others can solve their own problems — without taking on their work as your own.

Your value as a leader isn't in having the answer. It's in creating the conditions where others can think, test, and learn. When you want to create empowered problem-solving in your organization, stepping back is stepping up.

You'll Learn:

• How to notice when you've shifted from supporting someone's thinking to carrying their problem
• Why redirecting your focus from the problem to the person working through it changes everything about how you coach
• How to use a simple problem solving structure (Target, Actual, Gap) to anchor your questions and keep ownership where it belongs
• How to stay present to how someone is thinking instead of jumping ahead to solutions
• How to choose intentionally when to step in with direction — and when to step back to build capability

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes with links to other podcast episodes and resources: http://chainoflearning.com/71
• Check out my website for resources and ways to work with me KBJAnderson.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Download my free KATALYST™ Change Leader Self-Assessment: https://kbjanderson.com/katalyst/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

00:40 The subtle shift from caring to carrying problem solving
03:35 Realization of owning the process of solving the problem
04:39 What gets in the way of intentions to be helpful

05:27 Why problem solving and problem solving coaching are two different skills
05:50 How to stay focused on the thinking process and keep from sliding back into the problem itself
06:42 How to anchor questions around a structured problem solving flow
08:11 The mantra, “Target, Actual gap, Please explain,” to identify the real problem before jumping to solutions
09:13 Benefit of assigning a problem for a team member to solve

10:56 The identity shift from having all the answers to holding the process
12:28 One way to notice if you have a telling habit
14:41 Why you should avoid defaulting to giving the answer and ask questions to understand the problem first
16:59 The meaning of intention = heart + direction to coach with the right motives
17:21 Three steps to coach with intention:
17:25 [ONE] Take an intention pause
17:45 [TWO] Choose the behaviors that align with that impact
18:08 [THREE] Reflect and learn your way forward

19:15 Positive result from leading by asking questions that helped team gain confidence
21:41 Three reflection questions before you go into your next coaching conversation

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

What happens when leaders make decisions further and further away from the work itself?

In a world of AI, automated dashboards, and remote work, it’s easy to manage representations of work instead of understanding what’s actually happening for the people who do it.

Yet, when leaders rely on data rather than facts, they often end up solving the wrong problems, even with the best intentions.

In this episode of Chain of Learning, I'm joined by Nigel Thurlow, consultant, systems thinker, and Toyota's first-ever Chief of Agile, to explore how better decisions come from understanding how the system actually operates. And that understanding is built by engaging with the people doing the work.

When you stay connected, you don't just get better information. You see how work actually flows, where problems emerge, and what's getting in the way. You build trust, surface issues earlier, and make it easier for people to think and solve problems together.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why there's a critical difference between delegation and empowerment — and why one leaves people unable to act
• How to distinguish between data and facts, and why going to see conditions firsthand changes the decisions you make
• What "going to gemba" looks like in a digital or remote environment when there's no factory floor to walk
• Why making work visible creates the conditions for people to surface problems, before they compound
• Why AI amplifies what's already there — and why fixing the underlying system comes first

ABOUT MY GUEST: Nigel Thurlow is CEO of The Flow Consortium and the creator of Scrum the Toyota Way. He spent over 20 years at Toyota, including serving as the first Chief of Agile at Toyota Connected. He is co-author of The Flow System and The Flow System Playbook, and his work focuses on improving decision-making in complex environments.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes with links to other podcast episodes and resources: http://chainoflearning.com/70
• Check out my website for resources and ways to work with me KBJAnderson.com
• Connect with Nigel Thurlow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelthurlow/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Download my free KATALYST™ Change Leader Self-Assessment: https://kbjanderson.com/katalyst/

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:19 Effects of being detached from the work when working remotely
04:17 Difference between delegation and empowerment when assigning work to others
05:35 Fear of those who are delegated to of failing or making the wrong decision
07:15 What it means to empower someone and transfer the ownership of that decision to someone else

09:21 How to go to gemba and go where the work is done
10:07 The benefits of "presenteeism" and being present where the work is performed
11:46 Benefits of collaborating in person vs. a digital environment to make better decision
13:02 Nigel’s experience in working in a frozen food manufacturer and going out to the line to understand the pain workers experienced
15:42 Why you need to understand how work gets done to improve throughput and quality of work
16:39 Benefits of hiring an external or internal consultant to understand the problems that need solving
19:31 The effects of companies investing in tools and AI and realizing it doesn’t help with problem solving
21:30 How to avoid the leadership decision problem and get all the facts to avoid consequences
24:39 Technique known as “sense making” to understand the temperament and behaviors in the environment to reveal dark constraints
26:09 The difference between US and Toyota’s corporate culture in incentivizing leaders to be part of a system

29:10 How to help workers make changes that need to be made visible to senior leaders
35:04 Enabling others to communicate with leaders to improve decision making
37:14 Why badly designed systems and not the workforce are the cause of problems
38:25 Why you can’t implement AI with a broken system

40:31 The possible future of AI and how it can affect our decision making
43:37 Importance of embracing the human connection to better communicate and make better decisions

47:24 Reflect on where your decisions may be happening too far from the work

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You're being told to use AI. But which tool you actually need to do your best work?

Leaders and change practitioners everywhere feel the same pressures right now — more meetings, more information, more mandates to adopt AI — with less time to think and less clarity about where to start. And most of the advice begins in the wrong place: with the tool.

In this episode of Chain of Learning, I talk with Barry O'Reilly, bestselling author of Unlearn and Lean Enterprise, and author of the new book Artificial Organizations, about why the real opportunity with AI isn't automation. It's better judgment.

Barry shares examples from his work with Fortune 500 executives who are successfully pairing human instinct with machine insight — not by adopting every new tool, but by understanding how they work, where judgment matters most, and what needs to be unlearned along the way.

It's about letting go of the belief that your expertise is your competitive advantage, and starting to see AI not as a replacement, but as a thinking partner that can sharpen your clarity, your presence, and your preparation.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why starting with the tool is the wrong place to start — and what to do instead
• How to identify your natural traits and highest-leverage tasks as the foundation for working with AI
• The unlearning required to shift from relying on instinct alone to combining human judgment with machine insight
• How successful leaders are using AI to pressure-test ideas and show up more prepared and present
• Why the skills that make you more effective with AI are the same skills that make you more influential with people

Where does judgment matter most in your role right now — and what might you need to unlearn to create space for a better way of working?

ABOUT MY GUEST: Barry O'Reilly is the bestselling author of Unlearn and co-author of Lean Enterprise. He hosts the Unlearn Podcast and is co-founder of Nobody Studios, an AI-driven venture studio. His newest book, Artificial Organizations, is a practical guide for leaders ready to combine human and machine intelligence to make better decisions faster.

Barry O’Reilly is also giving away a copy of Artificial Organizations to THREE lucky winners!
Artificial Organizations explores how leaders can combine human judgment with AI to make better decisions in an increasingly complex world. Instead of focusing on AI tools, the book shows how organizations must redesign how leaders think, work, and make decisions so technology enhances clarity rather than amplifies confusion. It presents a practical leadership system for using AI as a thinking partner to improve judgment, reduce decision overload, and lead more effectively.
Register now to enter the giveaway!

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes with links to other podcast episodes and resources: http://chainoflearning.com/69
• Check out my website for resources and ways to work with me KBJAnderson.com
• Connect with Barry O’Reilly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryoreilly/
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Check out Barry O’Reilly’s book, Artificial Organizations: https://artificialorganizations.com/
• Subscribe to my newsletter: http://kbjanderson.com/newsletter
• Learn more about my coaching, trusted advisor partnerships, and leadership learning experiences: organizations@kbjanderson.com

RELATED LINKS:

• Unlearn Podcast | Intentional Leadership with Katie Anderson
• Episode 59 | Get Better at Getting Better: Leveraging AI to Elevate Human Learning with Nathen Harvey

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

02:28 Where to start on adopting AI
05:04 Importance of understanding natural traits and strengths before looking into AI tools
07:12 Defining the problem first before looking for the tool to close the gap
08:17 Why some may see AI as a deflection tool
09:02 How to use AI for synthesizing data rather than rudimentary tasks
12:28 Why judgment is the leadership advantage and leveraging AI to make better judgment
12:38 Using decision velocity to improve decision making
13:35 Decision advantage in synthesizing data to make a decision
14:35 The difference between AI and human strengths in decision making
16:26 Unlearning how you work to make progress
19:32 Why human thinking plus machine equals a better outcome
20:28 Examples of how to use AI to be the best business and thinking partner
24:46 Importance of asking the right questions when brainstorming with AI
26:06 The limitations of AI and knowing how to use it to your advantage
30:18 How technology can help us be make a bigger impact
33:12 The loss of psychological safety when implementing AI and unlearning this fear
35:35 Better results when teams collaborate with AI vs. doing it independently
36:06 Shifting from control based learning mindset to influence based learning mindset for continuous improvement
37:54 Implementing AI to be the most effective in your organization
40:34 How to start building an AI stack knowing your natural traits, one or two tasks, and then experimenting with an AI tool
42:54 The skills that make us more effective with machines to increase influence
43:16 Questions for reflection on how to implement AI in your organization

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.

What changes when leaders stop learning alone—and start learning together?

Leadership development often focuses on individual insight: reading, listening, reflecting. But some of the most meaningful shifts in leadership don’t happen that way.

They happen when leadership teams go see, ask questions, and reflect together.

That shared experience becomes a catalyst—aligning leaders around a new way of seeing their organization, supporting one another in practicing new behaviors, and driving lasting transformation.

In this episode of Chain of Learning, you’ll learn why immersive experiences can transform how leadership teams align, learn, and develop—and why learning in context often leads to change that lasts.

Drawing on examples from my Japan Leadership Experience, we look at what happens when leadership teams step away from the day-to-day pressures of their roles and create space to learn and reflect in new ways.

Shared experiences give leadership teams something powerful: a common reference point for how they want to lead and improve—accelerating organizational transformation.

In this episode, we explore how to:

• Shift from learning as an individual activity to learning as a leadership team practice
• Create alignment by seeing and reflecting on the same things
• Move from “What did I learn?” to “What are we seeing differently?”
• Turn shared insights into new leadership behaviors back at work
• Understand why immersion and context matter when developing people-centered leadership

IMPORTANT LINKS:

• Full episode show notes with links to other podcast episodes and resources: http://chainoflearning.com/67
• Check out my website for resources and ways to work with me KBJAnderson.com
• Follow me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
• Download my free KATALYST™ Change Leader Self-Assessment: https://kbjanderson.com/katalyst/
• Learn more about my Japan Leadership Experience: https://kbjanderson.com/japantrip/

RELATED EPISODES:

• Episode 25 | Getting Results Through the Power of Serious Leadership with Kecia Kelly and Amy Chaumeton
• Episode 20 | How to Coach Executives and Influence Change with Brad Toussaint
• Episode 48 | Make Leadership Meaningful: From Tools to Purposeful Impact with Josef Procházka
• Episode 67 | Why Lifelong Learning Is the Foundation of Influence (and Can Limit Your Impact)
• Episode 4 | Leading for Impact: The Power of Being Over Doing
• Episode 17 | Leading Change from the Middle with Pennie Saum

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

1:30 The gap between inspiration and the system you return to

2:46 Three conditions that most leadership development is missing.

4:13 The fundamental difference when others are learning beside you vs. learning alone
4:47 How Jim, Healthcare COO, accelerated transformation by inviting his team on the Japan Leadership Experience
6:49 Transformations that past Japan Leadership Experience have experienced in accelerated learning and sustaining excellence in their organization
10:34 Unlocking shoshin - the beginner’s mind - through immersive experiences
12:04 The benefits of observing Japan employees and companies in person
14:22 The depth of connection that forms when you learn together
16:43 Why shared learning is important for leaders to make changes that sticks
18:55 The cultural impact of the Japan Leadership Experience
21:31 The deepest leadership changes that come from shared learning and shared leadership

Please leave a review and rating of the show! Your review helps reach more listeners like you around the globe.