Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond Laura Kriska, the First American Woman to Work at Honda HQ in Japan
My guest for Episode #423 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Laura Kriska, a Cross-Cultural Consultant and the author of the book The Business of We: The Proven Three-Step Process for Closing the Gap Between Us and Them in Your Workplace.
Notes: https://www.leanblog.org/423
She was previously my guest on Episode 61 of the “My Favorite Mistake” podcast.
Laura was previously the author of the book The Accidental Office Lady: An American Woman in Corporate Japan, a book about her time as the first American woman to work for Honda in Tokyo, Japan. We talk about those experiences and so much more today.
Topics and questions:
- How did you get to become the first American woman to work at Honda HQ in Japan?
- What was it like working in the Ohio factory?
- Quality Circles
- Kaizen — We can always do things better
- What was an “office lady”?
- Adjustments to the Japanese working culture?
- You initiated a Quality Circle around the uniform for office ladies, tell us about that…
- “Let's Abolish Women's Uniforms”
- Use of data?
- Being careful with assumptions
- Studied it for a year
- What was the outcome?
- You describe Cultural laziness (now, “corporate carelessness”) – what do you mean by that? Can this apply to somebody who is new to a company culture, too??
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
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