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.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

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