Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

The Forgotten Skills Behind True Leadership with Peter Weiss

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 315

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Peter Weiss is a leadership mentor, former CEO, and founder of MindKaizen. He works with senior leaders operating under high pressure and complexity, helping them strengthen their inner operating system so they can meet today’s demands with clarity and stability. His work focuses on staying grounded under pressure, acting in line with personal values, and protecting the relationships that matter most.

Originally from Germany, and with a background in bioengineering and an MBA, Peter spent decades leading and transforming organizations across Asia. He founded and led the Kaizen Institute Thailand and later turned around and successfully sold a manufacturing business.

Peter is the creator of the ShinKaizen program, which blends ancient contemplative disciplines with applied neuroscience to develop the inner skills required for whole and effective leadership. He lives on a self-sufficient homestead in rural Thailand and works globally with executives, founders, and leadership teams.

A Quote This Episode

  • “Many leaders believe Kaizen is something you delegate. That belief is the problem. Tools never changed a culture. What changes culture is how leaders show up when things get tough."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. 

About  Scott J. Allen

My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective.


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Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody. Welcome to Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. I appreciate your time. Appreciate you being with us here at the beginning of 2026. Today I have a new friend. He has a friend from the future, and at least that's what I call him, Peter Weiss.

We have connected and built a little bit of a relationship on LinkedIn, and it's been really fun to follow his posts. In the show notes. You'll see a link to that so you can follow him on LinkedIn, but it's been fun to follow his posts, better understand how he's viewing the world. And you know what, I'm really excited for this conversation because I don't think we've.

Touched on some of what we're going to discuss today. So that gives you a little bit of a framework of why we're here. But Peter, if you would, sir, elephants in the backyard and all, would you introduce yourself? And I've left a little bit of a piece of you that maybe you wanna address towards the end of your intro, but [00:01:00] talk, tell listeners about you.

Peter Weiss: Hi, Scott. Yeah, I'm Peter. I'm a German actually, and I live in Thailand for 30 years now. So I'm an engineer who moved from Germany to Thailand. Came here with his typical German stereotype. Everything need to be perfect, square headed and so on, and I was challenged here with the daily surprises, so I had to learn a lot.

I had to. I learned a lot. I had to learn to deal with surprises every day, and that was quite challenging at the beginning, but now it's 30 years I'm here. And during that time I, I learned a lot about leadership. Leadership in terms of managing businesses, foreign subsidiaries here in Thailand. The challenge between the two cultures.

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Peter Weiss: So that's where I'm today. I left corporate world 2017. And started my own business. I bought a small manufacturing business, which in the meantime have sold again, and I also started the [00:02:00] Kaizen Institute, Thailand under the Masaki. My license today, I'm more a mentor and coach for a combination of kaizen and mindfulness.

Scott Allen: Okay, Kaizen and mindfulness and being in Thailand For listeners, Peter sent me a video of elephants in his backyard. That was a new one. 

Peter Weiss: Yeah. That's, that's a great story actually because four years back I really had an idea to do something completely different. So I bought a yacht and we wanted to sail away, but then we realized that my wife has a challenge on a yacht.

It when the waves are a bit too choppy, it wasn't too good for us. So we decided going more into the land. So we bought a small homestead here in Thailand, and that is basically in the wild. We didn't know. It's actually on a path where elephants every month walk through. Yeah, wild elephants. So they [00:03:00] feast on all our fruits that we have, pineapple, banana, and so on.

Scott Allen: Oh, I love it. I love it. So they don't just eat peanuts, they eat other things as well. I guess. 

Peter Weiss: I don't have peanuts, but they eat everything. Yeah. 

Scott Allen: Well, I am so excited, Peter, to talk about this concept of kaizen in, in recent years I've worked, uh, pretty extensively with Toyota, working with general managers of stores and doing leader development.

I hear the term kaizen, you. Have the Kaizen Institute. I want you to take us and the listener a little bit deeper into that concept, because I think it's a beautiful concept, but as you've said in the past, especially online, at times, it can be simplified or in some ways, not bastardized, but it can just be, it can lose some of its meaning in translation.

And talk a little bit and take listeners into your world when you think about the concept of kaizen. 

Peter Weiss: I, I have to first make a disclaimer. I have never worked for or with Toyota, but I have worked with a lot of [00:04:00] Japanese because the Japanese are the number one foreign investors here in Thailand. At least they were until maybe 10 years ago.

So a lot of my clients were Japanese and. So I had been exposed to this kind of thinking here in Thailand. I actually learned first about the thinking or the concept of Kaizen or the mindset of Kaizen in a German company here in Thailand, which I was running as a managing director. I had no clue about it.

We didn't use that. Either until one of my employees mentioned, oh, this is a specific tool, Kanban. So I looked up what is Kanban? And then I opened up Pandora's Box. I went into all these Kai tools. I learned them all, and that was all amazing and all great reading the books of Masaki eai. However, I quickly realized that is all on a theoretical level.

So when you apply these things in an organization. You have no idea where to start, and that's what I have [00:05:00] then observed over the time. That's where many people are lost. They stick to these tools. They think kaizen is tools concept. There's something that you delegate to the next level in the organization.

I, as a managing. I just buy a consultant in or I throw this concept, this initiative into the organization because it's so great, but I have nothing to do with it. And I think that's that what all went wrong. And even zaki, Ima was struggling with this. So he has actually. Uh, lashed out to management quite a lot in his books.

He called, if we want to call out the culprits of yeah, not bringing in lean into organizations, we have to look at the board and as at the CEO. So yeah, forget that it all starts at the top. If we see Kaizen as a culture can only come from the top, but there are are ideas that cultures can grow from below, but typically they will come from the top [00:06:00] Everyone.

Imitates the top. Everyone follows the way the top leads. 

Scott Allen: So give me three or four concepts that you think people need to be aware of when it comes to this topic of kaizen. Let's go there. 

Peter Weiss: I would say the first one is what Masaki Ima himself. That it's everyone everywhere, every day. So it's not something that is for the shop floor or for a specific area.

It's something that everyone in the organization should do. If an organization really want to grow and want to get better, another concept that I think that's very important to understand is it Kaizen does not actually mean continuous improvement of the outer world. 

Scott Allen: It's 

Peter Weiss: actually changing myself. Not necessarily completely changing at myself, but that what I do improve, that what I do.

And that requires a daily [00:07:00] reflection or a, a regular reflection. Uh, the Japanese call that, and it's a, it's a quite critical reflection. So you are, you're not praising yourself only, of course, you look back and say, oh, that was great yesterday, or That was great today, but. The focus here is what didn't go well, or if everything went well, is there something that I still can do better?

Scott Allen: So that's interesting. It's continuous, it's not continuous improvement necessarily of the outer world, but it's a very internal, and I think the phrase you used that what I do improves, that's what I improves, that what I do right. That it's a critical reflection process that I, and internal and how can I be improving.

Internally to then benefit the external world. Is that accurate? 

Peter Weiss: Uh, we could say it this way. I'm a process engineer, so I'm thinking as a process and we are always looking at the outcome. So we're looking at, [00:08:00] we are improving something outside of improving that process or we are improving that product, but this is here an outcome.

So the process is looking at myself, where can I. Upscale my, my skills where, and here's actually now a third concept, and which from my point of view, it's the most important. How do I really get clarity about that, what I'm doing? 

Scott Allen: Ah, okay. Say more about that. 

Peter Weiss: It's, some people call that mindfulness. Now, nowadays it's a, it's an alignment of your.

Conscious and subconscious mind. Danya Kahneman would call that probably sub system one and system two. Are you familiar with this terms? 

Scott Allen: Oh yeah. Thinking fast and slow. Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: Yes. Great book. I think every leader must read that book from my point of view. 

Scott Allen: Oh, 

Peter Weiss: yes. Uh, to really understand that we are actually driven by our system one, which is autopilot emotion habits.

So [00:09:00] 95% we are in that mode and improvement not really comes from that mode. The improvement reads requires looking at data, looking rationally at problems, solving the root cause and not jumping to conclusion. Yeah. Which system one is. And, uh, so what I often see in leadership that they lack this. For me, that's a skill, that's some, something that we can learn.

The alignment, the managing, the conflict actually between system one and system two. Yes, because it was developed for a completely different environment. We are living now in an environment that is not fit for that, but our mind has, was developed in the evolution. But we can, I know for myself because it, I learned that we can learn that these are skills that are trainable and with this we get really clarity and that clarity is required to know what's really going on within me.[00:10:00]

What is really going on outside? There is this saying Kaizen is about understanding reality as it is seeing reality as it is, 

Scott Allen: okay? 

Peter Weiss: There is this concept of gemba or gemba walk every kaizen. Knowset means we are not. Talking about a problem or we are not talking about a process in a meeting room or in in the office of a manager.

We go to the place where actually happens. Yeah. And we see with our own eyes and we experience with our whole body what's going on there. 

Scott Allen: In some of the training sessions that I was in, some of the folks, and I'm not gonna say this correctly, so I apology, Genji, gsu, msu, go and see. 

Peter Weiss: Correct.

Scott Allen: Right. 

Peter Weiss: Msu, that's it, that's exactly the term that is.

That's a foundation of kaizen. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. Go and see 

Peter Weiss: you. You go there where the, where the reality is happening. Yes. So it's not in the manager's [00:11:00] office. It's not in the meeting room. It's not in the boardroom. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Peter Weiss: Um. We are going, we have learned that we have learned to go to Gemba and they are wonderful concept gemba works concepts, and we can learn this all.

And Kai Institute teaches this and every proper consultant teach that. It's a basics that everyone has to learn. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Peter Weiss: I help people to do the GBA work into the inner world. 

Scott Allen: Talk more about that. 

Peter Weiss: Let me give an example, A very simple example, just. A year ago with a client where there's always the question, I bring the people out to the GBA and then I ask this question, what do you see?

Go to see, yeah. Natural question. And 99% of the cases I get an answer about, oh, this product will not go out tomorrow or has to go out next week. And I worry it won't be finished. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: I ask again, do you really see that here right [00:12:00] now? So what we are doing is seeing something, but we are not really put attention to that.

What we see, we make immediately an interpretation and then the whole inner world starts getting into all this negative bias things, what can all happen and especially what else can go wrong. And so our full bandwidth of consciousness of systems. Is hijacked by that and we have little left for really doing the improvement.

Scott Allen: And something that I'm seeing in my consulting work every day, Peter, is that it's. And I don't know how to phrase this well, but the whole context, the environment is seducing people into that system one, and I don't mean that in a sexual way, of course, but everything is, it's just swirling and it's seducing folks into working from that place of autopilot.[00:13:00]

And that then of course, brings forth, again, you have individuals who are under chronic stress. You have individuals who aren't pausing to engage in that system. Two, because they're constantly stuck in that mode of that system. One. Are you seeing that as well? Are you, is that your experience as well? 

Peter Weiss: I would say that has even become worse over the time, uh, with our, and I think AI is even adding more to that.

It's, I believe, the age of ai, the age of computers, that because what is ai? AI is system two and steroids. So we even now outsource our system two. We are probably only 99% on system, not only, or we are 99% on system one now and let others do system two for us. I see this has become more and more, it's, it's, I see that with managers and I see more anxiety and fear.

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Peter Weiss: As a [00:14:00] result, the brain is negative or the mind is negative, biased. Um, and this blocks people really from doing. Improvement.

Scott Allen: It's almost, I had a woman on the podcast, her name is Amy Elizabeth Fox, and she said that she works with a lot of senior executives in the Boston area. And she said, I said, so what are you seeing?

And she said, I see just a lot of exhaustion. I see a lot of just, again, chronic stress. And she said, part of my work is to help ensure that these individuals are performance ready and. I think embedded in that is some of what you were talking about is that human as whole as can be as clear. Do they have resources around them that is helping them move back into that system too?

That could be a coach, that could be a therapist, that could be an individuals who is helping them to ensure that they're working out of a place of alignment, because if [00:15:00] they're not. And they're just on autopilot all day. Whatever shows up and oftentimes a human under chronic stress, that's not good.

That's not a human at their best, right? So even that phrasing performance ready, and I think that could be interpreted a few different ways, but at least how I view it as is this individual grounded? Are they clear? Are they aware of what's swirling on around them and what is trying to seduce them and really throw them off their game?

Does that make sense? 

Peter Weiss: Absolutely. It makes absolutely sense because I was there myself that I'm now 61. I was 45 and I had a burnout. I was completely gone chasing the, yeah. The goals of others now was working for a P back company and running the show here in Thailand and it was just performing. Nobody cared about you as a person, what's going on in your life and so on.

Uh, so I had to. [00:16:00] Complete burnout and I took a decision to go on a retreat for 10 days and there I learned about mindfulness or actually be passionate where I got all this insights about what I talk today actually, that's what I do mainly nowadays, helping people. Getting back on that path, on that path of humanity.

This is so beautiful about Toyota because they have two pillars, Kaizen. Respect for people, translated respect for people, but actually it's respect for humanity in their Japanese. And I think these are the two pillars which make companies like Toyota Strong. Though I know that they do not really live this outside Japan, everywhere.

Hmm. I have a client from Toyota, Australia, and he does not understand these concepts. 

Scott Allen: I think it can, the further away you get, although respect for people was another pillar of what we were talking about when we were this, these programs that I was doing [00:17:00] were for general managers of stores, many of them.

But Respect for People was front and center. Kaizen Gen Jisu was front and center, and. So it was really interesting. So I, I am hearing it being communicated in some of these sessions as a value, and then there's whole sessions designed around that. But, and of course then I love the fact that you bring this beautiful blend because as a German engineer, talk about an engineer on steroids.

That's a German engineer. 

Peter Weiss: I was in the past. Yes, 

Scott Allen: there's engineers and then there's German engineers. But you bring that kind of worldview and that understanding of the world. And even as you in introduced yourself and said, look, I had to experience this whole other side. It's this yin and yang, right? And bringing this mindfulness and that alignment.

Uh, and are we centered? We could use a number of different words. Grounded, clear, working out of system two [00:18:00] i I love that blend that you're bringing that worldview, because it's a really nice combination, 

Peter Weiss: I think. What we are talking about here is actually the difference between the east and the west. 

Scott Allen: Yes.

Peter Weiss: Growing up as a, as someone in Germany becoming a German engineer on steroids, as you say, that is so much focused on system that's so much focused on this rational mind and we think that's it. Don't even see that we have a body. The body is a vehicle that carries us on. I think Decar is the culprit here by telling us this dualism.

I think so. I am and not, I'm a being. That's what I learned here In the eastern world, we don't have the distinction between mind and body. It's one. It's one, and I think that is, that's lost in the in, in the west, and that's where the suffering and the misery comes from. If we would really understand respect for humanity, that means we would see a person as a whole and [00:19:00] system.

Two functions in the body system. One functions in the body. We don't know our body anymore. 

Scott Allen: How do you see this playing out just even casually in China? You have a history there of obviously a, a lot of Eastern wisdom came out of China. A lot of really good thinking came out of China from that, that, that philosophical base.

But then you have capitalism now. Running fast and you have this productivity machine. So how do you see that tension playing out in some of the countries? That, it doesn't have to be China, but are you seeing, for instance, Thailand under pressure to be more western like and drive, drive, drive and be on autopilot?

How are you experiencing that? 

Peter Weiss: I think you said rightly, the, the capital is view, so that which [00:20:00] is driven by profit. So I invest so the capital has to work. Yeah. And that's has creeped in everywhere. Uh, we have maybe a still is a base of this. Deeper understanding of a human here, but it's system one can be so easy, as you mentioned earlier, influenced and with all this wonderful things that we can buy with money and all the luxury.

And people see this on tv, on, on their phones, and so they want that. So we, we have a craving for that. We are really. Distance ourself from being a real human and just chasing always these new things that consumerism and so brings with it. I have worked in China. I had, I had three episodes in China in the 1990s.

I was working there for two years. Then I was working 2000 to 2004 in China and 2015 whole year. So what I've seen in China is that I see actually a little bit of a renaissance of [00:21:00] coming back of this. Deeper thinking. 'cause more and more people there realize that the system of just more, more is not sustainable.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: So I wouldn't say it's a big, big movement there also. But I see this, I saw this in discussion with Chinese people and I think especially in the last few years, uh, there is some reorientation. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: And it's not a pure capitalist. Now they, what they have done, I actually admire China. They have lifted a billion people out of poverty in within 50 years.

Nobody else has ever done that. 

Scott Allen: Uh, a and y yes, it's a unique system that's gonna be very interesting to watch unfold. You know, even your PE backed organization in Thailand, the private equity firm cares about one thing. Not you. 

Peter Weiss: They care about one thing. Exactly. 

Scott Allen: There [00:22:00] are, 

Peter Weiss: I know it. I experienced 

Scott Allen: it.

That's easy. Yeah. Tell me something. And again, I've come across some PE firms that really do value people and do good work, and I've come across some that it, it's really only about the turning around and the selling and. Making it profitable and making a buck. And when we get out of balance in that way, I think that's, and it's just so many other things in life.

It's that tension that polarity and when we're out of balance, we're outta balance and it's not sustainable. Right. 

Peter Weiss: I, I must confess, as I said earlier, I bought myself a business here in Thailand, so I was the, the PE guy. Yeah. So I invested my private equity into a small business. Wasn't a big business. We were 60 people.

We were manufacturing what's called load banks and equipment for testing generators and to be selling mainly to Australia. And I turned this company around and I made profit and I made. [00:23:00] Good money with that company, but I still try to not push the way forward. I pulled forward so I worked with my people.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: Rather than telling you have to do Kaizen. I was more working on the consensus and asking what should we do? So I was not throwing concepts and initiatives into the organization. We have to do this and this. I said, I remember we had a, I was lucky too. Acquire a rather large project. It was actually beyond what everyone could imagine.

We were doing about 10 gadgets a month, and we should 150 in three months now. 

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Peter Weiss: Having experience with continuous flow and production and knowing what we had, I made my calculation. I said, it's possible. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Peter Weiss: But of course, in the organization, nobody believed I couldn't push my people forward to do that.

So what we did is. I asked them what to do to [00:24:00] let them experiment and, but we made an agreement if it doesn't work, they had to raise hand immediately. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Peter Weiss: And when they not feel comfortable that they can reach the targets, then I would come in and coach them and help them to find other ways. Okay. It became then in the end, a little bit of more mentoring and or a guided coaching, so I helped them to think in the right way.

We made it, but they were all happy. 

Scott Allen: Is it the Andon cord that could pull the cord? If it wasn't working, 

Peter Weiss: you could call it, you call it can call it an andon. I what? I had a big board in my business. I had a, in the center of the factory, everyone could see that and they had to turn cards there. When the card is green, everything is fine and when the card is red, someone has to go there and help.

Scott Allen: But even in, in the story you just told you, you are taking a more system, two mindful approach to how to [00:25:00] facilitate change to how to lead in this scenario. Again, a another individual might walk in autopilot. Uh, this is what you need to do. Go, and they're feeling stress. They're feeling pressure. I've invested my own money.

This has to work. Their identity's wrapped up in it and they're setting themselves up for failure. And so it sounds like you did a very nice job of. Bringing that balanced approach in. I have the awareness, I have the vision, but I also have the awareness and the mindfulness around how to influence change, how to influence the team and how to get them co-create with them, collaborate with them, bring them along.

Peter Weiss: And I'm think I'm, we have to be a little bit thinking out of the box here and being unorthodox. So what I do is I help people first to reset their nervous system. 

Scott Allen: You start there. 

Peter Weiss: I have the opinion now that as a CEO, you need to have at least [00:26:00] 50% of education and psychology to understand people if you really want to make them performance ready, if you can't make them, but if you want to help them to get there, if you are at the top not there, how will you get your organization there?

It starts with you. 

Scott Allen: Yep. And this gets to my favorite quote about leadership. Bob Hogan said this from Hogan Assessments, who you are is how you lead. So who are you? And that matters a lot. That matters a lot if you're in a position of authority. 

Peter Weiss: This is why I went into being inner a world rather than the alto.

Scott Allen: Peter, I really appreciate your time today. I close out these conversations because of my good friend Joel, who made the suggestion, what's the practical wisdom here?

Peter Weiss: Having worked with 40 leaders on that, go back into your body, learn what your body tells you. This is where the nervous system reset starts.

Learn that it's a skill. It's not taught in MBA, it's not taught in [00:27:00] engineering school. It's not taught it's school anywhere. Learn that. 

Scott Allen: And to be honest, I don't know of many and there could be So by no means listeners am I, I have not read the latest issue of leadership quarterly. It. I don't know how much attention that topic is received, at least in the academic literature.

I know that there's coaches, and I know that there's other individuals who are thinking that way, but I think more and more that are you an individual who is grounded, who is looking at the world through mature eyes? Who is mindful, who is present? Are you bringing that energy to the system, or is it a different energy that you're bringing to the system?

And there's very important ramifications in those two examples. My friend who's in the future, and we gotta tell listeners, what year is it in Thailand right now? 

Peter Weiss: 2,569. 

Scott Allen: Okay, so for listeners, not only is he in the future from a just time zone standpoint, [00:28:00] he's in the future. It's the evening for him now.

It's morning for me, but he's living in the future, hundreds of years in the future. So he's my friend from the future, sir. I appreciate you. Thank you very much for your time today. Thanks for the great work that you do. I'm gonna put some links in the show notes for listeners and you can find out more about Peter and we'll put a couple resources in there as well just so you can learn a little bit more.

Thank you, sir. Be well. 

Peter Weiss: Thank you, Scott.