Alumni Spotlight

The Kaizen Philosophy with Roshan Lala

College is a time to learn and grow. We learn the material from the classes we take, and at the same time, we start to grow as adults. But does the process of learning and growing ever really stop?

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Roshan Lala, an SJSU MIS Class of 2016 Alumni, who is now the Technical Support Manager at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), the autonomous and robotics division of Toyota.

Roshan started college off as a Mechanical Engineering student but noticed his growing fascination with technology and business. He soon realized MIS was better suited for his career aspirations. During his time as an MIS student, Roshan became an active member of MISA, and even got an IT internship through one of the networking events. Shortly after graduation, he landed various jobs including a short stint at Zoom doing Product Support. It was this job that led him to the decision of pursuing a role in IT.

Roshan eventually found his footing in IT at TRI where he started off as a Help Desk Specialist and Junior Administrator. He worked his way up to Lead and is now serving as his managerial role.

His growth trajectory at TRI lines up with Toyota’s well-recognized concept of Kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy which translates to continuous improvement. This way of thinking is heavily used within Toyota to encourage new ideas and foster an environment of continuous learning and growth. The mindset behind it helped create and craft the world-renowned Toyota Production System, which is often replicated and studied in the manufacturing world.

Roshan mentioned Kaizen on his LinkedIn profile, and I decided to ask him more about how Kaizen can influence oneself in work and life.

How do you implement the concept of Kaizen at TRI?

“We always practice Kaizen at work, especially with our company goals. For my team, it’s always a process of improvement — continuous improvement. For example, in IT, we do a lot of automation. So let’s say right now we’re at about an hour for a process. What we’ll do is constantly ask ourselves, ‘How can we make it faster?’.”

“It’s always a process of improvement -continuous improvement.”

Is there an example of a time you’ve noticed your own self-growth while at TRI?

“For me, it was the time I had to create my own team. It was actually a challenge for me in the beginning. I asked myself, ‘How do I even do this?’. My managers trusted me with creating it. It was a bumpy road at first, but now I have an established team and it’s one of my proudest accomplishments.”

“…it’s one of my proudest accomplishments.”

Do you limit that philosophy to just work?

“Definitely not. It’s a never-ending process. You don’t only use it at work, you can use it in life too. Sometimes I just stop and think, ‘How can I improve myself?’. I’ve actually adopted it as a way of life.”

“How can I improve myself?”

Do you have any advice for our MISA members?

“Always keep learning, and that ties back to Kaizen. Once you’re out of school, keep learning, and keep going. There are so many programs out there like Coursera and LinkedIn Learning that you can use to continue to stand out and update that resume for some eye-catchers. Also, never give up. It may be tough at times to find the right job, but you’ll get there. Just never give up. “

“Keep learning and keep going.”

Roshan’s encouragement of practicing Kaizen is one we can all try to incorporate into our daily lives.