Tag: Audio

Many of you don’t care about football, but you might find it interesting, as I did, to learn that Northwestern’s defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz is apparently a fan of Kaizen...

There's a really good article that was published by Modern Healthcare as a special report, written by Sabriya Rice. Sabriya spent a week observing a rapid improvement event (RIE) at the Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Illinois. It's an in depth article that, I think, very accurately reflects the reality that Lean is helpful, but the process isn't easy for a number of reasons.

It's tempting to visit a place like ThedaCare and then mandate "everybody must have huddle boards." Then, a bunch of huddle boards get purchased and installed... and maybe not used. It's another thing for executives to realize that they have to change the way they manage. There's a great quote that ThedaCare folks readily share, including Kim Barnas in her book Beyond Heroes:

Having a model like this helps prevent errors, such as jumping to implement Lean tools before the organization understands WHY change is necessary. You have to engage and enroll people in change, not just force things on them. I am convinced that the ExperienceChange simulations, either Lakeview or GlobalTech, are a great way to learn and practice.

My two previous trips to Japan have been incredible experiences, both personally and professionally. I'm planning to go back in December with a tour group I'm helping organize with Kaizen Institute. When people go to Japan, I think they are expecting to see perfect Lean practices. But, no...

I was very saddened earlier to receive an email from an employee of a great leader, Dr. Michel Tétreault, informing me that he had passed away. Michel was, since 2005, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg.

And the idea of knowing why... again that's an old desire. It's not just a recent discovery of Simon Sinek and the outstanding book Start with Why (my friends at Gemba Academy have a podcast interview with him coming soon). Why are we doing something? Why are we starting this company? That's an old tale... are you breaking rocks or building a cathedral?

As is often the case, I have too many open browser tabs full of articles that I was going to potentially blog about. This...

Many of you might not care, but it's football season. Major college football starts tomorrow night and the NFL kicks off their season next...

It's far too common to see somebody with just a little bit of understanding about Lean do things that really shouldn't be described as...

I stumbled across an article from the Inc. magazine archives from 1987, so it's today's "Throwback Thursday." In 1987, I was starting high school and...

Launch anouncement: It's been 20 years now since I graduated from college and started working with the Lean methodology. The first ten years of...