Is Lean management a “slow idea”? In this post, I reflect on why Lean and Kaizen often spread slowly in healthcare and organizations, drawing on insights from Atul Gawande’s essay on innovation. I just read Dr. Atul Gawande’s latest piece…
As I started writing about yesterday in Part 1, I recently viewed a lost video of Steve Jobs being interviewed in 1995. See this CBS News story about the video or you can rent the video via (what else) Apple…
Mark’s note: Ankit Patel is a returning guest blogger and a good friend in the world of Lean and Lean Healthcare. Check out his blog and website. By Ankit Patel: In all my years of practicing lean/process improvement I’ve…
As I worked on co-authoring Healthcare Kaizen, I dove deeper into my study of “kaizen” practices and mindsets, revisiting many core books on kaizen after years of practice in different industries. I used to define kaizen as the phrase it’s…
It’s nowhere near as important as yesterday’s topic of employee and patient safety, but my last two days of using the new Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” operating system made me think of some classic change management challenges that might…
TL;DR: Yokoten spreads learning horizontally so teams can go see, think, and build on ideas–not blindly copy them. Mark’s Note: Today’s post is from Al Norval, with the firm Lean Pathways, Inc. Yokoten Means Copy and Improve — Not Copy…
Inspired by Mark’s recent posting on More Trust, Less Fear and an upcoming conference panel that I’m a part of, I thought a continuation of the “soft skills” discussion would be timely. The first thing that comes to my mind…
I was at the annual HIMSS Conference yesterday, as a guest of the software company FormFast, giving short 10-minute talks about Lean Healthcare to audiences at their booth. It’s fair to say that it’s 10x harder to give a succinct…
It’s such a common complaint when any program struggles or fails in an organization. Leaders often bemoan the supposedly undeniable fact that “our people are resistant to change.” It’s such a simple statement – and one that doesn’t get challenged…