Tag: Leadership

My guests for Episode #300 of the podcast are Tracey and Ernie Richardson, authors of the excellent book titled: The Toyota Engagement Equation: How to Understand and Implement Continuous Improvement Thinking in Any Organization

In some of the major Lean transformation stories (in manufacturing in healthcare) usually include stories about some percentage of managers, doctors, or employees who chose to leave the organization. This is often a badge of honor of sorts. Sometimes, those people get labeled as "concrete heads" (I term I think we shouldn't use, as I've blogged about). Is this really the right way to view things?

Last week, I blogged about some employee complaints related to rotating day and night shifts at the Toyota San Antonio plant. In that post, I mentioned that employees who post on Glassdoor.com and other sites might not be a representative sample of the full employee population. With that in mind, what happens when we search the Glassdoor surveys of some well-known "Lean hospitals?" I posted a few of these employee comments on LinkedIn the other day (a short post that has received over 50,000 views and prompted a lot of discussion).

The official report is out in Hawaii after the traumatic accidental missile warning that was sent last month. An employee was fired. The leader accepted responsibility and resigned. Why are others being punished?

Joining me again for Episode #298 is Billy R. Taylor, for Part 2 of a discussion we started in Episode #293. Last week, a friend texted me last week and said he couldn't wait for Part 2. He said he pulled off the road to take some notes when he listened to Part 1. So without further ado, here is Part 2. Here, we discuss "extreme ownership," why creating ownership is more important than forcing accountability, and important lessons he's learned along the way.

Today's post is written by Steve Hoeft, the SVP, Chief of Operations Excellence at Baylor Scott & White Health (BSWH) here in Texas. This is his first written contribution to Lean Blog, but you might remember him as a guest in episode #226 of my podcast, where he and co-author Dr. Bob Pryor talked about their book The Power of Ideas to Transform Healthcare: Engaging Staff by Building Daily Lean Management Systems. His article begins: "In my years serving as continuous improvement leader and consultant for some great organizations, I've discovered something consistent: Improvement will not happen on its own."

My guest for Episode #297 is John (JJ) Villareal, Ed.D., the superintendent of the Rockwall I.S.D. here in the Dallas area. In this podcast, we talk about the applications of Lean in education, how to move beyond what JJ calls "the behavior waste of judgment and blame," and how visiting a factory was inspiring and helpful, among other topics. Even if you don't work in education, I hope you'll be inspired by this podcast.

You might think that "command and control" leadership styles are a thing of the past. But, old habits die slowly and many leaders today still seem to have a mental model that longs for a workforce that would "just do what they're told." What did former President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower say about leaders who are "hitting people over the head?" I blog about that here...

When managing a process and looking at results, the type of chart we use matters. The way we react to the chart matters too. In this blog post, I explore two different types of charts and explain why I like the "process behavior chart" format better.

Joining me for episode #294 is Clay Linkous, an account leader and speaker with Studer Group. He is an accomplished cultural transformation and leadership expert who has synthesized Lean and other improvement methods with Studer Group principles and practices. Today, we'll talk about Clay's career and his purpose and motivations - both for working in healthcare and improving healthcare. We're both firm believers in the combination of Studer and Lean practices, so we're also discussing that as our main topic. I hope you enjoy the discussion!

In today's post, I share and write about this message from Akio Toyoda that was posted online: “Making Ever-better Cars and Human Resource Development: The Forces That Power Sustainable Growth“

My guest for Episode #293 of the podcast is a dynamic speaker and manufacturing leader, Billy R. Taylor. I saw him speak a few years ago at a Shingo Prize Conference and I've wanted to get him on the podcast ever since. He's currently the Director of Commercial, Off Highway, and Support Manufacturing North America for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Over the past 20 years, he has risen from "the lowest level of the organization," up through the manufacturing leadership ranks at Goodyear, including time as a Plant Director at facilities in Oklahoma and North Carolina. He's been "engaged in Lean" for over 15 years and he is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Billy has a BS in in Electrical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and an MBA from Baker University. Billy was very giving of his time and we talked for over 75 minutes, so I'm breaking this up into two parts, with Part 2 coming soon. Today, we talk about how he got started with Lean, the shift from tools- and event-based Lean to a culture focus, how to build a sense of ownership, servant leadership, employee recognition and more.