Tag: Toussaint

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?

Here are a few "quick hits" - similar to my "clearing the backlog" posts, quick quotes and links to articles you might find interesting. Unlike the "backlog," some of these stories I'm linking to are relatively fresh.

Cleaning out the backlog of stuff I wanted to blog about... Not Being Lean Lemmings; Why Best Practices Don't Yokoten; Nissan Leaders Lead the Way, After the Problems

Today is a day known as "Giving Tuesday," to follow up the commercially-driven "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" days. It's a great day to give to any cause or organization that's meaningful to you. One organization that I choose to give to throughout the year is the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation. The Batz Foundation produces practical and helpful guidebooks and apps to help protect patients during their hospital stay or other healthcare encounters.

This Business Insider article caught my eye the other day: A celebrity chef who owns 26 restaurants explains why he loves when employees shoot down...

How big is the opportunity for improvement in healthcare? As Dr. Toussaint's hand gesture, above, indicates... it's a huge opportunity. There's a huge need. What's...

For one last day, I'm at the 8th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in Palm Springs, California. See my notes from Day 1 in yesterday's...

I'm at the 8th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in Palm Springs, California. Follow on Twitter using the hashtag #HCSummit2017. If you're here at the event,...

When did the term "concrete head" start getting thrown around in Lean circles? Do people still use this label today? Is it helpful? Should we agree that the term is disrespectful and counter productive?

I recently got to meet Prof. Donald J. Wheeler when he gave a keynote talk at the Society for Health Systems Conference. Check out his book Understanding Variation and learn more about him in this post.

I'm happy to share a link to a white paper that I co-authored for Catalysis (formerly the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value). The paper is titled: "Lean for Doctors." It's co-authored with Dr. John Toussaint and Dr. Jack Billi.

While I'm writing here about Northwestern men's basketball learning from Duke (without copying everything), the same ideas apply if you're Ford learning from Toyota or a hospital learning from ThedaCare.