Toyota is often cited as the inspiration for Lean, but its success is rooted in leadership behaviors, management systems, and a deep commitment to learning—not tools or slogans. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Toyota’s approach to quality, continuous improvement, psychological safety, and respect for people. Many of these posts explore what leaders outside Toyota often misunderstand—and what truly matters if they hope to learn from Toyota rather than copy it.
In March, I wrote a post titled “Is it Lean’s Fault or the Old Management System’s?” about how people’s complains about Lean are actually often complaints about old management mindsets. Unfortunately, what’s described as “Lean” in an organization is sometimes not…
In November 2012, I had the opportunity to visit Japan for the first time as part of a Lean healthcare study mission. It was fascinating to compare notes with colleagues from the U.S., Belgium, and Holland as we visited factories,…
As I sometimes do, I’m going to close out a bunch of browser tabs and share some articles that caught my eye recently but don’t merit full blog posts of their own. I’m cleaning out the LeanBlog backlog and trying…
California week on the blog continues after yesterday’s post about Lean at San Francisco General Hospital. Today, I’m flying to Los Angeles to attend the 5th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit. I will be, as usual, moderating the CEO panel…
Happy June, everybody! Summer is here. We’ve actually had a delightfully long spring here in San Antonio, which means the temperature hasn’t really been above 90 yet, which counts as cool (and comfortable for us). I’m headed off to Los…
=Following up on posts from Monday and Wednesday, we see this headline today: “Shinseki resigns after VA scandal.” As I wrote about on LinkedIn, instead of blaming “bad managers” or a “lack of integrity” at local VA sites, like Phoenix,…
TL;DR: Automakers often overproduce because incentives reward shipping cars to dealers, not matching real demand. Excess capacity, revenue rules, and “channel stuffing” drive inventory waste–and healthcare faces similar pressures that create overutilization and distorted metrics. “Where the World’s Unsold Cars…
TL;DR: UMass Memorial Health is working to become a world-class Kaizen organization by engaging all frontline employees in continuous improvement, not just managers or specialists. Inspired by Toyota practices, leaders encourage many small, low-cost ideas–such as a simple Velcro fix…
tl;dr: Lean is not just about speed or efficiency. Lean, properly understood, improves flow and quality at the same time–along with safety, cost, and morale. The idea that Lean “makes bad stuff faster” is a persistent Lean Six Sigma myth…
This week starts the celebration of International Nurses Week, which leads up to Nurses Day on May 12, which is the birthday of the legendary Florence Nightingale. Hug a nurse today. Or do whatever you can to help. Nurses are…
I didn’t know , until yesterday, that Toyota has an official company blog (at least for Toyota UK). Even though I’ve learned from Toyota people and many books and classes (and I’ve written books of my own), I always encourage…
A big theme in Lean management is the idea of “leading with humility.” The first chapter of an excellent book written by Toyota employees and leaders from Georgetown, Kentucky, is focused heavily on leading with humility. This must be important…
