In Episode 26, we accidentally celebrate St. Patrick's Day with some Irish whiskey, lightly mourn some NCAA March Madness losses (or absences, and Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban welcome guest co-host Adam Zak. We selected Irish whiskey as a category because we hadn't used it yet, but after changing the date of the scheduled recording, we ended up quite close to St. Patrick's Day (which was officially a dry holiday until 1970, but that pendulum certainly swung the other way).
In the spirit of Adam Zak's career as an executive recruiter with a Lean lens, we discuss many of the new CEO appointments, in particular Carol Tomé at UPS, Rosalind Brewer at Walgreens, and Jane Fraser at Citigroup. These appointments are historic in one sense, but also highlight the fact that only 41 of the Fortune 500 are run by women (and Brewer is the only Black woman of the group). We explore what matters when selecting a new CEO, how that fits the strategic needs of the company, and how Lean thinking might influence or be leveraged by some of these leaders.
We explore a common listener question: Do you think it's possible for a Lean organization to do well with quality and safety? As we certainly don't feel this question takes much nuance to answer, we make our way through this fairly quickly and on to our closing question about what books we are reading these days, with a slight detour into our reading habits.
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Links From the Show
- Adam Zak's website, his book Simple Excellence with Bill Waddell, and 2008 guest appearance on Mark's Lean Blog podcast #105
- Adam's whiskey selection, 18 YO Tullamore D.E.W.
- Jamie's selection, Green Spot aged in zinfandel barrels from Chateau Montelena
- Mark's selection, a special bottle of Teeling that he filled at the Dublin distillery, along with an honorable mention of Writers' Tears (since we're all published authors)
- A little about new UPS CEO Carol Tomé on Wikipedia and an interview
- A little something about new Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer on Wikipedia and Financial Times
- Stuff about new Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser on Wikipedia and NYT
- Our collective reading list, Believe in People, The Girl Who Never Makes Mistakes, Constant Comedy, and Team of Rivals
- Podcast feed at LeanWhiskey.com or at leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or at jflinch.com/leanwhiskey
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Find the podcast feed and past episodes at LeanWhiskey.com or at leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or at jflinch.com/leanwhiskey
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