Some of My Recent KaiNexus Blog Posts: Toyota vs. Google, Kaizen, & Visual Management

In addition to my blogging here, I write occasionally for our blog over at KaiNexus.com, where we have multiple contributors.

I also do monthly webinars and the next one is on February 16, where Dr. Greg Jacobson and will talk about gaining “buy in” for improvement. It's free… I hope you'll join us (to watch live or to view the recording). Click here to register.

Here are some of my recent posts, click on the headlines to check them out:

Engaging Staff in Improvement is Actually the Toyota Way, Too

Here, I blogged about an article I read in Modern Healthcare that said, basically, Toyota isn't innovative and maybe therefore healthcare should look to Google as a management system and model of staff engagement and continuous improvement.

WHAT? Toyota doesn't engage staff in continuous improvement? That's, frankly, ignorant and it's a great example of L.A.M.E. — Lean As Misguidedly Explained.

Why Does the Base of the Improvement Pyramid Get Ignored So Often?

Research shows that 80% of the improvement potential of an organization is driven by staff ideas, small ideas, what you might call “Daily Kaizen.” ThedaCare says their goal is to have 80% of improvement come from daily continuous improvement, with the rest coming from Rapid Improvement Events and other bigger projects.

So, why do so many organizations still ignore or shortchange “just do its” or “quick and easy kaizen” style improvements? Joe Swartz and I wrote Healthcare Kaizen because were trying to open people's eyes to this (and we still are). By the way, come see what a culture of continuous improvement looks like by visiting Joe's health system in April via our workshop.

What is Visual Management? It's Not Just Visual… It's Management, Too

It's a theme I've blogged about here also, but I wrote a piece for KaiNexus about how “visual management” isn't just about posting metrics on the wall. It's not just making things “visual” but it's also about “managing” those situations and your process.

Thanks for checking out the posts.

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