Monthly Archives: March 2017

I was at an organization recently where one of the relatively senior leaders kept using a curious phrase that made my ears perk up. The senior executives were continually being referred to as "the decision makers." Why can't everybody be a decision maker?

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.

Today's Post in <50 words: Lean thinkers don't blame individuals who are in a bad system, whether that's a presenter at Oscars, a kicker in a football game, or a healthcare professional in a hospital.

In today's post, I write about how Kaizen starts with you. I share some examples of "personal Kaizen," including the way I've streamlined my call scheduling process, for my benefit and for others.

My guest for Episode #276 is a Lean consultant (although he might not prefer that term) and an author, A J (Andy) Sheppard. Andy is the author of The Incredible Transformation of Gregory Todd: A Novel about Leadership and Managing Change and also contributed a chapter to my Practicing Lean book project.

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.

Yesterday, Isaac Mitchell and I asked a group of Society for Health Systems Conference attendees what they wanted to talk about with peers and colleagues in the room. Here’s that list and how the discussion was structured…

Today is the start of the main days of the annual Society for Health Systems Conference. I think this is my 9th year attending out of the past 11 or so. Follow the action on Twitter using hashtag #SHS2017. Here are a few posts from the past conferences:

Thanks to Sam Selay for today's guest post. Although he's writing about the government and the military, I think you'll find it interesting regardless of your industry. Read an excerpt from Sam's chapter of Practicing Lean.