Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email.
News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better.
Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation
Yours Truly on Problem Solving
I had the opportunity a while back to chat with Jamie Flinchbaugh, author of People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem and The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road, to talk about, what else – problem solving. Check it out!
Health Quality 5.0?
Referring to Canada's healthcare as a “system” has long been both generous and misleading. In reality, it's a patchwork of loosely connected providers, bureaucracies, funders, and labor groups that only pretending to operate as a unified system. Although some leaders and elected officials have envisioned a more integrated, patient-centered approach, the momentum of the status quo has consistently thwarted such efforts for decades. Most recently, Healthcare Quarterly has issued a call to action: Quality 5.0. However, it appears just as unlikely to materialize as the four previous versions.
Leader Standard Work is Hardly Standard
Among all the improvement techniques I've tried implementing in organizations, Leader Standard Work (LSW) might be the toughest to get it to stick. The irony is that it's incredibly effective at fostering a culture of continuous improvement and overcoming the common “I don't have time for this” excuse that middle managers often rely on. Plus, it's very cost-efficient–virtually free. The main obstacle, however, is that many leaders see LSW as too rigid, fearing it will limit their autonomy and the privilege of doing things their own way.
Didier Rabino explores the paradox that, rather than constraining, standard work can actually empower leaders. Will they recognize its true potential?
Creating a Culture of Improvement
Employees who steal others' ideas are bad for business
People absolutely hate it when someone else takes or claims credit for their ideas–and honestly, who can blame them?
I once worked at a company that preached the gospel of documenting and sharing successes, but at the same time, they kept the office bubbling with cutthroat competition thanks to brutal performance reviews. The result? I played it safe and didn't share my best ideas, fearing someone would steal my thunder. Sure, I got dinged for not broadcasting my brilliance, but in the end, I was still rewarded for my results. Go figure.
Despite all the well-meaning talk about sharing lessons learned, the real motivator remains earning the credit–and the promotions that come with it. Stealing someone's ideas? That's not just morally questionable; it's bad for business. Employees who do it sap motivation and kill collaboration. If we want a healthy workspace, calling out and discouraging idea theft should be a top priority.
What DOGE Should Do To Reduce Government Waste
Musk's run as the king of waste-cutting is officially over. Like many consultants before him, he didn't come close to delivering the promised or estimated savings–mostly by just slashing services without any real strategy.
The truth is, a lot of government ‘bloat' comes from old-school, industrial-era management styles that favor rules over results and bureaucracy over action. These systems are bloated, with a manager-to-employee ratio of around 1.3–basically, a bunch of layers that slow things down. Experts like Michael Zanini and Gary Hamel believe Trump should trim the fat in administration and ditch outdated management practices. Instead, we need systems that reward innovation and entrepreneurial thinking, not just more rules and bureaucracy.
Bill Belichick: The Truth About Winning
Disclaimer: I'm not a Pats fan. But I am a fan of understanding cultures of excellence, and this interview with Bill Belichick on episode 230 of The Knowledge Project did not disappoint. Jam packed with practical wisdom for those who strive for excellence every day.
Coaching – Developing Self & Others
Create Constraints, Not Goals
Many who pursue excellence as a way of life or work are familiar with goal-setting, and it can be very effective, especially when the problem you're trying to solve is clear and well-defined. But those who have spent years pursuing excellence realize that practice in the pursuit of mastery is more effective in the long run at driving outcomes than pursuing short-term goals – a long way of saying systems and habits produce sustainable results. Smart people don't chase goals, they create limits.
Illusory Correlations
During my time working in hospitals, I noticed that most nurses firmly believed that full moons led to higher patient acuity and increased chaos in emergency rooms. As a skeptic and a scientist, I decided to investigate this assumption. With access to years of acuity data, I conducted my own analysis and found no correlation–acuity levels, occupancy rates, wait times, and the number of boarded patients remained consistent regardless of the moon phase. Yet, despite this evidence, many nurses continued to believe in the link.
Why does this belief persist? It's easy to remember challenging shifts and then notice a bright full moon afterward, leading to the subconscious thought, “Of course!” Conversely, a difficult shift during a waning quarter moon might not evoke the same association. This exemplifies an illusory correlation–a false perception of a relationship between two variables. If unrecognized, such biases can influence decision-making and reinforce unhelpful heuristics.
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Let’s work together to build a culture of continuous improvement and psychological safety. If you're a leader looking to create lasting change—not just projects—I help organizations:
- Engage people at all levels in sustainable improvement
- Shift from fear of mistakes to learning from them
- Apply Lean thinking in practical, people-centered ways
Interested in coaching or a keynote talk? Let’s start a conversation.
