Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: September 5, 2025

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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

Strategy when you have no competition

I've worked with organizations that face no direct competition, making it challenging to motivate them to “play to win.” In such environments, efforts to emphasize rivalry often feel empty, rendering strategy discussions superficial and the threat of obsolescence ineffective in driving meaningful action. However, winning doesn't always mean engaging in a zero-sum game where others must lose. Roger Martin explains how organizations without competitors can adopt a “play to win” mindset, focusing on growth, innovation, and creating unique value rather than mere rivalry.

Learning from cardboard

During my time at St. Boniface Hospital in the 2010s, the CEO mandated the use of the “3P” method for redesigning new hospital spaces. This approach involved actively engaging patients and clinicians, those who would work in the space, to iteratively simulate layouts using full-scale cardboard mockups. These simulations focused on testing the “7 flows” to inform architectural design. While architects often disliked this process, it consistently led to better-designed spaces and significant cost savings. Mark Graban highlights how Swiss hospitals are adopting the 3P method to redesign hospital environments, ultimately enhancing patient care and staff experience.

Nigel Thurlow on flow

Many assume that operational excellence is all about boosting efficiency, reducing waste, or cutting costs. However, the true goal is something even more fundamental: flow. But what exactly is flow?

The team at Baptist Memorial hosted a 3-part series with Nigel Thurlow on flow in healthcare, but the principles truly apply to any industry. I really enjoyed the entire series.

Part 1: What is Value in Healthcare?

Part 2: How to Flow and Deliver Value

Part 3: How to Measure Value


Creating a Culture of Improvement

Change culture by focusing on systems, not communications

We've all attempted to ‘campaign' our way to cultural change through posters, blogs, and CEO interviews. Yet, this often feels like performative theater, losing credibility when senior leaders fail to demonstrate tangible proof points. It's a case of “good enough for everyone else, but not for me.”

Since systems shape behavior, focusing on them can accelerate cultural transformation and provide clear, visible evidence of leaders modeling values. To truly change company culture, prioritize improving systems over relying solely on communication.

Your boss doesn't have time to talk to you

The role of managers is evolving, with their span of control expanding and stretching them thinner than ever. The challenge? Employees still expect managers to coach and develop them, but managers are becoming less available. The traditional “1-on-1” meetings are disappearing in an era of flatter organizations.

However, there's a silver lining: this shift could lead to greater employee autonomy driven by necessity. If your boss doesn't have time to talk, it may force individuals and teams to take more ownership and self-direction.


Coaching – Developing Self & Others

Book Review: The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher

Effective communication is unavoidable in any organization. Whether it's meetings, emails, one-on-ones, client calls, or conferences, your success often hinges more on how well you communicate than on your technical skills or authority.

The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More by Jefferson Fisher has profoundly transformed my communication approach. Fisher, a trial lawyer, offers practical, actionable tips to speak more effectively. I've begun applying his simple strategies for handling difficult people, and they truly work. His advice makes it easy and approachable to develop a more assertive and clear speaking style.

Standing out in meetings often comes down to consistent, effective communication. Fisher's book is an invaluable resource in achieving that.

Additionally, Fisher is popular on YouTube and TikTok, where he shares quick, insightful videos on mastering communication. I highly recommend checking them out!

Your corporate training is ineffective

“We provided everyone with the training, so why is the adoption of the new process still so low?”

We've all experienced ineffective corporate training, sometimes even inflicted it on others, and then blamed them for not changing their behavior. The root cause? Poor design and a fundamental misunderstanding of how people learn and change.

Most corporate training focuses on “transferring knowledge” through dry, rational explanations. But the truth is, this approach rarely leads to real behavioral change.

If you're leading a transformation and frustrated by resistance, tune into Change Signal with Julie Dirksen. In this episode, she exposes training's biggest blind spot and offers a fresh perspective on designing programs that actually drive behavior change.


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Let’s build a culture of continuous improvement and psychological safety—together. If you're a leader aiming for lasting change (not just more 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 talk.


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Ryan McCormack
Ryan is an operational excellence professional with over 18 years experience practicing continuous improvement in healthcare, insurance, food manufacturing, and aerospace. He is an avid student of the application of Lean principles in work and life to create measurably better value.

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