Blame-based cultures kill improvement. Leaders must resolve to build trust and safety if they want innovation and engagement. During Katie Anderson‘s Japan Study Trip this past November, a participant shared an observation with me that resonated deeply: “The biggest challenge…
When I visited the Toyota Museum in Nagoya, Japan (see my previous blog posts about it), they had a display that includes a video that gives an overview of the Toyota Production System. I’ve seen the video a few times…
TL;DR: Two Japanese hospitals improved patient safety by combining Toyota-style problem-solving with psychological safety. By making it safe for staff to report problems and near misses, leaders uncovered more issues, learned faster, and reduced harm–turning safety into part of daily…
During my fifth Lean study trip to Japan, I once again visited a Toyota plant — and was reminded of a simple but profound idea that Toyota emphasizes repeatedly: making things means making people. It’s a principle that connects Lean…
Today, I'll be touring the Toyota truck plant in San Antonio again, the plant known as TMMTX. I'm there with our "Symposium on Learning Organizations" group, all 40 of us. In this post, I share some pre-tour goals and share some links to previous Toyota plant visits (in Texas and Japan).
In the third and final part of this series, I share more about how Toyota teaches about TPS and TQM... and how they are sharing that approach with doctors and hospitals.
Last week, I wrote about the influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) on Toyota -- in the past and the present, in Japan and beyond. Today, to follow up on that, I'm going to share some excerpts from some material that was shared by a Toyota leader who presented at a hospital I visited earlier this year as part of the Kaizen Institute-organized Japan trip.
I'm very excited to be leaving for Japan for another study trip in just over a month. This will be my second trip this year, this time with Honsha, after previous (and hopefully future) trips organized by Kaizen Institute.
Even though the previous tours have been focused on Toyota, as well as Lean and Kaizen in various organizations, one common thread is Total Quality Management, or TQM. In many Japanese organizations, TQM has been a solid foundation of practice for two or three decades, where it tended to be a fad here in the U.S., as I've blogged about:
I'm excited to share two interesting opportunities to further our learning about Lean. One is a Texas-based event in September and the other is Japan-based, in October.
I wrote a new piece for LinkedIn that I hope would be of interest to you even if you’re in healthcare. Why? It’s a story about what an organization does when you don’t have enough (or any) direct work for your front-line staff to do. Toyota would continue paying employees and would put them to...
TL;DR — GM vs. Toyota After the Japan Earthquake General Motors (GM) Toyota Bottom line:This wasn’t a failure of JIT or Lean. It was a leadership choice. Toyota showed that real Lean is about how you treat people when work…
Norman Bodek is once again back for episode #47 of the LeanBlog Podcast. Today, he shares insights from his 68th study trip to Japan. Norman reflects on decades of visiting Toyota and contrasts what he saw there with Canon’s groundbreaking…
