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All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.

When Being Right Is the Wrong Strategy for Change

I'm at the fourth annual KaiNexus User Conference in exciting Austin, Texas. We have customers here from many industries, which corresponds with the growth of KaiNexus and the way we've been pulled into other customers outside of our initial home in healthcare.

In this post, I talk about a workshop I did yesterday and a talk I'm giving today.

Mark Graban on Measures of Success: Understanding Variation, Reacting Less, and Leading Better

Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban

oday's episode is the second time that friend and podcast guest Jamie Flinchbaugh has turned the tables by playing host to interview me about my new book, Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, which has recently been the #1 best selling book in Amazon's Total Quality Management category.

Jamie is very knowledgeable on these topics, so he was a great person to interview me and to have more of a conversation about choosing the right metrics and then managing them the right way. I hope you enjoy the conversation and future podcasts will return to the usual format where I interview guests and try to let them do most of the talking.

Can Lean Improve Spinal Fusion Surgery? Is This the Right Definition or Use of PDSA?

Here's a blog post written by three physicians:

Can the auto industry improve spinal fusion surgery?
It's interesting that they so closely associate Lean with the auto industry when, at this point, Lean is used in virtually every industry and setting. That's why I used the word "Lean" in the title of my blog post here.

They are also authors of a journal article titled "Application of Lean Principles to Neurosurgical Procedures: The Case of Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery, a Literature Review and Pilot Series," published in Operative Neurosurgery.

In my post, I comment on their work...

Robert Maurer on Mastering Fear, Deming, and Motivational Interviewing

Why do people fear change? Why are adults afraid of talking about their fears? My guest today is eminently qualified to answer such questions and to provide advice that can help us. My guest for Episode #315 is Robert Maurer, Ph.D., author of the outstanding book Mastering Fear.

Bob was previously my guest for Episode #153, where we discussed one of his earlier books on Kaizen, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. By the way, earlier this year I noticed that his other book The Spirit of Kaizen was one of the few books by an American author that Toyota was selling at the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya (see photo below).

I hope you enjoy today's discussion on Mastering Fear. As the subtitle says, can we "harness emotion to achieve excellence in health, work, and relationships"?

A Lean Healthcare Job Interview Process: Thoughts and Reflections

Mark's Note: I asked my firiend Sam Selay to write a blog post on this topic after some private discussions that we had. He agreed and shared this post. I've talked to many others who have run into similar roadblocks and frustrations when trying, with the best of intentions, to bring their Lean skills and experience into healthcare.

Sam was one of the contributing authors to the anthology "Practicing Lean," which is now available through Apple iBooks, in addition to Amazon (Kindle and paperback), and Leanpub (eBook and audiobook). Here is his post:

In June, I was informed by my employer that the company had decided to go in a new direction. They said they would now build lean into their processes and enable process owners to be responsible for all continuous improvement functions. To date, I don’t know many organizations that have been able to successfully embed lean into everyone’s work and sustain it.

Operational Excellence Mixtape: August 17, 2018

Healthcare – Creating Value for Patient Canadian healthcare is still mired in a system of outdated technology (including reliance on faxing and pagers) in a world where consumers expect total transparency and availability of data.  Canadian doctors agree that patients should have…

The Carrot and the Stick on Steroids

I haven't done a Throwback Thursday in a while, but here's a new one.

I was reminded of an article I wrote for LinkedIn back in 2013:

The Carrot and The Stick "On Steroids"
The article begins:

There are a few cliché expressions that I've heard a lot of recently at healthcare conferences. Some of these clichés really need to be retired, including the phrases "carrot and the stick" and "on steroids."