Popular Posts
No posts found.
Bruce Hamilton reflects on the legacy of Toast Kaizen, the evolution of the Northeast Lean Conference, and why Lean thinking–rooted in people development and problem solving–helps...
Jacob Stoller challenges common productivity myths and explains why true productivity growth comes from improving processes, quality, and culture–not just cutting costs or adding technology...
Roberto Priolo of Planet Lean shares how the Lean Global Connection has become a 24-hour, worldwide celebration of Lean thinking–and why its focus on adaptiveness and psychological safety...
Jenn Christison: Lessons in Even Better Leadership, Lean Thinking, and Organizational Transformation
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #516 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jenn Christison, founder and principal consultant at Seven Ways Consulting. Jenn...
Sean Dow was on the 22nd floor of a Manhattan high-rise last week, working on the building's sprinkler system, when he noticed something wrong with the concrete slab: cracks where cracks don't belong...
Karen Martin is one of those people I've been lucky to know and learn from for a long time. She's...
KaiNexus recently hosted a webinar I was especially looking forward to: “Unlock the Power of...
When organizations struggle to sustain Lean transformation, people often look first at tools...
Recently, I had the pleasure of moderating a webinar titled “Driving a Culture of Transforming...
TL;DR: Lean tools don't fail because people resist change–they fail because people don't feel...
One of the most powerful elements of continuous improvement is the ability to learn from each other...
I'm excited to be presenting this webinar on February 12th at 1 pm ET as part of the KaiNexus...
TL;DR: Psychological safety isn't optional for continuous improvement. This KaiNexus webinar...
I'm happy to be hosting and moderating this webinar that will be presented by Brent Loescher, a...
I'm happy to be hosting and moderating this webinar that will be presented by Melissa Sherman, a...
Psychological safety is often described as “feeling safe to speak up.” In Lean...
Are you looking to transform your business strategy into actionable results? Join us for our...
As I talked about in this video, I was supposed to do a half-day workshop on Measures of Success for...
A Toyota team applied the Toyota Production System in a Brazilian hospital to improve emergency...
Lean Startup Webcast: How to Turn Metrics Into the Right Kind of Action with Process Behavior Charts
Eric Ries and Lean Startup Co. have been really helpful friends in spreading the message about...
![Nick Katko returns to Lean Blog Interviews to talk about his new book, Creating a Continuous Improvement System in Accounting. Nick is president and owner of BMA, a CPA, and author of The Lean CFO and Practicing Lean Accounting.
Accounting teams see problems every day. As Nick puts it, they fix them, but they don’t necessarily solve them. We talk about why that happens, what a continuous improvement system looks like inside an accounting department, and why culture and psychological safety have to come before improvement events.
Topics include:
🔵 Why many accounting leaders misunderstand continuous improvement, especially when it gets done to them
🔵 An accounts payable team that cut invoice defects from about 43% to 15% by starting with data
🔵 The three components of the system: simple PDCA problem solving, daily lean management, and improvement events
🔵 Why small improvements beat the next big thing (blockchain then, AI now)
🔵 Time, not ability, as the main reason problems don’t get solved
🔵 What happened when the one person who spoke up about month-end close was fired
🔵 Why psychological safety shifts when a leader walks into the room
🔵 A daily problem-solving huddle that ended finger-pointing between accounting and purchasing
🔵 Measuring a faster close in person-hours, not just days
🔵 Independent publishing, and the book covers drawn by Nick’s grandchildren
Chapters:
00:00 Intro and Nick’s background
01:31 Where the book came from: coaching two accounting teams in Ohio
03:19 More than a book: checklists, assessments, and training slides on Nick’s website
04:16 Why accounting teams fix problems instead of solving them
06:03 Accounts payable example: data first, then improvement events
08:03 The three parts of a continuous improvement system in accounting
11:41 Big initiatives vs. small improvements
14:07 The real reason problems don’t get solved: time
17:19 When one person is the process: psychological safety in small teams
18:44 The person who spoke up and was fired
21:22 Psychological safety is situational
26:24 Creating the culture first, and a leader self-assessment
29:31 Fear and futility: why people stay quiet
33:12 Accounting vs. purchasing: a daily problem-solving huddle
35:34 A healthcare parallel: the ED, the lab, and crooked labels
39:37 Walking away from a top-down engagement
41:46 What a faster close is really worth
45:00 Independent publishing and the grandchildren’s book covers
50:51 Closing
Nick’s book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HCRDNBJM
Supplemental materials: [VERIFY: URL on Nick’s website]
Nick’s previous appearance, Episode 492: [VERIFY: link]
About Mark Graban:
Mark is an author, speaker, consultant, and Senior Advisor to KaiNexus. His books include Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, Measures of Success, and The Mistakes That Make Us. His next book is The Silence Tax: How Lean Leaders Drive Out Fear and Futility. He hosts the Lean Blog Interviews and My Favorite Mistake podcasts and writes at https://www.leanblog.org
Subscribe for more conversations on Lean, leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement.
#LeanAccounting #ContinuousImprovement #PsychologicalSafety #LeanThinking #Accounting #CFO #PDCA #Kaizen #LeanLeadership #RespectForPeople #LeanCFO #MonthEndClose](https://www.leanblog.org/wp-content/plugins/feeds-for-youtube/img/placeholder.png)
