When I teach and coach people on the “Kaizen” style of continuous improvement, I emphasize that what I’m teaching them isn’t perfect and it’s not to be carved in stone. People can continuous improve their continuous improvement process in so…
The year is 1981. A Major League Baseball strike interrupts the season. We’re in the midst of the Cold War. President Reagan is shot. Kim Carnes’ (not to be confused with ThedaCare’s Kim Barnas) tops the charts for the year…
Joe Swartz and I are building upon our well-received (and Shingo Research Award winning) book Healthcare Kaizen with a new special edition aimed at busy senior leaders. The book is available for pre-order now at Amazon.com: The Executive Guide to…
I’ve re-read this article a number of times: “Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.” It’s a sad situation – the federal government, via Medicare, has cut the reimbursement to cancer clinics for chemotherapy treatment…
Producer Clare Crawford-Mason shares behind-the-scenes stories of W. Edwards Deming and the 1980 NBC documentary If Japan Can Do It, Why Can’t We?–and reflects on Deming’s lasting impact on management, healthcare, and leadership. Listen: My guest for episode #167 is…
As we enter the new year, it’s a great time to reflect back on 2012 – what worked and what didn’t work… what do we plan to do differently in 2013? Those are some of the core questions found on…
Joining me for episode #157 is Nick Sarillo, founder of Nick’s Pizza & Pub and author of the new book (out September 13) called A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business. I had a chance…
Picking up a feature I was doing a few months back, the backlog of stuff I’ve read and wanted to blog about has grown… that inventory becomes this post. Here are links to some varied articles I’ve read recently that…
The PDSA cycle (Plan, Do, Study, Adjust) is at the heart of Lean problem solving. Most of these mistakes cluster in the Plan phase, where the temptation to skip ahead is strongest. A few live in Study and Adjust, where…
Karen Martin shares insights from her book The Outstanding Organization on reducing organizational chaos, improving daily work, and building systems that support everyday excellence through clarity, focus, discipline, and engagement. Joining me for episode #151 is my friend Karen Martin,…
Dr. Robert Wachter has a great column in today’s USA Today: “Column: Gregory House M.D.: RIP” and it’s republished on his blog, with its own comment section. I wrote a comment, which is awaiting moderation, and I’ll repost it here….…
In this month’s “ASQ Influential Voices” series, ASQ President Paul Borawski asked, “How Do You “Sell” Quality?,” particularly to senior execs and CEOs. Paul asks how we convince senior leaders that quality is essential to long term performance. Through my…
