Joining me for Episode #370 is Edward Blackman, the founder and managing partner of Kelda Consulting. He has previously had Lean and process improvement-focused roles at organizations as varied as Whirlpool, Amway, and Spectrum Health. Today, we are discussing behavioral…
My guest for Episode #353 of the podcast is somebody whose work I’ve appreciated for a long time — Quint Studer. I was first introduced to his book Hardwiring Excellence back in 2005 and I’ve been following his work (and…
Yesterday, I blogged about a CNO who was changing the culture at a hospital away from blaming individual nurses for system problems. The HealthLeaders article I wrote about didn’t talk about “Lean” per se. But, that single idea about moving…
Today's blog post -- it's not just about sports, it's about managing and measuring improvement...
If you watched this year’s World Series, you saw a lot of home runs. There were many dramatic home runs in late innings or extra innings. It might have seemed like a significantly high number. My friend Dan Markovitz asked…
TL;DR: Quality posters and slogans don’t improve performance–they signal that management expects people to “try harder” instead of fixing broken systems. As Deming taught, most quality problems come from management-controlled systems, not worker effort. Remove the posters. Substitute leadership. Back…
As a guy who started his career in manufacturing before moving to healthcare in 2005, I don’t get many opportunities to visit the “Gemba” at a factory very often anymore. I get to occasionally visit a Toyota plant (in the…
I was very saddened earlier to receive an email from an employee of a great leader, Dr. Michel Tétreault, informing me that he had passed away. Michel was, since 2005, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg.
My guests for episode #226 are Steve Hoeft and Dr. Robert (Bob) Pryor from Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas. Bob serves as President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer for the system and was formerly CEO of Scott &…
A friend sent me a link to this article, “7 cultural concepts we don’t have in the U.S.,” and he told me to check out item #5 in the list – Kaizen in Japan. By the way, if you ever…
I wrote an article for LinkedIn yesterday about the recent GM ignition problem controversy and recall. I commented mainly on the video put out by new CEO Mary Barra (which I encourage you to watch). As a former GM employee,…
Joining me as my guest for episode #189 is Rich Sheridan, CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations, a software development company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Rich is the author of the new book that I’m really enjoying: Joy, Inc.: How…
