My blog turned 11 years old last month. Thanks to everyone for reading! I looked back, as a Throwback Thursday, and found a number of really good posts that were published on this date...
In the midst of the discussion about the NEJM article, John Shook of LEI (a former Toyota employee) pointed me to this 1993 HBR article: "Time-and-Motion Regained" I believe it's freely available...
Episode #238 is a conversation with somebody I’ve wanted to talk with for a long time, Kevin Cahill. He is the executive director of the W. Edwards Deming Institute. He’s also a grandson of Dr. Deming! ...
When we see a simple error, even in something as silly as sports memorabilia, we would ask "why?" or "how?" instead of "who?" Blaming individuals doesn't help...
In this episode, Dr. John Toussaint explains why Lean healthcare transformation fails when it’s treated as a set of tools instead of a leadership responsibility. Drawing on his experience as former CEO of ThedaCare, he discusses CEO accountability, patient safety,…
How is it that we have two realities out there in healthcare... in parallel, Lean is awesome and Lean is horrible. It depends on where you are, unfortunately. I had an amazing day yesterday with a major health system...
Watch the full documentary and find the related posts in this series. Recently, I shared the famed 1980 NBC documentary, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” that essentially introduced W. Edwards Deming to a mainstream Western business audience. Today, I’m…
Thursday is the American holiday of Thanksgiving, so I'm going to take the rest of the week off (and many of you will be out of the office). The end of the year is a time to reflect. Paul Akers is the latest person to reflect on their early days of Lean practice by contributing a new chapter...
Today’s guest is Mitch Cahn, president of Unionwear, a manufacturer of hats, bags, and apparel in Newark, NJ. I first learned about Mitch and his company because of a display they had at the Northeast LEAN Conference, which I blogged about here. What caught my eye was their display of politician hats they produce, including the...
Today's podcast is presented with a heavy heart, after the recent passing of my friend Dr. Michel Téatrault, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital and a great Lean leader. He was a friend to many in the Healthcare Value Network and the broader Lean healthcare community. As I was remembering Michel, it occurred to me
These Donald Trump hats (and hats for other candidates including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush) are made by a Newark company, Unionwear. Lean is their strategy and their production system. That’s how they are competing against China.
It's tempting to visit a place like ThedaCare and then mandate "everybody must have huddle boards." Then, a bunch of huddle boards get purchased and installed... and maybe not used. It's another thing for executives to realize that they have to change the way they manage. There's a great quote that ThedaCare folks readily share, including Kim Barnas in her book Beyond Heroes:
