I heard a great phrase, the Army liaison officer to the White House, Col. Chris Hughes, saying on cable news, “we teach our young soldiers and officers how to think, not what to think.” From a quick Google search, this…
Our friend and sometimes blogger Bill Hanover posted a comment a few days ago about the arrival of a baby boy – congrats. He joked about “Lean” names, so I’ll share a few suggestions (and feel free to submit some):…
LinkedIn: Answers A good friend of the blog, Bryan Lund, asked this question on LinkedIn.com, you can go there via this link or share your answer here via the blog comments (reprinted with Bryan’s permission): How important is the past…
WSJ.com – Pizza-Delivery Teams Are Training Hard For Sunday’s Game ($$$) I started reading this with great interest, expecting to read about the operations side of a pizza delivery business. It also made me think back to the folks at…
TL;DR:The late Norman Bodek argues that Lean fails not due to poor workers or missing tools, but because management systems prioritize short-term results over developing people. Toyota’s real advantage, he says, is its long-term commitment to respect, learning, and empowering…
TL;DR: Trump’s “if I say do it, they’re going to do it” reflects a command and control leadership style that even the military is moving away from. Toyota, Gen. McChrystal, and decades of evidence point to something better. Command and…
Here is an article I posted yesterday to LinkedIn: An Airline Worker’s Lament: “They Won’t Let Me Help You.“ On LinkedIn, I’m writing for a more general business audience than I am here on LeanBlog.org. In the situation at the…
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…
I loved the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, but I haven’t seen the movie yet (I hear it’s good — Edit: It was GREAT). To me, it was a story about being forced to go against conventional wisdom to come up…
By Luke Van Dongen I was very fortunate to have met Bob Emiliani at the Linking Lean Thinking to Education conference in Worcester Mass last month. Bob has a wonderful combination of industry and academic experience and has several publications…
