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You Can’t Cut Your Way to Success in Healthcare, with Andre DeMerchant

Joining me for Episode #307 of the podcast is my friend Andre DeMerchant, the President of DeMerchant Healthcare Solutions Inc., based in Kitchener, Ontario. We first crossed paths when we had the chance to work together with an American healthcare client via our then-affiliation with Pascal Dennis and Lean Pathways. 

In today's episode, we talk about Andre's history working for Toyota in Canada and what he learned there -- and why it's important that he learned about "how flow works" at Toyota. We chat about the terms "Lean" and "The Toyota Production System" and what those words mean to him. How does TPS "transcend culture and language," as well as industries?

We then shift to talking about healthcare and some of the common challenges, including "financial hardships," that are faced in many countries. Why are hospitals "poorly prepared for change" in many cases? Another main theme is "cost cutting" and why you can't cut your way to success. 

The GM Quality Death Spiral, Part 2: Production Pressure and the Memos That Blamed Workers

GM Quality Death Spiral 1996 Part 2

Recently, I blogged about a quality catastrophe that I lived through at GM just over 20 years ago, at the now-closed GM Livonia Engine Plant.

Bluntly, the quality problems were caused by poor management and the side effects of their decisions. Even though they constantly blamed workers, management directly interfered with workers and engineers being able to do the right thing for quality.

Here is Part 2 of that story... the first quality "spill" took place in April 1996. As I wrote about last time, Angry high-horse memos were sent out by management. Workers were told to have pride and to pay closer attention to quality (as if those had been the problems).

Respect for People and Continuous Improvement in Healthcare: Lessons from Lean

I was recently asked to do a recorded video presentation for a medical conference in Turkey. I spoke about the dual pillars of "The Toyota Way":

Respect for People
Continuous Improvement
The video is about 20 minutes, split about half and half on each of those interrelated topics. I'm coming to you from a hotel room, somewhat tired after a day of consulting.

(Slides PDF and transcript also included)

“So why are you here in Japan?” Kaizen, Popularity, Fads, and Sustainment

Monday, I blogged about the sushi-making class I took on my last Sunday in Japan. Later that same Sunday, I did a walking food tour in the Shibuya area. Walking food tours are a great way to explore and learn about a city.

In our small group, there was a couple from Australia and a retired couple from South Africa.

Between stops on the tour, the South African gentleman, a retired mining company manager or executive, asked me why I was there in Japan for work.

Joe Swartz on Champions of Change, Kaizen, and Healthcare Supply Chains

This podcast is sponsored by Cardinal Health.

Joining me again for episode #301 of the podcast is Joe Swartz, my friend and co-author for our books Healthcare Kaizen and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen:. You can learn more about our books here. He also contributed a chapter to the book Practicing Lean. (read an excerpt).

Today, we're talking about "Champions of Change," as I've been writing about for Cardinal Health.

Lean Can Be Very Fragile, Especially With Executive Changes

Lean can be very fragile. History shows that Lean can fall apart even in an organization that is years into a "Lean journey" with strong CEO involvement.

How is this possible? If often happens when a new CEO is brought in from the outside. In the case of the manufacturing company, Wiremold, it happened when they were acquired by a French company, Legrand.

As an aside, the team that coined the term "Lean" almost used the term "fragile," as I blogged about here.

Back in 2007, Bob Emiliani joined me for Episode #30 of the podcast. As we revisit the podcast and the new transcript I had made, what are the lessons for manufacturers or hospitals?

What's the risk that's created when new leadership takes over?

Taking Time to Give Thanks and to Take a Break

This is a time of year to give thanks... I have much to be thankful for, so I'm going to start my Thanksgiving break a bit early.

Some of you might have noticed that I was battling some technical glitches and gremlins with the site this week. Working with tech support chewed up about an hour each day this week, so I lost time I might have otherwise spent creating content....

Highlights from a Great Book: “The Leader’s Handbook”

"If we stopped wasting people’s time, what would they do with it?"

I've been going through the book by the late Peter Scholtes: The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done. His work builds upon the legendary W. Edwards Deming and Russell Ackoff, among others.

I often quote Scholtes (something also attributed to Peter Senge and others) as saying:

"People don't resist change, they resist being changed."
I think that's very insightful and that thought has led me to study change management, "motivational interviewing" and other related topics. It turns out that having the right answer and pushing it on others isn't the best strategy for effecting sustainable change. I had to learn those lessons the hard way and I'm still learning.

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