tl;dr: The blog examines the pitfalls of poorly executed Lean methodologies, using an analogy of a cheeseburger to discuss unhealthy implementations. It argues for a nuanced approach to Lean, acknowledging its limitations and ‘horror stories’ in order to effectively achieve…
It’s easy to point fingers at others who don’t do what they know they’re supposed to do. Why don’t those nurses and doctors properly clean their hands when they enter and leave every patient room? Why do some surgeons still…
Earlier this month, for the College Football Playoff championship game, I wrote about “Lessons from the Football Coaching and Leadership Styles of the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes.” I had found articles about both teams in the name of…
TL;DR: Working with a personal trainer offered unexpected lessons about coaching, learning, patience, and improvement. Many of the same principles apply to Lean: you can’t learn just by reading, encouragement matters, progress takes time, and effective coaching helps people push…
Today’s podcast is different than my usual interview format. I still plan on continuing the podcast format and series, but I also wanted to try something new. I’m starting a “Lean Blog Audio” podcast, which is basically an “audio book” type…
I had planned on chilling out over the holidays by reading some books that aren’t related to Lean, Kaizen, etc. Novels are not normally my thing and I started reading How Doctors Think, which had been on my Kindle to-read list…
Happy New Year! Let’s talk about Lean. Let’s talk about Kaizen and continuous improvement and how to get better in 2015. You’re possibly thinking, “Hey, Mark, chill… watch some football… relax… it’s a holiday.” But, you’re reading this, so you…
David Mann explains why creating a Lean culture depends on leader behavior and management systems–not tools or compliance–and how leader standard work helps sustain improvement. He shares practical guidance for executives on using Gemba walks to learn, teach, and reinforce…
Thanks to everybody for reading my blog in 2014! As always, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read and participate in the discussion and I hope you’ll continue visiting the site in 2015… the tenth anniversary…
Here’s the latest in our series of videos about Kaizen and a culture of continuous improvement at Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis. Scroll down in this post for a survey that Joe Swartz and I are doing about a workshop…
After being at the Lean Startup Conference the last two years (giving this talk in 2012 and speaking last year on Kaizen), I’m not there this year, unfortunately. I’m also not at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement forum (why are there often two great…
On Friday, LinkedIn published a piece I wrote for their series of articles on the theme of “The Road Not Taken.” LinkedIn asked people to write about the “Plan B” that they may have wished they had pursued. This was difficult…
