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Employee Complaints About Lean in Healthcare, Even at Some of the Best Organizations

Last week, I blogged about some employee complaints related to rotating day and night shifts at the Toyota San Antonio plant. In that post, I mentioned that employees who post on Glassdoor.com and other sites might not be a representative sample of the full employee population.

With that in mind, what happens when we search the Glassdoor surveys of some well-known "Lean hospitals?"

I posted a few of these employee comments on LinkedIn the other day (a short post that has received over 50,000 views and prompted a lot of discussion).

Santa’s Little Kaizeneers?

Thanks to my friend Sylvain for sending me this cartoon. It would have been more timely for me to share this before Christmas, but there's an opportunity for improvement.

The cartoon series is called Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich. This particular cartoon appeared on December 13, 2017.

Here's the top part... please click through to their website to see the entire cartoon and I'll talk about it here in this post, sharing links to other blog posts and videos on the topic.

The Response to the Hawaii False Alarm Can’t End With Firing Someone

Saturday, you might have seen the news about a "false alarm" push alert that was sent to many iPhones and other smart phones in Hawaii. An alert was also sent out over many TV channels through the Emergency Response System.

Is the response one that focuses on blame and punishment? Or is it focused on understanding how systems fail and how to improve them to prevent future recurrence?

How does this all apply to your organization?

Two Data Points Don’t Make a Trend: Why Headlines Mislead Us

Gun pointed downward, hidden behind a tape measure, with a large grey downward arrow overlay.

When looking at data, whether it's the number of homicides in San Antonio or some of our workplace metrics, it's tempting to overreact to a "headline" that says a measure went down in 2017 compared to 2016. But do two data points really help us understand what the real trend is? This blog post explores an approach we can use to make better decisions about our data.

Throwback Thursday: A Look Back at Japan #Lean Healthcare Study Trips

For today's Throwback Thursday, I'd like to look back at some blog posts about the trips I took to Japan in 2012 and 2014 to study Lean healthcare and Kaizen with healthcare practitioners from around the world.

I'm again partnering with Kaizen Institute to plan and help lead a trip that will be held in the last week of February, as I wrote about here...

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Toyota Main Gate and Toyota Durban Manufacturing Plant sign at the Prospecton plant entrance
The Toyota Andon System in South Africa: Two Buttons Instead of a Cord
Lean management whiteboard with S, Q, D, C columns, where D and C are filled with charts and S and Q are blank
The Danaher Business System Page Talks About Speed. Where Did Safety and Quality Go?
Medical professional in dark scrubs stands in a brightly lit hospital corridor, looking toward the distance.
When “I Have a Pulse” Gets Dismissed: A Toddler Found Alive in a Hospital Morgue
Illustration of a worker inspecting a cracked gear with a magnifying glass on a workbench in a factory, with a cassette tape and tool cart nearby
Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: October 23, 2026