TL;DR: Punishing people for mistakes does not reduce mistakes — it suppresses reporting, drives fear, and blocks learning. Evidence from healthcare, safety science, and organizations like Alcoa shows that improvement comes from systems thinking, transparency, and psychological safety, not blame.…
TL;DR: Wrong-site surgery rarely happens because of one person–it happens when small errors, near misses, and unsafe cultures are ignored instead of learned from. This article caught my eye today, and it’s a change of pace to think about and…
I saw a story on the NBC Nightly News last night about the ChatGPT / OpenAI tool, and they used examples of asking the AI bot to explain concepts to a 5-year-old. After asking a similar tool to explain Lean…
In this LeanBlog Podcast episode, Tom Peters shares why “extreme humanism” is essential to modern leadership. He explains why caring deeply about people isn’t soft–it’s the foundation of excellence, innovation, and sustainable performance. Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript,…
TL;DR: Larry Culp’s AME keynote shows that Lean leadership at GE is about how leaders think, learn, and respond to problems–not tools. Katie Anderson and Mark Graban discuss psychological safety, gemba, learning from mistakes, and building culture through daily leadership…
It was a real treat to hear Larry Culp, the CEO of General Electric and CEO of GE Aerospace, speak at the AME 2022 annual conference in Dallas. He recently reached the four-year mark of his tenure as GE’s first-ever…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #463 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jim Benson, the CEO of Modus Cooperandi, and co-founder of Modus Institute. He was previously a guest on Episodes…
My guest for Episode #462 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Professor John Grout, the former dean of the Campbell School of Business at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. He was recently a guest on “My Favorite Mistake” — Episode 186, so I…
You’re invited to view the recording of webinar that I co-presented on Tuesday, October 18th, with Ken Segel, the CEO and co-founder of the healthcare advisory firm Value Capture. Seizing the Healthcare Safety Opportunity: Using the “Playbook” of Paul O’Neill…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #460 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Philip Holt. He is currently Senior Vice President, Operational Excellence at GKN Aerospace, the world’s leading multi-technology Tier 1…
I wanted to share a blog post that I wrote for the Value Capture Blog: The Connections Between Joy in Work and Habitual Excellence In the post, I share notes from a presentation that Rich gave at the Michigan Lean…
Gerald Harris spent 25 years leading lean transformations in automotive manufacturing before shifting into healthcare consulting, and his origin story starts with a Toyota supplier in crisis that went from shipping 250 door sets per shift to 2,400. In this…