When did the term "concrete head" start getting thrown around in Lean circles? Do people still use this label today? Is it helpful? Should we agree that the term is disrespectful and counter productive?
When I was in England on vacation recently, I saw this column in the Financial Times: Listen to your employees and so increase their productivity And the author, Sarah O’Connor, makes a great point in the sub headline – that…
Today’s episode #259 is Part 2 of a discussion I started with Steve Bera in episode #256. Steve was one of the original 16 “NUMMI Commandos” that General Motors sent to work with Toyota in the 1980s, as discussed in the…
The BBC radio program “The Science Hour” recently aired a program with a segment where an unexpected person (Dr. Kevin Fong) to an unexpected place (UCLA Harbor Medical Center) to look into “Lean.” You might remember UCLA Harbor from my…
Here’s the transcript from the recent podcast that Chip Ponsford, DVM (of the LeanVets.com blog) and I did with Samantha Parrett, the Director of Business & Administrative Services at North Carolina State University Veterinary Health Complex. We know many of you prefer…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more This episode is sponsored by StoreSMART. My guest for episode #255 is Mark DeLuzio, author of the recently released book Turn Waste into Wealth: How to Find Cash in Every Corner of…
Episode #254 is interesting to me for a number of reasons. For one, I have a “guest co-host” joining me for the first time. He’s Chip Ponsford, DVM, a doctor of veterinary medicine and former practice owner who I’ve gotten…
In the previous editions of my book Lean Hospitals, I’ve included case examples from Avera McKennan Hospital and Avera Health. Fred Slunecka is the former president of Avera McKennan and he is now chief operating officer for the Avera system. I talked…
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…
Joining me for Episode #241 is a returning guest and friend of mine, Dan Markovitz (@DanMarkovitz on Twitter). He was a guest on Episodes #135 (talking about A Factory of One) and #52 (talking more generally about office Lean). He has also…
Yesterday, I wrote Part 1 of this post on the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model. Part 1 covered the left hand half of the model, with Organizational Alignment and Visual Management being the key themes. Once you have alignment, measures, and…
As I mentioned the past two days (see my posts from Tuesday and Wednesday about “The Five Whys”), I was at the annual Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco. If this is all new to you, below are some of my posts…