I first learned about an approach to personal development called "The Harada Method" when Norman Bodek co-authored a book with Takashi Harada: The Harada Method: The Spirit of Self-Reliance.
Norman was a guest on my podcast in 2013 to talk about this...
The Harada Method has been on mind again recently thanks to the success of Major League Baseball player Shohei Ohtani, from Japan.
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)
Today, I’m giving a keynote talk at the Lean & Six Sigma World Conference being held in Las Vegas. I don’t normally attend or speak at “Lean Sigma” events, but I had an opportunity to give a new talk that touches on two of my favorite themes in recent years – the need to apply statistics and psychology to our “Lean Management” practices or Six Sigma or whatever.
It's Monday morning in Nagoya, Japan as I write this. I'm still jet-lagged and up early, so here's a blog post after all...
Sunday, I had the chance to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya. There's so much that I can blog about...I'll write more posts about my museum visit in the future.
In this post though, I share a little bit about some of the books that they sell - in English and Japanese...
I would call today a "Throwback Thursday," but it's Wednesday. Is "Wayback Wednesday" a thing?
Anyway, it's Valentine's Day... what better reason to look back at some posts about love?
Joining me again for episode #299 of the podcast is Joe Swartz, my friend and esteemed co-author for our books Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen: Leadership for a Continuously Learning and Improving Organization.
This Thursday, we'll be hosting a webinar presented by a former Toyota engineer, Jess Orr. She will be sharing lessons learned at Toyota about the A3 problem-solving methodology, referred to there as "Toyota Business Practices." In particular, Jess will be sharing a case study about using the A3 approach to improving communication.
The official report is out in Hawaii after the traumatic accidental missile warning that was sent last month. An employee was fired. The leader accepted responsibility and resigned. Why are others being punished?
I often get asked a question along the lines of "So, what exactly do you do?" Today, I give some updates about my various projects and partnerships, including continuing with KaiNexus (with a different title) and a new partnership with Value Capture.
Tomorrow, with the entire KaiNexus team, I'm going to visit the Toyota truck plant in San Antonio, the plant referred TMMTX. The 15 of us will be there in closed toed shoes and all other required clothing to learn about the Toyota Production System, Kaizen (continuous improvement), and Lean.
I've blogged about it on the KaiNexus blog. I asked the KaiNexus team to say a little bit about what they hope to learn in the visit and you can read their comments it here.
In this post, I share a 24-minute tour preview webinar that I put together, links to past tour blog posts, and more.
In today's post, I share and write about this message from Akio Toyoda that was posted online:
“Making Ever-better Cars and Human Resource Development: The Forces That Power Sustainable Growth“
My guest for Episode #293 of the podcast is a dynamic speaker and manufacturing leader, Billy R. Taylor. I saw him speak a few years ago at a Shingo Prize Conference and I've wanted to get him on the podcast ever since.
He's currently the Director of Commercial, Off Highway, and Support Manufacturing North America for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Over the past 20 years, he has risen from "the lowest level of the organization," up through the manufacturing leadership ranks at Goodyear, including time as a Plant Director at facilities in Oklahoma and North Carolina.
He's been "engaged in Lean" for over 15 years and he is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Billy has a BS in in Electrical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and an MBA from Baker University.
Billy was very giving of his time and we talked for over 75 minutes, so I'm breaking this up into two parts, with Part 2 coming soon. Today, we talk about how he got started with Lean, the shift from tools- and event-based Lean to a culture focus, how to build a sense of ownership, servant leadership, employee recognition and more.
