Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to warn against replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic rewards and incentives. Brian Joiner (author of Fourth Generation Management), who worked with Deming, warned that setting targets and quotas can lead to three things: improving the…
On Wednesday at 1 pm ET, I hosted another free webinar in our KaiNexus Webinar series. The presenter was Tania Lyon, Director, Organizational Performance Improvement at St. Clair Hospital in Pennsylvania. The webinar is titled: When Post-Its Didn’t Cut It Anymore:…
I’m guessing most “Lean thinkers” stayed home the other day on the “Black Friday” shopping day. Why might this be? For one, I think we tend to put safety first, so we avoid jostling, pushing, and shoving for discounts (and the…
TL;DR: Lean isn’t about “idiot-proofing” work–it’s about respecting people. True Lean focuses on improving systems (through mistake-proofing and better design), not blaming or deceiving workers. When leaders treat people as capable professionals and fix processes instead of people, quality, learning,…
This week is our 2nd annual KaiNexus User Conference, in Austin… with customers and those who are about to become customers joining us for 1.5 or 2.5 days of sharing, learning, and fun. If Austin’s expression is “Keep Austin Weird,”…
This article caught my eye recently:
We Can Still Do It: Dr. Deming’s Legacy
(via LInkedIn)
My guest for Episode #262 is Steven J. Spear (@stevenjspear on Twitter). He is author of the fantastic book The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition. He’s a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School…
I’ve gotten to know to know Harry Kenworthy (pictured at left) over the past few years after meeting at a conference (the Northeast L.E.A.N. conference, I believe). The next Northeast L.E.A.N. Conference is October 4 and 5. It’s a great…
Joining me for Episode #261 is an old friend and trusted mentor, Jamie Flinchbaugh. Among other things, he’s the co-author of the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean. He writes for a number of publications, has his own blog, and was previously…
A number of you emailed me about this report in the Detroit News. I grew up in Detroit and my first job was as a carrier for the News. Loved ones have received care from the Detroit Medical Center system……
It’s one thing to hear Lean professionals or specialists talking about the power of this methodology to improve healthcare. To me, it’s not just theory, it’s something I’ve seen in practice. Sure, there are many engineers and former business people working in…
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…
