Tag: Culture
Inside the 1987 NUMMI Management Practices Executive Summary: Why Leadership Mattered...
TL;DR: In 1987, GM accurately documented why NUMMI worked--and it wasn't tools, techniques, or discipline. This internal report reveals a management system built on...
Creating Value Without Command-and-Control — John Rizzo on Empowering People
In this episode of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, John Rizzo explains how organizations create lasting value by empowering people instead of relying on...
Gemba Walks, Daily Improvement, and the Leadership Behaviors That Make Kaizen...
At our 2016 Kaizen Live! event at Franciscan St. Francis Health, Mischelle McMillin shared practical, honest, and refreshingly human insights on Gemba Walks that...
“Toyota Culture” 20 Years Later: Why Liker’s Lessons Still Matter in...
TL;DR Twenty years later, Jeffrey Liker's message still applies: Lean fails when it's treated as a set of tools instead of a leadership system....
Five NUMMI Tour Lessons That Still Define Lean Thinking
A 2005 tour of the NUMMI plant revealed lessons about Lean that had little to do with tools and everything to do with leadership,...
How Don Kieffer Applies Toyota Thinking to Modern Knowledge Work
Why do so many Lean efforts fail in offices, engineering, and executive work? In this episode, Don Kieffer explains why copying Toyota's rituals misses...
From Firefighting to Flow — Darren Walsh on Lean Leadership Routines...
Why do so many Lean efforts stall after early wins? In this episode, Darren Walsh explains why firefighting feels productive but prevents real progress--and...
The Lasting Impact of a 2009 Kaizen Study in Emergency Medicine...
Back in 2009, my friend and KaiNexus co-founder Dr. Greg Jacobson and his colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center published an article that still...
How Great Leaders Prevent Mistakes and Learn from the Ones That...
I recently gave a virtual keynote for a global manufacturing company that's a customer of KaiNexus. Their leaders wanted to explore how to strengthen...
Why Caring Cultures Matter in Lean: Psychological Safety, Respect for People,...
Caring cultures are not "soft" extras in Lean--they are foundational. Caroline Greenlee and Chris Butterworth explain how psychological safety, respect for people, and wellbeing...
Leader Standard Work Is About Behavior, Not Just Your Calendar
TL;DR Leader Standard Work isn't a calendar or a checklist. It's the daily responsibility of leaders to show up with the right behaviors--listening, asking,...
From 5S Frustration to Lean Leadership: A Conversation with a Future...
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with a supply chain student (taking undergraduate courses) who reached out with thoughtful questions about Lean principles....
