Organizational culture isn’t what leaders say—it’s what people experience every day based on management behaviors, systems, and priorities. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on culture through a Lean lens, exploring how leadership decisions shape trust, psychological safety, learning, and performance. Many of these posts draw on lessons from Deming, Toyota, healthcare, and real organizations to show that culture is not a program to roll out, but an outcome leaders create—intentionally or not.
I was happy to see an engineer (Chemical Engineering) and a General Motors leader, Alicia Boler Davis, on the cover of the Northwestern University alumni magazine. See this profile and story: “DRIVING GM“ My wife is an engineer and a…
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,…
I recently wrote about my exploration of the collected papers of the late Don Ephlin, a UAW senior leader and a professor of mine at MIT. In that first post, I shared a few quotes scattered throughout the original NUMMI Team…
We’ve been having a great time at the KaiNexus User Conference. Check out key moments and tweets at the hashtag #KaiNexusUC16 on Twitter. To kick off the event, we shared a video that features KaiNexus team members sharing what we…
Joining me for Episode #263 is another returning guest, Pascal Dennis (@AuthorPascal on Twitter). He was previously a guest on Episodes #96 and #239, talking about two of his previous books (see a full list here). Today, we’re talking about his…
tl;dr: Suntory’s acquisition of Jim Beam highlights a classic Kaizen culture clash–where well-intended continuous improvement meets pride, identity, and tradition. The lesson for Lean leaders: improvement starts with shared purpose, psychological safety, and respect, not with telling people what to…
Continuing from Part 1 of my post about my first day of my first China trip, I’d like to share more about the Lean healthcare conference and presentations that took place. In the next presentation from a Chinese hospital, the…
Mark’s Note: This is another guest post by Drew Locher (check out past posts and my podcast with him). There’s been a lot in the news about “medical error” arguably being the 3rd leading cause of death in the United…
My guest for episode #249 of the podcast is Steve Leuschel, author of the book Lean Culture Change: Using a Daily Management System. You can find Steve on Twitter as @stevenleuschel. You might remember a post from January that included an excerpt…
Today’s post is an addendum from Saturday’s post on the apparent death of a health system Lean program: “Why Would a New Healthcare CEO Kill a Lean Program?“ If you read that post, there’s an interesting comment from a Presence…
TL;DR: Franciscan Health built a lasting culture of continuous improvement by patiently practicing Kaizen every day–not as a program, but as a way of thinking. Over time, consistent leadership behaviors, frontline engagement, and psychological safety led to more than 27,000…
Aviation lessons for patient safety anchor this conversation with Steve Montague, a retired Navy fighter pilot and commercial airline pilot who consults with hospitals on high-reliability practices. We get into checklists done well and done badly, why most hospital mistakes…
