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.
Mark’s note: Today’s post is written by Gary Passama, the CEO of NorthBay Healthcare in northern California. He is an active blogger on the hospital’s blog and he has written about Lean a few times. As he mentions in this post,…
My guest for episode #218 is Karen Kiel-Rosser, Vice President/Quality Improvement Officer at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Iowa. You might remember Karen from a recent post where she told a great story about putting patient safety first. We’re talking today…
Listen Today’s guest is my friend John Ervin and we were able to sit down together here in San Antonio to record this episode. John has about 20 years of healthcare leadership experience, including in military medicine and the civilian sector.…
I had planned on chilling out over the holidays by reading some books that aren’t related to Lean, Kaizen, etc. Novels are not normally my thing and I started reading How Doctors Think, which had been on my Kindle to-read list…
David Mann explains why creating a Lean culture depends on leader behavior and management systems–not tools or compliance–and how leader standard work helps sustain improvement. He shares practical guidance for executives on using Gemba walks to learn, teach, and reinforce…
It’s a bit of a modern management cliché to say, “Don’t bring problems! Bring me solutions!” I think what it’s meant to mean is, “Don’t just complain! Think about improving things!” Why “Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions” Backfires…
Today, I’m traveling to Tokyo, but I’m still thinking of the amazing nurses and leaders at Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indiana. Through my co-author Joe Swartz, the director of business transformation, their work is featured heavily in our book Healthcare Kaizen.…
Tomorrow, at 1 pm Eastern, Dr. Greg Jacobson and I are giving a KaiNexus-sponsored webinar: Daily Management with KaiNexus: From Huddle Boards to Web-Based Technology I’ll be talking about daily Lean management practices, such as: Strategy deployment Process audits /…
During a recent visit to Franciscan St. Francis Health, several nurses proudly introduced themselves as “Kaizen Queens”–and one, with a smile, as the “Kaizen Princess.” Across the hospital, the broader term “Kaizeneer” is used to describe anyone who takes part…
Time magazine recently featured GM’s relatively new CEO, Mary Barra, on the cover and in this story: “Mary Barra’s Bumpy Ride at the Wheel of GM“ Also, here is a USA Today summary that says “Five things ‘Time’ revealed about GM…
tl;dr: Red-green charts push leaders to react to every up and down, turning normal variation into false drama. Process behavior charts provide the context needed to see signal vs. noise–so leaders improve the system instead of chasing each data point.…
At KaiNexus, Dr. Greg Jacobson and I have been doing new webinars each month (see the library here). Our most recent one was hosted by our friends and partners at Gemba Academy, so thanks to them for that and all…