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.
As somebody who flies about 75,000 miles a year, I am far too acquainted with the Transportation Security Administration and their annoyances (to the passenger) and their documented shortcomings (in their effectiveness). That said, everybody deserves a workplace where they…
When hospital people say they don’t want to be a factory or “we don’t want assembly-line medicine,” the statement often goes unchallenged. What is the statement or the anxiety behind such a statement? I sometimes challenge in a friendly way…
It’s great to see Lean mentioned in mainstream healthcare management publications, such as the article in HealthLeaders (print and online) called “Systemwide Process Improvement.” The article highlights one hospital you might know really well, Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center (featured…
In the news yesterday, a General Motors recall over what could be just one isolated steering wheel problem in an Ohio-built Chevrolet (don’t call it Chevy) Cruze. Most news stories, like this one, about the recall just mention that one…
I am happy to share, with permission, a new journal article that I co-authored with Jim Adams (“The Synthesizer“), the senior director of laboratory operations at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. It is now published in the Wiley journal “Global Business…
Lean is not a “command and control” leadership and management model. The old command-and-control dynamic leads to so much poor quality and misery in all sorts of industries and organizations – including factories and hospitals. In a command and control…
Today, I’m sharing a brilliant Slate.com interview: “Risky Business: James Bagian “NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert” on Being Wrong.” He’s actually also an engineer and an anesthesiologist. An impressive background and impressive thinking. I will share a few highlights…
Hat tip to my friend and fellow Productivity Press author Naida Grunden for pointing out an article she is a co-author on, “Improving Patient Care in Cardiac Surgery Using Toyota Production System Based Methodology,” published in the journal of The…
I want to tell you about an event I’m helping to plan for people in the DFW area. This is a small, by-invitation event, for senior manufacturing leaders who have significant lean experience and senior healthcare executives (primary the C-level).…
As a former Austin resident (“Keep Austin Weird!”), I’m happy to be heading down I-35 from Fort Worth to attend the Lean Software Austin gathering on January 17, 2011. What do I know about software? Not much. But I’ll be…
I found this lengthy series of articles from the Las Vegas Sun, published under the heading of “Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas.” The series serves as a good introduction to those who are new to healthcare and…
The full article requires a subscription, but John Toussaint and I were each quoted in this article from last Friday: “Toyota techniques drive profit, efficiency gains at Moffitt.” As with many of these articles, the full story tells a picture…
