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.
TL;DR: Boeing’s 737 MAX failures weren’t caused by frontline workers–they were the predictable result of leadership choices that prioritized schedule over safety and ignored core Lean principles. Lean failed at Boeing because executives waved it off, not because the ideas…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #501 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Marcia Daszko, a speaker, workshop facilitator, and consultant. For more than 25 years, she has passionately been speaking, consulting,…
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make…
Vulnerability, Candor, and Psychological Safety at Work Does it really feel good to be “vulnerable” at work? A lot of leaders talk about vulnerability as if it’s automatically healthy or desirable. But for many employees, being vulnerable doesn’t feel empowering…
It’s 9 p.m. in an operating room, just before the last procedure of a long day that had been full of delays. A nurse sees that the surgeon is about to make an incision without first stopping for the expected…
Jeff Liker explains how Toyota leaders at every level are expected to respond when something goes wrong — and why most other companies default to blame instead. We also dig into the real story behind Ford’s failed andon cord rollout…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make…
What do Boeing frontline mechanics and engineers think about this day? What did they expect going into it? How did the day turn out? I’d love to know. “Quality is made in the boardroom.” W. Edwards Deming I rolled my…
A nurse makes a medication error. A patient is harmed. The nurse already feels terrible — they went into healthcare to help people, and now the worst has happened. Then comes the organizational response. The investigation. The suspension. Maybe termination.…
TL;DR: Claims that workplaces can have “too much” psychological safety are based on a flawed definition. Psychological safety doesn’t eliminate accountability–it enables speaking up, learning, and better performance. Thanks to Timothy R. Clark and Junior Clark for this excellent episode…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #496 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Randy Carr, the CEO of South Florida-based World Emblem – one of the largest embroidery companies in the world with plants in…
