Tag: Deming

W. Edwards Deming: Leadership, Quality, and Continuous Improvement

W. Edwards Deming’s ideas about leadership, systems, variation, and psychology continue to shape how organizations pursue quality and improvement. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections exploring Deming’s teachings—and how they apply to Lean, healthcare, management, and continuous improvement today. Many of these posts challenge common misinterpretations of Deming’s work, emphasizing that quality cannot be delegated and that improvement starts with leadership.

Stop Reacting to Red Light Metrics: Why ‘Two Reds in a...

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tl;dr: The "two consecutive reds" rule persists because reacting feels like leadership -- but it generates wasted investigations, false success stories, and eroded trust....

What Deming and Fujio Cho Agreed On: Stop Demotivating People

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TL;DR: Deming and Toyota's Fujio Cho asked the same uncomfortable question: why do management systems destroy motivation in people who started out wanting to...

Create Your Own Lean System — But Don’t Lose Sight of...

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TL;DR: In a 1993 speech, Toyota leader Fujio Cho said organizations can create their own Lean systems, but success depends on three principles: leaders...

You Can’t Punish Your Way to Pride: Deming, Toyota, and Learning...

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Fear Drives Compliance -- Respect Builds Pride, Learning, and Improvement TL;DR: Don Ephlin once wrote, "You can't punish your way to pride." That insight still...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: January 9, 2026

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Summary: Today's "mixtape" post brings together timely ideas on continuous improvement, leadership, productivity, and workplace culture. From avoiding "blank slate" metrics and rethinking PDCA/PDSA...

Gas Prices and Bad Metrics: Why Snapshot Comparisons Mislead Us

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We love comparisons. Today vs. last week This month vs. last month This year vs. last year It feels responsible. Analytical. "Data driven." But most of the time,...

Why Psychological Safety Is Essential to Quality and Continuous Improvement

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In this special bonus episode, Mark Graban and C.J. Kaufman preview the ASQ Cincinnati-Dayton 2025 conference and explore why quality, leadership, and psychological safety...

Profitable at Any Price: Lessons from Toyota, Daily Kaizen, and Safer...

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Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #535 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Gregg Stocker, a seasoned...

Kaizen Alone Isn’t Enough: Why Leaders Must Fix the System for...

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TL;DR: Daily Kaizen is essential--but it can't overcome broken systems. Only leaders can fix structural constraints like layout, staffing, policies, and budgets. When leaders...

Three Ways Pressure Warps Performance Metrics–and What Leaders Must Do Instead

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TL;DR: When leaders apply pressure instead of support, people don't improve processes--they distort data or hide problems. Real improvement starts when leaders make it...

Two Kinds of Mistakes–and the Wisdom of Shewhart, 100 Years Later

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Recently, I saw someone reference a chapter from Dr. W. Edwards Deming's book Out of the Crisis on LinkedIn--Chapter 11, titled "Common Causes and...

Red Bead Game Reflections: Leadership Lessons from Atlanta to Australia

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TL;DR: The Red Bead Game shows--everywhere in the world--that blaming people for random variation is ineffective. Only system change drives improvement. So far in 2025,...
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