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.
TL;DR: A Grey’s Anatomy episode offers a sharp lesson in patient safety: when leaders focus on who to blame instead of what broke in the system, learning stops and risk persists. Real improvement comes from fixing chaotic systems–not punishing individuals…
Housekeepers’ Giant “Hope Quilt” Puts Hotel Job Injuries in Spotlight | Labor Notes Articles like this are incredibly frustrating to see. It makes me think of a variation of the famous Bon Jovi song that would go something like “You…
Last week, I tweeted a quote that’s supposedly from Dr. W. Edwards Deming. I can only find one other online reference… does this sound like something Deming would have said? “Knowledge required to change the existing system to a better…
BioTechnology Supply Chain Conference – interview with speaker Adam Zak | LeanConnections I’m reposting parts of this with permission of Adam Zak, a regular contributor to the blog over the years. You can read the full Q&A on his blog,…
Michael Lewis on A.I.G. | vanityfair.com I’ve been a big fan of Michael Lewis and his writing since reading “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” years ago. Great book and my first introduction to the Red Sox’s great…
From Lehman’s Wreckage, New Lives – WSJ.com: Disgraced Lehman CEO Dick Fuld says in this WSJ piece: “‘I spent too much time out of the office with clients and trusted other people to manage the risk,’ he told employees of…
This is an old story, from May, that I’ve meant to write about for a while. Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management Budget wrote a piece in the WSJ about healthcare. He wrote: The good news is…
By Andy Wagner: The New York Times recently published an essay by Matthew Crawford, based on his new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. In his inquiry into the value of work, Crawford takes…
Companies Strive Harder to Please Customers – WSJ.com Lean is a customer-focused business and organizational strategy. Many companies, unfortunately, use a downturn as an excuse to cut costs, a move that often hurts quality or customer service. Traditional companies might…
I love it when I have a chance to meet Lean Blog readers and Twitter followers in the “real world.” In the past few weeks, I’ve finally met, in person, @flynncraig and @bryanlvt (at the Dan Jones Lean Healthcare Transformation…
Today’s blog post will be just a bunch of random thoughts. For one, I just got back from London last night after a whirlwind Lean healthcare tour. I visited five hospitals between London and the south of England in three…
TL;DR: At GM, fear and poor leadership blocked bad news from flowing both up and down the organization. Executives were shielded from reality, frontline workers weren’t told the truth, and trust eroded as a result. Without leaders going to the…
