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 zero-injury bonus may look like a safety incentive, but it usually distorts behavior. Lean and Deming teach us that punishing bad numbers doesn’t improve systems–it drives problems underground. A friend of mine–with deep experience in Lean and the…
I’m very happy to be participating in Jared Thatcher‘s “Global Lean Summit” event this September in Indiana. I’ll be there to network and learn, which includes time visiting a Toyota Material Handling factory (an entire day!) I’ll be speaking and…
I was talking recently with a trusted friend in the Lean community. He told me a story. It’s certainly believable, even if it’s second or third-hand to me. He had no reason to make up a story like this. A…
Listen: In Episode 46, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh spend a lot of time talking about AI, but that still, as always, begins with the whiskey. We both asked ChatGPT to consider all our ingredients for making a whiskey-based cocktail,…
TODAY marks the centennial of one of the most significant innovations in quality management: the control chart. “A ‘special cause’ for celebration.” Brian Buck, on LinkedIn LOL. Shewhart’s Breakthrough: Understanding Variation In the early 1920s, Walter A. Shewhart, working at…
The other day, I read about the passing of Donald E. Peterson, who was a key CEO for Ford Motor Company in the 1980s (from 1985 to 1990). From the Detroit Free Press: Former Ford CEO Don Petersen, who spent…
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,…
TL;DR: Psychological safety in aerospace manufacturing isn’t optional–it’s a matter of life and death. When workers are punished for speaking up about quality problems, defects go unreported, risks multiply, and passengers pay the price. Psychological Safety is not some nice-to-have…
This post is built around excerpts from the book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. Read more about Toyota, including stories and key lessons learned in the book. Download a free preview of the book…
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. Insights about improvement, innovation, and leadership… Operational Excellence, Improvement, and…
tl;dr: In this post, Mark challenges the common notion that speaking up in an organization is solely a matter of individual character or courage. He argues that the willingness to voice concerns or ideas is largely influenced by the culture…
Management by Emoji might sound like the logical next step in modern leadership–or at least that’s what I’m announcing today, April 1st, as a bit of fun and satire inspired by the very real ways organizations misuse metrics and management…
