Tag: Gemba

Gemba Walks, Leadership Behavior, and Learning Where the Work Happens

Gemba means “the real place”—where work actually happens, problems become visible, and leadership behavior matters most. These posts explore what going to the gemba really means beyond symbolic walk-throughs, dashboards, or status updates.

Drawing from Lean, Toyota practices, healthcare, manufacturing, and knowledge work, this archive focuses on gemba as a leadership practice: listening more than talking, asking better questions, building trust, and creating the conditions for daily improvement rather than fear or performance theater.

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...

Gemba Walks, Daily Improvement, and the Leadership Behaviors That Make Kaizen...

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At our 2016 Kaizen Live! event at Franciscan St. Francis Health, Mischelle McMillin shared practical, honest, and refreshingly human insights on Gemba Walks that...

Gemba Claus Is Comin’ to Town: A Lean Christmas Song Parody

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TL;DR: A Lean-themed Christmas song parody that mixes kaizen, gemba, and holiday humor--just for fun, and maybe a little reflection. Here's a musical holiday treat...

Leader Standard Work Is About Behavior, Not Just Your Calendar

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TL;DR Leader Standard Work isn't a calendar or a checklist. It's the daily responsibility of leaders to show up with the right behaviors--listening, asking,...

Leveraging Psychology for Effective Behavioral Change, with Tracy O’Rourke [KaiNexus Webinar]

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Change is hard. Even when a process is painful, people often seem more comfortable sticking with the status quo than embracing improvement. So what can...

Going to the Gemba Means More Than Looking at Boards, Status,...

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TL;DR: Going to the Gemba isn't about reviewing boards or rushing through metrics. Real Gemba means slowing down, listening deeply, asking better questions, and...

Driving a Culture of Patient Safety: Lessons for Healthcare and Beyond

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Recently, I had the pleasure of moderating a webinar titled "Driving a Culture of Transforming Patient Safety with KaiNexus" featuring leaders from Our Lady...

WSJ Shows Us a Day in the Life of a Plant...

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As a Lean practitioner, I found the Wall Street Journal article about Ryan DeLand, the 39-year-old leader of Whirlpool's washing machine plant in Clyde,...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: October 4, 2024

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

When Going to the Gemba Goes Wrong: How to Avoid an...

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In the Lean methodology, we often talk about the importance of "going to the gemba" (or "genba"-- the place where the real work happens....

Uncovering Root Causes: Beyond the Conference Room – The Lean Approach...

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You don't find the root cause of a problem in a conference room. OK, so we've gotten away from the whiteboard. Now what? You might not...

Lean Transformation at GE Aerospace: How Larry Culp is Revamping a...

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I've already written one blog post about this excellent Bloomberg BusinessWeek article about the Lean transformation at GE Aerospace, a post that focused on...
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