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.
A food company had a flowchart any auditor would love. Every step mapped. Every step mapped. Every critical control point identified. The HACCP plan (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, the standard food safety framework that identifies where contamination can…
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 going to the gemba, asking “why” to learn from problems, and respecting and motivating people —…
At our 2016 Kaizen Live! event at Franciscan St. Francis Health, Mischelle McMillin shared practical, honest, and refreshingly human insights on Gemba Walks that remain highly relevant today. This post explores the leadership behaviors that make Gemba Walks effective–and why…
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 for my regular Lean Blog readers and podcast listeners, a song parody, initially released in…
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, following up, and creating psychological safety. How leaders act in everyday moments matters far more than…
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 we do about that? That’s the focus of our next KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinar with…
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 creating enough time and safety for real problems to surface. In the Lean methodology, one of…
Recently, I had the pleasure of moderating a webinar titled “Driving a Culture of Transforming Patient Safety with KaiNexus“ featuring leaders from Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge: Lindsey Booty, Dr. Christopher Thomas, and LeaAnn…
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, Ohio, to be fascinating. Here’s a free link: A Day in the Life of the 39-Year-Old…
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…
In the Lean methodology, we often talk about the importance of “going to the gemba” (or “genba“– the place where the real work happens. But it’s not enough to simply show up; the way leaders engage with employees on the…
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 even KNOW the root cause by thinking and talking out where the work is…
