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.
I recently read an article (a case study) about “Lean Six Sigma” in a publication. It’s not online, so I can’t link to it, nor do I really want to call them out by name. I didn’t like the article,…
Here’s a funny ESPN commercial featuring PGA golfer Rickie Fowler. Fowler is pouring coffee, yet he makes some bad assumptions about which coffee is decaf and about the “milk” being bad (compounded by the joke that he’s supposedly color blind).…
My wife and I just got back from four days in Napa and Sonoma counties doing, ahem, “gemba walks” at a number of wineries, both large and small. As tourists, we like doing winery visits where you get to walk…
There’s a great Taaichi Ohno quote that I was reminded of last week (see a previous post from 2010 on this). “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emphasis on facts.” I was in northern…
Dr. Delos (“Toby”) Cosgrove, President and CEO of the famed Cleveland Clinic, wrote an article on LinkedIn recently: “Patient Experience: Time for Hospitals to Look Under the Bed.” Cosgrove described his process of going to visit patients after heart surgery…
Last week at the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, I really enjoyed the presentation by Jamie Bonini, General Manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC). Jamie started his career at Chrysler (where he knew Jamie Flinchbaugh, a good friend…
This article appeared back in March… March of 2013… as in this year: “Windsor Chrysler workers reduce waste to be world class.” I mean, good for them, but they are just now getting to this (even if the effort started…
Here’s a fascinating article: “How Toyota brought its famed manufacturing method to India.” The piece starts with a story about a classic Toyota management practice — “Genchi Genbutsu, or on-site inspection, which is at the core of the Toyota Production…
“Shadowing” is a very powerful method. In a healthcare setting, we can shadow patients or staff to better understand the “current state” of how healthcare is delivered. This allows us to identify waste and opportunities for improvement. We want to…
Saturday at the Society for Health Systems conference, included an excellent keynote address from Roger Gerard, from the ThedaCare health system, co-author with Dr. John Toussaint of the book On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the…
TL;DR: At Toyota, the principle is closer to “respect for humanity” than “respect for people” — and that difference matters. It’s not a slogan or a soft value. It is one of two equally important pillars of the Toyota Production…
In his kickoff to the Lean Startup Conference, Eric Ries promised that there was so much content and so many speakers crammed into the day that we would all have a headache at some point. Yes, that came true for…
