Tag: Kaizen

Kaizen: Daily Improvement, Learning, and Leadership in Practice

Kaizen is often misunderstood as small ideas or isolated improvement events. In practice, Kaizen is a daily, people-centered approach to learning and improving work—supported by leadership, good systems, and psychological safety. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and real-world examples of Kaizen in action, across healthcare and other industries, with a consistent focus on leadership behaviors, respect for people, and learning from problems rather than hiding them.

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: October 31, 2025

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This edition of Ryan McCormack's Operational Excellence Mixtape highlights how Lean thinking continues to deliver real results when it's treated as a management system,...

Leadership, Laughter, and Lean: How a CEO’s Shaved Head Symbolized $7...

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In Lean circles, we talk a lot about leadership commitment. But it's not every day that a CEO puts their hair on the line...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: October 17, 2025

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This edition of Ryan McCormack's Operational Excellence Mixtape emphasizes that real improvement depends more on mindset, leadership, and system design than on tools alone....

How a Pharmacist-Led Kaizen Improved Cardiac Care and Reduced Costs by...

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When Better Care Leads to Lower Costs: A Pharmacist-Driven Kaizen Story In healthcare, improvement initiatives often get derailed when they start with one primary question:...

Continuous Improvement at the Bedside: Lessons from Allina Health’s Early Kaizen...

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TL;DR: This look back at Allina Health shows how continuous improvement at the bedside actually works: frontline staff identifying real problems, leaders acting as...

95% of Enterprise AI Pilots “Fail”–Just Like Lean? Not So Fast

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Every few years--or let's be honest, quite often on social media--we see a statistic making the rounds: "70% of Lean initiatives fail." It's usually...

Fear and Futility: Why People Don’t Speak Up–and How Lean Leaders...

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Fear and futility are two of the biggest barriers to continuous improvement. When people are afraid to speak up--or believe nothing will change--problems stay...

Lean Lessons from Japan: Mindsets, Culture, and the Challenge of Speaking...

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This article is based on my recent Catalysis webinar, "Lean Lessons from Japan: Mindsets, Culture, and the Challenge of Speaking Up." The session was...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: August 22, 2025

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This edition of Ryan McCormack's Operational Excellence Mixtape focuses on disciplined thinking, ethical use of data, and people-centered improvement in an AI-enabled world. From...

Kaizen Alone Isn’t Enough: Why Leaders Must Fix the System for...

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TL;DR: Daily Kaizen is essential--but it can't overcome broken systems. Only leaders can fix structural constraints like layout, staffing, policies, and budgets. When leaders...

Einstein’s Favorite Mistake — and What It Teaches Us About Lean...

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Albert Einstein -- the mind who redefined physics -- once called something he did "the biggest blunder of my life." When he completed his general...

What Visiting Japan Taught Me About Lean Leadership and Healthcare Culture

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This October, I'll be returning to Japan for another Lean healthcare study trip--my seventh time overall and my fifth healthcare-focused visit. With each visit, I...
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