Leadership isn’t about titles, charisma, or quick decisions—it’s about creating systems where people can do their best work and continuously improve. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on leadership through a Lean lens, drawing on ideas from Deming, Toyota, healthcare, and real-world management practice. The common theme: leaders shape culture, influence behavior, and own the systems that produce results—for better or worse.
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…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guests for Episode #512 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are two of three co-authors of the upcoming book “Leading Excellence: 5 Hats of the Adaptive Leader” – Brad Jeavons…
In many organizations, moving away from a culture of punishment when mistakes are made is a significant leap forward. It signals a shift toward understanding, systems thinking, and improvement. But once you’ve made that change, what’s next? Do we need…
Learning from mistakes is not optional in healthcare–it’s essential for patient safety, staff engagement, and long-term performance. For years, I’ve written and spoken about how Lean leadership and Kaizen cultures treat mistakes not as failures to hide, but as signals…
In writing The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, I wanted to challenge the way we think about mistakes, leadership, and organizational culture. Throughout my career, I’ve seen firsthand how the traditional responses to mistakes–punishment,…
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 world of continuous improvement and Lean management, clear and respectful communication is crucial. Let’s take a moment to examine two different approaches to communicating a simple instruction regarding the operation of a centrifuge, as seen in the images…
TL;DR: Most organizations are running on a fraction of the intelligence they’re actually paying for. The people who know what’s going wrong often don’t say so. That’s not a personality problem — it’s a design problem. This post draws upon…
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…
TL;DR: Psychological safety doesn’t mean everyone agrees or gets their way. It means people can speak candidly, be challenged, and still feel respected–when leaders model, encourage, and reward candor. Psychological Safety means everybody gets their say, but it doesn’t mean…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #507 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Wendy K. Smith, co-author of the book Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. She will…
Art Byrne returns to the podcast to share CEO-level lessons from decades of Lean transformations and his new book, The Lean Turnaround Answer Book. The conversation covers Lean strategy, cost accounting pitfalls, private equity turnarounds, and why Lean must be…