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 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…
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…
Professors Robert H. Hayes and William J. Abernathy have harsh words about a common, if not typical style of American management: “…an overdependence on analytical detachment – what they call ”managerial remote control.” They say it is an approach that…
How often do you hear executives blaming employees, including frontline workers, for different problems or poor performance? I don’t think that’s a good look when leaders do that. Leaders are responsible for the system, especially senior leaders. Even though they…
tl;dr: Toyota’s culture treats problems as opportunities for learning–not failures to hide. Lessons from Toyota leaders show how kaizen, psychological safety, and trust enable frontline problem-solving, sustainable improvement, and long-term success. I have been really enjoying this book, released in…
