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.
TL;DR Twenty years later, Jeffrey Liker’s message still applies: Lean fails when it’s treated as a set of tools instead of a leadership system. Toyota’s results come from developing people, creating stability, and fostering psychological safety–not from dashboards or templates.…
TL;DR: Dr. John Toussaint says healthcare culture won’t change until leaders do–moving from “white coat leadership” (all-knowing, autocratic, blaming) to Lean leadership as facilitator, teacher, and student who learns improvement by doing it. Mark’s note (2026): I originally shared this…
TL;DR: Deciding feels like progress, and learning is what makes a solution hold. This is a working hypothesis about why executive problem solving so often skips the second part, and where I suspect it falls apart. The meeting goes well.…
A 2005 tour of the NUMMI plant revealed lessons about Lean that had little to do with tools and everything to do with leadership, learning, and respect for people. Twenty years later, these small, human moments still define what Lean…
Why do so many Lean efforts fail in offices, engineering, and executive work? In this episode, Don Kieffer explains why copying Toyota’s rituals misses the point–and how Dynamic Work Design applies Toyota thinking to intellectual work, leadership systems, and real…
When we think about how change happens in organizations, especially those practicing Lean, we often focus on tools, plans, and communication strategies. But what about the actual conversations we’re having? Too often, those conversations look like this: That’s not engagement…
Why do so many Lean efforts stall after early wins? In this episode, Darren Walsh explains why firefighting feels productive but prevents real progress–and how leaders can build daily routines and standards that sustain improvement over time. Scroll down for…
TL;DR Larry Culp, CEO of GE Aerospace, shows that Lean leadership isn’t about tools or slogans–it’s about daily behaviors. By grounding Lean in safety, respect for people, and continuous improvement, Culp practices kaizen at every level, including his own role…
Back in 2009, my friend and KaiNexus co-founder Dr. Greg Jacobson and his colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center published an article that still feels as fresh and relevant as ever: “Kaizen: A Method of Process Improvement in the Emergency…
Leadership isn’t about avoiding mistakes–it’s about responding to them with honesty and humility. This week, Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn offered a clear example. After quarterback Jayden Daniels suffered a dislocated elbow late in a blowout loss (read more),…
I recently gave a virtual keynote for a global manufacturing company that’s a customer of KaiNexus. Their leaders wanted to explore how to strengthen a culture of improvement — not just by preventing mistakes, but by learning from the ones…
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 to show it. As we wrote about in Healthcare Kaizen, at IU Health Goshen Hospital, the…
