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.
One book about the late, great W. Edwards Deming that's been on my shelf for a while is The Deming Management Method, which was written by Mary Walton, a journalist who spent some time with Dr. Deming in the 1980s. There's a section that really made me think about Lean over the past few decades (and it might seem familiar to those who use Six Sigma or other methods).
My guest for Episode #286 is Dean Gruner, MD, the recently retired CEO of ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that has long been considered a worldwide leader in the practice of Lean in healthcare. See this article about his retirement, where he says "I've gotten more than I've given."
Dean was previously my guest in Episodes 119 and 144 and I'm thrilled that he took time out of his retirement to talk with me about his lessons learned as he looks back on how ThedaCare's Lean journey has evolved, including some things he would consider to be missteps and challenges that they used as a springboard to get even better.
I will also be releasing a separate episode where Dean talks about their experiences with Accountable Care Organizations (our topic from #144) and other "big picture" healthcare issues of the day.
I'm including a full transcript along with a three-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.
Hear Mark read the post (subscribe to the podcast): This is an elaboration on something I originally posted on LinkedIn. I saw somebody touting an approach that would guarantee “maximum efficiency for your management gemba walks.” Ah, the efficiency trap. Is…
I’ve read most of retired General Stanley McChrystal’s excellent book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (I start a lot of books and finish a few). Amazon reminds me that I bought the book just over…
Every month or two, Greg Jacobson, MD and I have an “Ask Us Anything” video discussion with questions submitted by members of our KaiNexus community. You can register for our next episode, number 14, which we’ll hold on August 15th.…
I'm excited to be attending the annual Lean Coaching Summit today through Thursday in Austin. If you're there, please say hi! Today, I've registered to take a class on a topic that I've taken an interest in over the past few years: "Motivational Interviewing," or MI for short. I'm hoping to learn more about coaching people through their stages of "change talk," as related to Lean and organizational change... and that's what today's post is about.
There are Dr. W. Edwards Deming quotes that get thrown around... one that sounds incredibly "pro-data" and others that say data and measures are not the only thing... which is it? How do you reconcile that?
A few of you sent me this sad article from the Wall St. Journal:
"'People Are Dying Here': Federal Hospitals Fail Tribes."
I feel like I've some variation of this article and exposé many times over. Sometimes, it's some form of government medicine (active duty military medicine, the VA, or another country) or it's a similar sad story from the private healthcare sector (be it non-profit or for-profit).
Last month, I saw this article from the publication Hospitals & Health Networks (H&HN), where they summarized a speech given by the legendary Dr. Don Berwick at the National Patient Safety Foundation annual conference: Don Berwick’s 7 Roadblocks to Improving…
In today's post, Jason Morin, from XPO Logistics, writes a review of Jim Lancaster's recent book "The Work of Management," published by the Lean Enterprise Institute. Jim Lancaster is CEO of Lantech and the book tells the story of their Lean journey and their evolution over time.
Another in the series of "do words matter?" posts... do phrases like "Lean Transformation" resonate as much as "Business Transformation?"
How big is the opportunity for improvement in healthcare? As Dr. Toussaint’s hand gesture, above, indicates… it’s a huge opportunity. There’s a huge need. What’s the best way to improve during increasingly challenging and uncertain times? Engage everybody in improving…
