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.
I’m always happy to hear current-day Toyota leaders (like Jamie Bonini) or recent Toyota leaders (like Gary Convis) share perspectives on leadership. It’s not that Toyota’s perfect, but we’re hearing about Lean concepts “straight from the source,” in a way.…
This article caught my eye at Becker’s Hospital Review: We asked 13 physicians what they really think of their hospital Even though organizations do formal physician and staff satisfaction surveys, the questions posed here is one that we should ask people frequently…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more This episode is sponsored by StoreSMART. My guest for episode #255 is Mark DeLuzio, author of the recently released book Turn Waste into Wealth: How to Find Cash in Every Corner of…
There’s a lot of silly stuff that people post that appears on the LinkedIn main page when I log in, between narcissistic selfies and urban legends like the one about Bill Gates and his daughter that’s making the rounds. But…
TL;DR: In the 1980s and ’90s, GM spent roughly $90 billion trying to automate its way to competitiveness. Toyota took a different path–focusing on management systems, culture, and engaging people to improve processes. The results weren’t accidental, and the lesson…
Some of you reading this might remember the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement of the late 1980s and 1990s. Many would look back and label it a “fad.” As I’ve said about Lean, it’s only a fad to those who are susceptible to fads. As I blogged about in 2006, management is often prone to...
As the 3rd edition of my book Lean Hospitals is starting to ship, I’m having some great conversations with people about the “State of Lean Healthcare” in 2016 (as much as one can generalize). Two of those conversations about the book…
Previously on LinkedIn, I've written about Kaizen in a wine bar and the need for restaurants to not blame employees for problems. Yesterday, I published my 50th post for their Influencers program: This Restaurant Server Sadly Explains a Widespread Management Problem...
Episode #251 is a bit different in that it’s audio shared by the good folks at Lean Frontiers. They recently hosted a webinar where Jim Huntzinger, founder and president of Lean Frontiers asked questions that answered by Russ Scaffede about Lean…
After the previous CEO of JC Penney, Ron Johnson, was fired (see my post “Lack of PDSA made JCP CEO SOL?“), it seems that new CEO Marvin Ellison might be taking a different approach. See this article from FORTUNE: “The CEO…
My guest for episode #249 of the podcast is Steve Leuschel, author of the book Lean Culture Change: Using a Daily Management System. You can find Steve on Twitter as @stevenleuschel. You might remember a post from January that included an excerpt…
Mark’s note: Here’s the concluding post in a series by a guest blogger, Paul Serafino. You can click here to read earlier posts in this series about leaders who have no one to formally lead. Thanks to Paul for his contributions! Here is…
