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.
Back in November, I had a chance to meet Nate Hurle, from Cleveland Clinic, as he was giving a presentation about their work with Lean and continuous improvement. As we chatted, I mentioned that I’d be in Ohio in early…
Episode #238 is a conversation with somebody I’ve wanted to talk with for a long time, Kevin Cahill. He is the executive director of the W. Edwards Deming Institute. He’s also a grandson of Dr. Deming! ...
Hopefully you've already seen the famed 1980 NBC documentary "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that featured Dr. W. Edwards Deming. I posted a link to the video and some notes on Part 1 of the broadcast. Today, I'd like to blog about Part 3 of the program...
n the spirit of "Lean publishing," the book Practicing Lean has another new incrementally-added chapter. The latest excellent contribution comes from Jamie Parker, writing about lessons learned in large commercial printing operations... lessons that can be applied anywhere...
Free webinar tomorrow... One of our customers that has made great strides with daily continuous improvement throughout their hospital in the past year is Mary Greeley Medical Center (MGMC) in Ames, Iowa...
Today's guest is Sam MacPherson (@LeanLeaderWay), the co-founder of the Lean Leadership Academy and the founder of The Summit on Lean Leadership, a partnership with Lean Frontiers...
If you've been a listener of my LeanBlog Podcast series, you might know that I normally record conversations and then publish them into the podcast feed. Today, I'm going to do my first live broadcast of a podcast discussion via the "Blab.im" streaming platform. My guest is going to be Sam MacPherson...
...this WSJ article caught my attention: "The Coach Who Won't Leave the Locker Room." The sub headline is "Why Carolina Panthers' Ron Rivera has become obsessed with integrating himself into his players' personal workspace." An NFL coach is at "the gemba" during a game, of course...
I've worked with a lot of companies whose primary operational strategy boils down to "cut costs". Others on Mark's blog have written about the many unintended consequences of cutting costs as a myopic strategy. But I'd like to share a trend among small manufacturers I've seen...
Many of you don’t care about football, but you might find it interesting, as I did, to learn that Northwestern’s defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz is apparently a fan of Kaizen...
Today's guest is Eric Dickson,MD, MHCM, FACEP, the president and CEO of UMass Medical Center. Today's podcast is a recording of an interview that I did on stage at the 2015 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, as part of the CEO panel I was moderating.
As a Lean change agent, I've made a lot of mistakes. Some mistakes I recognized early and recovered from; others were a blind spot that affected outcomes and success of the assignment. A few still haunt me from time to time when I suffer a case of "woulda, coulda, shoulda."
