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.
When hospital people say they don’t want to be a factory or “we don’t want assembly-line medicine,” the statement often goes unchallenged. What is the statement or the anxiety behind such a statement? I sometimes challenge in a friendly way…
It’s great to see Lean mentioned in mainstream healthcare management publications, such as the article in HealthLeaders (print and online) called “Systemwide Process Improvement.” The article highlights one hospital you might know really well, Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center (featured…
Inspired by Mark’s recent posting on More Trust, Less Fear and an upcoming conference panel that I’m a part of, I thought a continuation of the “soft skills” discussion would be timely. The first thing that comes to my mind…
I am happy to share, with permission, a new journal article that I co-authored with Jim Adams (“The Synthesizer“), the senior director of laboratory operations at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. It is now published in the Wiley journal “Global Business…
TL;DR: Samuel Culbert argues that performance reviews are subjective, political, and harmful to results. Instead of judging people once a year, leaders should coach continuously and take responsibility for system performance. Episode #117 is a conversation with Prof. Samuel A.…
When an organization sets a target for the number of kaizen ideas employees should submit, it usually gets exactly what it asked for — a number. What it doesn’t get is genuine improvement. The ideas come in to hit the…
I snapped this pic while visiting a hospital earlier this year. This was out in the cafeteria as part of a series of signs that featured real people talking about their real role in quality.
Lean is not a “command and control” leadership and management model. The old command-and-control dynamic leads to so much poor quality and misery in all sorts of industries and organizations – including factories and hospitals. In a command and control…
Coming off of an outstanding 2011 Lean Transformation Summit (blog posts to come), John Toussaint, MD, is doing a huge favor for the Dallas-Fort Worth area (my home). John has stayed over to participate in a meeting we are holding…
As many people do, I had to fill out an online health assessment for the purposes of my family’s health insurance. The survey asked the usual physical history questions, do you wear seat belts, do you smoke, etc.? It caught…
Episode #114 is a conversation with John Kim, of the firm John Kim & Associates. John is a recognized leader in the Design, Development, Implementation and Deployment of Enterprise Wide Lean Transformations. As an executive at The HON Company…
I had the most amazing morning a few weeks ago when I was in Cincinnati for the TechSolve lean healthcare event. Thanks to a friend of my sister’s, I was able to spend a few hours at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital…
