Listen My guest for episode #209 is George Friesen, Business Practice Leader for Lean Transformations in the Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College. In this episode, we talk about his early experiences at the GM/Toyota NUMMI plant, why candor and trust…
I get a lot of emails from regular readers or people who have just stumbled across my blog. I try to be as helpful as I can (although I’m not really a good connection for Lean healthcare jobs that people…
Some of you might have seen it, but I wrote a piece for the LinkedIn Influencers series about how the “Lean Manufacturing” principles are being used in various “knowledge work” settings – including healthcare, education, software, government, financial services, etc.…
I read this valid complaint from somebody on a LinkedIn group…. it led to a “facepalm” that I managed to catch on camera: I interviewed with a medium sized company for a quality Manager position a while back. They were convinced…
Mark’s Note: I’m just getting back from vacation, so we’re wrapping up the guest posts. Today’s post is by Christina Kach and you can read her previous guest posts here. Check out her updated bio at the bottom of the…
My wife is a leader in a business (not GE) that does aircraft engine “MRO” work – maintenance, repair, and overhaul. I’ve been able to visit her shop floor (her “gemba”) and we noticed similar parallels between their work (bring…
Joining me for episode #187 is Joe Swartz, my friend and esteemed co-author of our books Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen: Leadership for a Continuously Learning and Improving Organization.…
Mark’s Note: Today’s guest post is by Joe Swartz, my co-author for the book Healthcare Kaizen and the newly-released book The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. I’m hoping Joe will be a regular contributor in the future and I’ll be…
I was fortunate to have the chance to speak and visit at a few hospitals in Sweden back in February, 2010 (see my blog post from that year). One of those hospitals, St. Göran (in Stockholm), was recently featured in…
Although I don’t get to play much anymore, I used to be a pretty serious drummer (I almost said “musician,” but that invites jokes that drummers aren’t really musicians). I was more of a percussionist — playing everything from timpani…