Mike Stoecklein recalls a story secondhand. It was, he thinks, at one of the last four-day seminars W. Edwards Deming ever gave. Deming was frail by then. Someone later told Mike that when the seminar got to the Red Bead…
A Florida surgeon, Thomas Shaknovsky, was indicted on a second-degree manslaughter charge on April 13. The charge followed the death of William Bryan, a 70-year-old Alabama man, during what was supposed to be a laparoscopic splenectomy in August 2024. Instead…
In Episode #530 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, I’m joined by Ken Segel of Value Capture to discuss what it really takes to build a comprehensive Lean healthcare operating system, starting with safety. Scroll down for how to subscribe,…
This is an edited excerpt from my book, Measures of Success. Many organizations embrace the idea of setting objectives and key results (or OKRs). Where we see a performance measure in an organization, we usually see a target. That’s the reality…
In everyday use, “mistake” and “error” usually mean the same thing: an action, judgment, or result that turns out to be wrong. Some fields use more specific definitions. Neither word, by itself, tells us why something happened or who should…
Listen: In Episode 43 of the “Lean Whiskey” podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban begin by talking about each of our interviews regarding the new book by Steve Spear and Gene Kim, Wiring the Winning Organization. Mark interviewed Steve and…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more Joining us for Episode #475 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Joshua Kerievsky, the founder and CEO of Industrial Logic, one of the oldest and most well-respected agile consultancies on…
TL;DR: In healthcare, a “culture of safety” is not a slogan or a delegated program. It is created through consistent leadership behaviors that reward speaking up, focus on learning instead of blame, and make psychological safety real in daily work.…
TL;DR: Punishing people for mistakes does not reduce mistakes — it suppresses reporting, drives fear, and blocks learning. Evidence from healthcare, safety science, and organizations like Alcoa shows that improvement comes from systems thinking, transparency, and psychological safety, not blame.…
It was a real treat to hear Larry Culp, the CEO of General Electric and CEO of GE Aerospace, speak at the AME 2022 annual conference in Dallas. He recently reached the four-year mark of his tenure as GE’s first-ever…
You’re invited to view the recording of webinar that I co-presented on Tuesday, October 18th, with Ken Segel, the CEO and co-founder of the healthcare advisory firm Value Capture. Seizing the Healthcare Safety Opportunity: Using the “Playbook” of Paul O’Neill…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #460 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Philip Holt. He is currently Senior Vice President, Operational Excellence at GKN Aerospace, the world’s leading multi-technology Tier 1…
