The Lean Blog Interviews Podcast explores leadership, systems, and continuous improvement through thoughtful conversations with practitioners, executives, authors, and researchers. These episodes go beyond tools to examine how organizations really improve—through better leadership behaviors, respect for people, learning from mistakes, and sound management systems. This archive brings together podcast episodes focused on Lean, healthcare, Toyota, Deming, psychological safety, and what it actually takes to sustain improvement over time.
Joining me for Episode #397 is Hide Oba. His father was the late Hajime Oba, famous for his work at Toyota and the TSSC, as Steve Spear and I discussed back in Episode #386. Hide worked with his father at…
My guest for Episode #396 is Patrick Adams, the author of the new book (released as a paperback today!), titled Avoiding the Continuous Appearance Trap: 12 Questions to Understand What’s Truly Underneath Your Culture. You can learn more about the…
My guest for Episode #395 is Michael Parent. He is Managing Director of his firm Michael Parent Consulting Services and he is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with the AAA Auto Club Group. Michael has a BS in Industrial and…
Today’s episode, #394, is a little different. I have nine different guests today… not all at once, but sequentially in today’s episode. Many people have started podcasts (or similar projects) during the pandemic. I’ve started two (Habitual Excellence and My…
Joining me for Episode #393 of the podcast is Woody Zuill, who does, per his website, “mob Programming workshops, talks and presentations on agile topics,” and he coaches and guides “folks interested in creating a wonderful workplace where people can excel in their…
Joining me for Episode #392 is Mike Leigh, the President of his firm OpX Solutions, LLC. Mike was one of the contributors, writing a chapter for our anthology book Practicing Lean. Some highlights from Mike’s career, from his bio: Today,…
My guests for Episode #391 are Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck, the authors of books including Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, Implementing Lean Software Development, and The Lean Mindset: Ask the Right Questions. In the episode, we’ll hear their…
My guest for Episode #390 is Keith Ingels, the TPS (Toyota Production System) Manager for Raymond Corporation — Raymond is part of Toyota Material Handling North America, which is part of Toyota Industries. Wait, so a Toyota company needs a…
The other day, I had an external hard drive completely fail. I lost the last 10 days’ worth of data. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I had protections and backups in place… yet something still went horribly wrong. If you…
My guest for Episode #389 is Elisabeth Swan. She is the co-author of The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit and co-host of the Just-in-Time Cafe Podcast. As her bio says, she’s “been helping people successfully build their problem-solving muscles for over 30 years,…
My guest for Episode #388 is my friend Michael Lombard. I first met Michael when he lived in the DFW area and first got into healthcare. He has been a Lean facilitator / coach in numerous healthcare organizations and has…
My guest for Episode #387 of the podcast is Seán Paul Teeling, who joins us from Dublin, Ireland. He is the Programme Director for the Professional Certificate and Graduate Diploma in Lean Healthcare at UCD Health Systems. Seán Paul is…
