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.
Listen: Episode #137 is a chat with Jerry Bussell, founder of the Jacksonville Lean Consortium. I’ve met and talked with Jerry many times through LEI, so I’m thrilled to finally get him on the podcast. Jerry is a retired Medtronic…
Our guest for episode #136 is Paul Akers, President of FastCap and author of the book 2 Second Lean. Here, we are talking about the new book and how small improvements that save two seconds in your daily work can…
Our guest for episode #135 is Dan Markovitz, author of the new book A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance. If your New Year’s resolutions include improving your own personal productivity, Dan…
Listen: Episode #134 is a different topic than usual. Instead of strictly talking Lean, today’s discussion is about broader issues of healthcare quality and the United States military. Joining me are Daniel Sullivan, President and General Manager of the The…
Episode #133 is hosted by Ron Pereira, from Gemba Academy, as he leads me through additional Q&A as a follow up to our recent webinar on my upcoming book Healthcare Kaizen and some of the concepts from the book on…
A returning guest for episode #132, we are joined by author and professor Bob Emiliani. Today, we are chatting about some videos he recently posted to his website… 10-year-old videos that document executives from Virginia Mason Medical Center, now considered…
Listen: My guest for episode #131 is Paul Borawski, the CEO of ASQ, the American Society for Quality. Today, we are talking about ASQ, their recent World Quality Month events (November), and other topics including:
Listen: My guest for episode #130 is Greg Howell, co-founder and managing director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), a non-profit organization devoted to production management research in design and construction. Howell brings 35 years of construction industry project management,…
My guest for episode #129 is Chris Cooper, a vice president with Simpler Consulting. We’re talking about his new book The Little Book of Lean. In the episode, Chris shares his extensive experience with Lean methodologies, tracing back over 20…
Bob Lutz spent 47 years in the auto industry at GM, Ford, BMW, and Chrysler, and in this 2011 conversation he talks about his book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters, the “blanderizer” effect on product design, and why he thinks…
Listen: My guest for Podcast #125 is Mike George, the founder of Strong America Now, a “nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing and educating citizens to support only those Presidential candidates who commit to eliminating the deficit with no new taxes.”…
What happens when a Fortune 500 CEO brings a long-term mindset and a bold commitment to safety into healthcare? In this conversation with Paul O’Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and CEO of Alcoa, we explore how leadership, transparency, and aiming…
