As I’m traveling back from Sweden today, I think I’ll be catching up on the web reaction to Toyota’s major quality problems and recalls. I am not a Toyota insider and I don’t claim to know what happened or what…
Dan Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, has been getting a lot of press recently, and deservedly so. He demonstrates persuasively not only that people are self-motivated by the desire for autonomy, mastery, and purpose, but…
TL;DR: Data is what gets recorded. Facts are what’s actually happening. Confusing the two is how leaders get fooled by faked reports, broken sensors, and decorated dashboards. Deming and Ohno both warned about this in different ways. The fix is…
Yesterday, I was in the first day of two for John Shook’s “Managing to Learn” class about A3 management here at the Lean Enterprise Institute. The class is based on the book of the same name. In this course, I…
It’s an honor to again contribute to John Hunter’s amalgamated Management Improvement Blog Carnival. The main page is located here. Ten bloggers are each selecting a few favorite posts from their favorite blogs to highlight. It’s quite a collection. Dan…
I saw this quote on Twitter from the pastor Rick Warren (happens to fit in the 140 characters): “Love isn’t letting people do whatever they want. That’s often cowardice or apathy. Love cares enough to tell the truth.” I’m not…
Here is a video from Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital (HDGH) in Windsor, Ontario Canada about their Lean effort, the video is part of their main Lean page. The video starts with John Shook talking about the real definition of “Lean” (it’s…
Panel Round II: Wait, Wait : NPR It’s unfortunate that NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” show would mock Starbucks and their Lean efforts, as had been somewhat half-documented in the WSJ (and discussed here on this blog). But, I…
Yesterday’s WSJ front page headline caught my eye, as a frequent Starbucks customer and obvious Lean zealot: Latest Starbucks Buzzword: ‘Lean’ Japanese Techniques The headline is full bodied and complex brew that gives us a lot to chew on before…
University of Michigan looks to lean principles for system-wide improvements – MLive.com Here is some positive news coming out of my home state of Michigan… the U of M health system is a leader in Lean thinking for healthcare. The…
The Magazine » Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report « MIT Sloan Management Review John Shook had an article published in the latest SMR, based on his book Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement,…
I have always learned a lot from John Shook. As I’ve blogged about before, I’ve seen John present about TPS and management (leadership, really) a few times and probably learn more “insights per hour” than anyone else in the Lean…
