How Kaizen Is the Key to Northwestern’s Stellar Defense
Many of you don’t care about football, but you might find it interesting, as I did, to learn that Northwestern’s defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz is apparently a fan of Kaizen...
Tag Sports
Are Millennials the Only Ones Who Need to Understand Why?
And the idea of knowing why... again that's an old desire. It's not just a recent discovery of Simon Sinek and the outstanding book Start with Why (my friends at Gemba Academy have a podcast interview with him coming soon). Why are we doing something? Why are we starting this company? That's an old tale... are you breaking rocks or building a cathedral?
Football, Holistic Systems, and Challenging the Way It’s Always Been Done
Many of you might not care, but it’s football season. Major college football starts tomorrow night and the NFL kicks off their season next Thursday. On that note, if you’d like to “kick off” a Kaizen approach to continuous improvement…
Lean Thoughts at a Toronto Blue Jays Game
I love what I do and I travel a lot… the travel can sometimes be a drag, such as last Monday’s flight delays with storms in Chicago, arriving in Toronto three hours late (after midnight). But, sometimes things work out…
Would the WSJ Blame “Just in Time” for the Stanley Cup Being Late?
The Wall St Journal loves writing about how “Just In Time” (JIT) is a risky inventory strategy. See my past posts about how the WSJ is so often wrong on this. The WSJ seem to only understand Lean as JIT, as opposed…
A Lean Guy Reads the Boston Papers: Facts, Respect, and Baseball Fan Risks
My wife and I were in Boston over the weekend, as it was her fifth reunion from her MIT master’s program. I’m also an alum, but was considered a “guest” since I graduated 16 years ago from my program and…
Random Super Bowl XLIX Lean-Like Moments – Katy Perry and GE
Following up my earlier post about the “Patriot Way…” During her halftime extravaganza (video), Katy Perry had a silver strap around her wrist, attached to the microphone. It reminded me of the Nintendo Wii strap that helps prevent throwing the controller (Update:…
The Patriots, Coach Belichick, Aspects of Lean Thinking, and Dr. Deming
Earlier this month, for the College Football Playoff championship game, I wrote about “Lessons from the Football Coaching and Leadership Styles of the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes.” I had found articles about both teams in the name of…
Lessons from the Football Coaching and Leadership Styles of the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes
For Oregon Football, Leadership Doesn’t Mean Yelling and Screaming The stereotype of a football coach is sort of like the stereotype of an Army drill sergeant — lots of yelling and screaming and getting “in your face” when a mistake…
Why the New York Jets Failed Copying TCU’s Trick Play — Lessons for Lean and Leadership
Organizations try to copy each other all the time. It doesn’t always work. Manufacturing: A plant manager visits another factory and sees neatly organized tools and then comes home and tells everybody “to do 5S.” They’ve thoroughly missed the fact…
Safety is “always our top priority,” except when it isn’t… in football and hospitals
Although I’m a proud alum of Northwestern University, a former marching band member, and an ardent follower of our football team (as I’ve written about before), I grew up as a fan of the Michigan Wolverines and have many friends…
Lean is Not About Cutting Costs; 2 Data Point Comparisons in EDs & the NFL
Two pet peeves of mine are hearing people say things like “Lean is all about reducing waste” and or “Lean is all about cost cutting” (and thankfully others are also trying to dispel that myth). Another pet peeve is people…
