Tag: Toyota

Toyota Thinking: Leadership, Systems, and Continuous Improvement

Toyota is often cited as the inspiration for Lean, but its success is rooted in leadership behaviors, management systems, and a deep commitment to learning—not tools or slogans. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Toyota’s approach to quality, continuous improvement, psychological safety, and respect for people. Many of these posts explore what leaders outside Toyota often misunderstand—and what truly matters if they hope to learn from Toyota rather than copy it.

‘The Rock’ Says Getting Lean is Something Anybody Can Do… If...

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Why did "The Rock" and his movie make me think about Lean? Are many individuals (or organization's) willing to put time into continuous improvement every day for 20 years? If so, the results and "after" picture seem astonishing, right?

Some Great #Lean Videos from the State of Washington (@ResultsWA) on...

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Here are some recorded keynote talks and video presentations from the "Results Washington" annual conference, as part of the state's Lean government efforts. See this post for talks from LEI's Jim Womack and John Shook, Toyota's Jamie Bonini, and many healthcare improvement leaders.

Lean as Redesign and Continuous Improvement, for Organizations or a Blog

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Lean sometimes gets, I think, an unfair rap that it’s only a method for incremental improvement. See this article, for example: “Limits of Lean — Transformative Care Redesign Must Go Beyond Typical Lean-Based Improvements.”

“Practicing Lean” Excerpt: Lesa Nichols on Standardized Work & Learning

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As I'm documenting in the comments here, the collaborative eBook Practicing Lean has now generated more than $1000 in donations to the Louise Batz Patient Safety Foundation....

Lean is Not Just Process Improvement; It’s Much More Than That

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In my travels, I often meet people or visit organizations that say something like: "We're doing Lean... we just call it Process Improvement." They have a "Process Improvement" (PI) department...

#TBT: What CFO Magazine Wrote About #Lean in 2009

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I first blogged about this article back in 2009 and it's still online: "Keen to Be Lean" The sub headline talks about hospitals being "desperate to...

Podcast #269 – Brian MacNeice & James Bowen, “Powerhouse” Book, Toyota,...

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Joining me for Episode #269 are Brian MacNeice & James Bowen, co-authors of the recently released book Powerhouse: Insider Accounts into the World's Top High-performance Organizations....

Part 2: More from the Original 1984 NUMMI Team Member Handbook...

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Here's Part 2 of a post about the original NUMMI Team Member Handbook from 1984 (see Part 1 here). This, and other documents I'll be...

Giving Thanks for Giving Back: Toyota Helps Another Food Bank

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Yesterday was the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., so I hope you enjoyed the day if you're here and celebrating the holiday. I saw this...

Lean People Don’t Say Things Like “Idiot Proofing”

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TL;DR: Lean isn't about "idiot-proofing" work--it's about respecting people. True Lean focuses on improving systems (through mistake-proofing and better design), not blaming or deceiving...

Highlights from the Original 1984 NUMMI Team Member Handbook (Part 1)

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I recently wrote about my exploration of the collected papers of the late Don Ephlin, a UAW senior leader and a professor of mine at...

Real Productivity Improvement vs. Pressuring Workers; Easier vs. Suboptimizing

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When I was in England on vacation recently, I saw this column in the Financial Times: Listen to your employees and so increase their productivity And...
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