This archive collects videos, webinar recordings, livestreams, and video-based conversations focused on Lean leadership, continuous improvement, psychological safety, and learning from mistakes. These videos are meant to support reflection and practical application—not just passive viewing—across healthcare, manufacturing, and knowledge work.
Topics range from executive leadership behaviors and Kaizen to Deming, Toyota, and building cultures where people feel safe to speak up and improve.
“Weird Al” Yanokvic skewers corporate buzzwords in this new song and music video. He also skewers the now-tired (in my opinion) “hand writing on a white board” style of corporate videos, which I think is even more brilliant of him.…
It’s easy for people to think that Lean is about cost-cutting. That would be wrong, but many people associate Lean with cost cutting. Cost cutting is the old mindset. The old hack-and-slash approach, which focuses on layoffs or “everybody cut…
California week on the blog continues after yesterday’s post about Lean at San Francisco General Hospital. Today, I’m flying to Los Angeles to attend the 5th annual Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit. I will be, as usual, moderating the CEO panel…
If we’re trying new things, there are bound to be “failures.” If our leaders want guaranteed success, we won’t be trying many new things. The best way to guarantee that we won’t fail is to not try. A Domino’s Pizza…
Even if you’re not a racing fan, this video is worth watching. Side-by-side footage of Formula 1 pit stops from the 1950s and today offers a clear lesson in process improvement. The gains didn’t come from urgency or brute force.…
tl;dr: This post features a rare 1990 video of Steve Jobs describing continuous improvement in ways that closely echo Lean and Kaizen principles. He challenges “we’ve always done it this way,” stresses that people are smart and should own improvement,…
TL;DR: Lean thinking teaches us not to blame individuals for mistakes that are caused by broken systems. In healthcare, this mindset aligns closely with Just Culture and patient safety principles: human error is inevitable, fear makes performance worse, and real…
Hat tip to Paul Levy for sharing this video originally in his blog post. Here is the video (you just have to watch the first minute to see the intro and the clip where the doctor talks about “Lean processing.):…
I’m a bit of a counter-culturalist when it comes to the hype about Super Bowl commercials being entertainment and being something we “have to watch” or “have to discuss at the water cooler.” Bah, I don’t pay attention to most…
Next class: Boston, May 20, 2015 I was thinking yesterday about the “Lean for Knowledge Work” seminars I’m doing with Jim Benson and I was thinking that Kaizen and “Personal Kanban” are such a good combination, it’s like the old…
TL;DR: Lean transformation isn’t about copying Toyota’s tools. In this video, John Shook of the Lean Enterprise Institute explains why real Lean starts with a clear purpose (“true north”), develops people alongside processes, and requires leadership behaviors and management systems…
Since the “Lean” in the “Lean Startup” methodology basically comes from Toyota, it was fascinating to see two engineers from Toyota, Matt Kresse and Vinuth Rai, speak at the 2013 Lean Startup Conference. Matt and Vinuth (pictured below) are from…
