Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

Today at 3 PM, I'm doing a webinar at the invitation of the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, as part of their "Quality Café" series. Thanks for the invitation! It's open to the public and it's titled: "Standardize What Makes Sense... Then Engage Everybody in Improving What You Standardized" I hope you can join us...

I enjoy "gemba visits" (of sorts) to wineries and vacations often focus on this walking, tasting, and learning. I usually read the wine column that's in the Wall St. Journal each Saturday, and this one stood out to me: "Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Sommelier?"

Back in 2012, I blogged twice about aspects of Dr. Donald M. Berwick's 1989 article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Continuous Improvement as an Ideal in Health Care.” The full text is only available to subscribers. As I posted on LinkedIn, another aspect of this article caught my eye when I was reviewing it the other day in advance of my talk at the Studer Group "What's Right in He...

I'm excited to be attending the annual Lean Coaching Summit today through Thursday in Austin. If you're there, please say hi! Today, I've registered to take a class on a topic that I've taken an interest in over the past few years: "Motivational Interviewing," or MI for short. I'm hoping to learn more about coaching people through their stages of "change talk," as related to Lean and organizationa...

There are Dr. W. Edwards Deming quotes that get thrown around... one that sounds incredibly "pro-data" and others that say data and measures are not the only thing... which is it? How do you reconcile that?

An article from this week in 2010... Today's New York Times has an outstanding article about Lean Healthcare and what Seattle Children's Hospital calls C.P.I. or Continuous Performance Improvement. The article: "Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital" I wish the headline had also addressed quality, waiting time, and staff engagement, but the article body does, at least. The article highlights Se...

A few of you sent me this sad article from the Wall St. Journal:  "'People Are Dying Here': Federal Hospitals Fail Tribes."  I feel like I've some variation of this article and exposé many times over. Sometimes, it's some form of government medicine (active duty military medicine, the VA, or another country) or it's a similar sad story from the private healthcare sector (be it non-profit or for...

In this post, I write about a phrase that I heard many times when visiting Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis. How can this phrase help us challenge ourselves and to find positive solutions instead of barriers and obstacles?

Does the Phrase "Lean Transformation" Jump to a Solution? Another in the series of "do words matter?" posts... do phrases like "Lean Transformation" resonate as much as "Business Transformation?"

Imitation as a Path to Innovation... If You Know What to Copy... At the recent Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, there were thought provoking presentations... and we had many discussions about the role of incremental improvement vs. redesign or transformation. And, lots of discussions about imitating vs. innovating... so I explore those themes in this post.

If we're going to practice Kaizen (continuous improvement), do the words matter? Should we call it a Kaizen Card or something else? Do we start with a "problem" or something else? Are we writing down "ideas" or "countermeasures?" Does it matter?

What if "easier" is less safe? Great question. It begs the question of why Safer isn't first in Shingo's list? Is it because safety is assumed to be such a fundamental pre-condition in the Toyota culture or the Lean approach? Safety is such a non-negotiable point that it doesn't need to be said?

Does your healthcare organization struggle with keeping hand sanitizer dispensers full? Let me know what you think of this "two-bin kanban" system prototype from a vendor that might more forward on this...

Thanks to Lean Frontiers for sharing a story from Mike Hoseus on LinkedIn. Mike is, of course, co-author of the excellent book Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (written with Jeff Liker, who I just learned is retiring from the University of Michigan... more on that soon).

Here are three audience questions we didn't have time to address after a recent talk that I gave... questions about engaging people in improvement and about how to share and spread improvement ideas broadly.

Today's reader question comes from somebody who has been put in the position of what I call "the lone wolf" in a health system. This happens a lot. A health system hires or designates one person to be "the Lean change agent." It doesn't matter how amazing and/or experienced this individual is... I'd very skeptical about the organization's Lean journey.

What are the parallels between the mindsets and approach of a world-class university band director and our mindsets in Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement, in healthcare or beyond?

It's good that United's CEO has taken responsibility for system problems. It's great that they are changing some policies. But why does he say they don't have a culture problem if employees aren't empowered? That sounds like "culture" and a "problem" to me.

I'm excited to announce that Practicing Lean is now available as an audio book... or least the first half is, but you can buy today.

The mistakes at The Oscars were trivial and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. What are some lessons learned that apply to improving healthcare supply chains?

If you don't have 20 minutes for meditation, you should.... do what? Does this classic Zen quote apply to Kaizen and continuous improvement?

A Lean-thinking physician from Canada asks how many people an organization or department should have in a dedicated Lean or continuous improvement function. How much time is needed from staff and managers?

When did the term "concrete head" start getting thrown around in Lean circles? Do people still use this label today? Is it helpful? Should we agree that the term is disrespectful and counter productive?

Last week, I received a few questions from somebody at a hospital system and I thought I'd address one of them here: "Can you suggest any "quick wins" to get staff engaged in a Lean culture?"

I posted this on LinkedIn earlier today and am re-posting as a blog post to get your thoughts... and then, as I writing this, the news about the man being forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight went viral. Full title: "The United Flight 3411 Mess, Holding Individuals Accountable vs. Fixing the System [Updates]"