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

Blog post - https://leanblog.org/audio321 Elon Musk tweeted this yesterday: "Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn't."

Blog post: http://www.leanblog.org/audio320 Contact me to talk about psychological safety - measure, learn, improve “Simply put, we cannot get to zero harm without psychological safety.” I wrote that as part of this page on the Value Capture website : Psychological Safety and its Essential Link to Continuous Improvement I've come to understand that psychological safety is a precondition...

Episode #319 -- read the blog post that contains video of the webinar A contractor unplugged my WiFi router. Or was there more to it than that? Instead of blaming somebody else, what mistakes did I make that led to the Q&A section of my webinar being knocked offline?

Blog post In this episode, Mark Graban breaks down a rare moment in mainstream business journalism: a Wall Street Journal article that actually does a respectable job explaining Lean. Using GE and CEO Larry Culp as a case study, Mark explores why the story stands out—and what it reveals about leadership, culture, and the real work of continuous improvement. Mark walks through examples highlighted...

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio317 Oh, how I enjoyed this article a month ago when it was sent to me. It's from 2003, but it was new to me: Why dolphins are deep thinkers

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio316 I received a question from a healthcare leader who had read about the “ idea card” format and method that Joe Swartz and I shared in our Healthcare Kaizen books . I read your post about the Idea Card. Amazing! Have a follow up question. What does Kaizen suggest about how to incentivize people to submit ideas? She's asking about the “ Kaizen” style and a...

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio315 I'm really excited to be hosting and moderating this webinar next week, the second in our new Value Capture Webinar series . The title is " Applications of Lean Leadership Methods in Home-Based Care ."

Blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/audio314 In this era of Covid--19 vaccination, I'm still pretty much sidelined and not on site with any clients, although I did get to visit two mass vaccination sites (in addition to the one that vaccinated me ). I have tried really hard to be a cheerleader for continuous improvement and, in particular, for sharing continuous improvement ideas through the free...

https://www.leanblog.org/audio313 tl;dr summary: Lean isn't just efficiency... it's safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale. People often misunderstand that -- they don't know or they were taught the wrong things I often have the opportunity to teach a group of experienced healthcare professionals, from a wide range of disciplines, about Lean. My session is part of a longer professional develo...

https://www.leanblog.org/audio312 In this post, I'm going to share some reflections from one of my workplaces, some things that occurred last week. I'm going to be vague, so forgive me for that. It feels right to be less specific in this case, or at least that's the cautious (and maybe respectful) thing to do. When wearing one of my different "hats" with one of the organizations I work with, somet...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio311 I'm not a Buffalo Bills fan (a.k.a. "The Bills Mafia"), but I did attend one game at what was then called Rich Stadium in 1998 when I was a grad school intern at Kodak. Even without being a fan, I wish I could have written a headline for this post that said "Buffalo Bills Kaizen Their Way to a Super Bowl." Readers of this blog, of course, know that " Kaizen " is a...

https://www.leanblog.org/audio310 During this "let's try to get people vaccinated" phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, almost every article that I've seen about the vaccine and its distribution mentions the need to not waste precious doses. There are many opportunities for error with the different vaccines. If some of them aren't stored properly at the correct temperature, the vaccine degrades and get...

https://www.leanblog.org/audio309  Subscribe now to "My Favorite Mistake"

http://www.leanblog.org/audio308 You might have heard of a " social media takeover " where a brand with a large following gives control of their social media feed to somebody who is promoting a cause or a social message. One person I've followed on LinkedIn is Deondra Wardelle . She is a Lean practitioner (like me) and she's a Black woman (unlike me). So, thinking back to the idea of a "social med...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio307 Today, I wanted to share an excellent article written by Dr. John Toussaint (of Catalysis) and Ken Segel (of Value Capture)...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio306 I'm excited to announce that our book Practicing Lean is now available as an audiobook through Audible . As we did with the paperback and Kindle versions of the book , 100% of royalties will be donated to the Louise Batz Patient Safety Foundation (it's been almost $5000 so far). You can buy or subscribe through Audible .

http://www.leanblog.org/audio305 It's possible that I could start traveling again for my healthcare consulting work next month... or maybe in July. My colleagues at Value Capture aren't sure yet how this will work out, but clients are sharing their current plans for starting to re-open -- to a new normal, not the old normal. As I mentioned (if not buried) in a post last week , my wife and I reloca...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio304 It was a sad weekend, hearing about the passing of Paul H O'Neill, Sr. on Saturday. He was 84. I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with Mr. O'Neill on a few occasions and I'll share some reflections in this post. My condolences go out to his family and friends, and especially to my Value Capture colleagues who worked with him at Alcoa or at the firm over...

http://leanblog.org/audio303 This is from the 3rd edition of my book Lean Hospitals . I've copied and pasted from the book with no additional edits, although I'll  bold italic  some parts for emphasis. I'll some closing thoughts at the end. For a more complete PDF excerpt, click here (requires Dropbox access).

http://www.leanblog.org/audio302  Thanks to Elisabeth and the team at GoLeanSixSigma.com for inviting me to contribute some thoughts in this piece : How Lean Six Sigma Can Help Fight the Coronavirus Pandemic

http://leanblog.org/audio301 It's great to see examples of manufacturing companies being flexible and adaptive in these challenging times. Lean methods are often providing a huge boost in what can be life-saving efforts. Lean often gets mislabeled as a “low inventory” system (or “zero inventories”) but that misses the point. We don't just lower inventory at all costs (anybody can make that mistake...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio300 I had a phone conversation yesterday with an emergency medicine physician after her shift at an unnamed hospital in an undisclosed state. She had a number of frustrations to share and she doesn't really have an outlet (and doesn't want her name out there for fear of retaliation). More importantly, this isn't about one institution. She works in a well respected syst...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio299 I normally love the public radio program "Marketplace" and have listened to it (on radio or as a podcast) for 15 years or so. But, I was very disappointed with this recent piece , which you can read here : "Just-in-time" manufacturing model challenged by COVID-19 Yes, many factories have been shut down in China, which disrupts global supply chains. However, if you'...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio298 I've been thinking a lot about hospitals and how they're preparing for the expected tsunami of Covid-19 patients who will need ICU beds and ventilators (when it's expected that there won't be enough of either ). There have also been recent preparations (and ongoing actions) to screen patients who arrive at emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. I was at one organi...

http://www.leanblog.org/audio297 Looking back at a blog post and an article from 2012 and 2014...