Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond

Joining me for Episode #258 is a many times returning guest, Jim Huntzinger, the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers (check out Episodes 8, 15, 33, 196, and 251, his with Russ Scaffede). Jim has written two eBooks, The Roots of Lean: Training Within Industry: The Origin of Japanese Management & Kaizen and Deflation: The Road to Prosperity. We'll talk about that second book and topic in the pod...

My guest for episode #257 is somebody I've known for a while in the Lean healthcare community, Tania Lyon. She's the Director of Organizational Performance Improvement at St. Clair Hospital in Pittsburgh. She has a PhD in sociology (like Jeff Liker, author of the Toyota Way book series) and she initially got involved with Lean through PRHI, a common connection to previous podcast guests Paul O'Nei...

See http://www.leanblog.org/256 Remastered audio 2025 I'm really excited to have Steve Bera as my guest for episode #256 of the podcast. I read about him as he was featured prominently in a chapter of the 1994 Pulitzer-Prize winning book  Comeback: The Fall & Rise of the American Automobile Industry . I just finished it during my recent flight back from China. The book is about the struggles o...

My guest for episode #255 is Mark DeLuzio, author of the recently-released book Turn Waste into Wealth: How to Find Cash in Every Corner of the Company. It's Mark's first book, but he's been well known in the Lean community for a long time. Mark started learning and practicing Lean in 1988 when he worked for Jake Brake, a Danaher company (and Danaher has long been considered a great Lean company)....

Episode #254 is interesting to me for a number of reasons. For one, I have a "guest co-host" joining me for the first time. He's Chip Ponsford, DVM, a doctor of veterinary medicine and former practice owner who I've gotten to know here in Texas over the past few years. Chip has been a great student of Lean, following a path similar to that of Sami Bahri, DDS ("The World's First Lean Dentist") in r...

Joining me for Episode #253 is Ash Maurya, author of the book Running Lean:Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works and his latest, being released this week, called Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth. Ash is an entrepreneur and a big part of the "Lean Startup" community. Visit his website at www. LeanStack.com.

My guest for episode #252 is Jordan Peck, a Senior Director in the Center for Performance Improvement at MaineHealth and Maine Medical Center. Jordan and I first met when he was a graduate student at MIT and was involved with the Lean Advancement Initiative (and I was working basically across the street at the Lean Enterprise Institute). At MIT, he earned a PhD in Engineering Systems and Health Ca...

Episode #251 is a bit different in that it's audio shared by the good folks at Lean Frontiers. They recently hosted a webinar where Jim Huntzinger, founder and president of Lean Frontiers asked questions that answered by Russ Scaffede about Lean leadership. See their other webinars here. Russ has a lot of great wisdom and experience to share, so I asked Jim if I could share it here. Russ is a big...

Episode #250... a big round number. 250 podcasts in just under 10 years. Thanks again to Norman Bodek (my first guest and frequent guest) for the idea back in 2006. My goal with the podcasts has always been to showcase my guests. Occasionally, I take the stage or share the stage with audio of me. Today is one of those episodes. Earlier in May, I had the chance to co-present a webinar with Dr. Jack...

My guest for episode #249 of the podcast is Steve Leuschel, author of the book Lean Culture Change: Using a Daily Management System. You might remember a post from January that included an excerpt from his book on "huddles." In this episode, we discuss topics including his greatest influences, the lessons he learned from Rodger Lewis (a former Toyota general manager), "mutual trust," PDCA cycles,...

Joining me for episode #248 of the podcast is Drew Locher, an author, consultant, speaker, and, also like me, a faculty member for the Lean Enterprise Institute and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. You can read his bio via his consulting website, Change Management Associates. Drew's books include Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market, L...

My guest for episode #247 is James Chisholm, a principal and co-founder of the Toronto-based ExperiencePoint. James is a pioneer in the design of online game-based learning, and has authored numerous leadership simulations in use by over 100,000 executives and managers worldwide. I fell in love with their "Lakeview" hospital change management simulation a few years back when I first got to try it...

Episode #246 is my second episode in recognition of Patient Safety Awareness Week. My guest is Steve Montague, who talked about Lean and Crew Resource Management with me in episode #195 in 2014. He's a retired Navy fighter pilot, a commercial pilot, and a consultant for hospitals and health systems... and a fellow Texan and a near-neighbor of mine. See his full bio here. Today, we're talking about...

See http://www.leanblog.org/245 Today is the first of two episodes that I'll post here during Patient Safety Awareness Week. I agree with the National Patient Safety Foundation that every day should be patient safety day. I'm sure my guest for episode #245 would agree with that. He is Tom Evans, MD, FAAFP, the President and CEO of the Iowa Healthcare Collaborative. I've know Dr. Evans for many yea...

See http://www.leanblog.org/244 Joining me again for Episode #244 is Dan Markovitz (@DanMarkovitz on Twitter). Today's episode is part 2 of our discussion about his most recent book Building the Fit Organization: Six Core Principles for Making Your Company Stronger, Faster, and More Competitive, a recipient of the Shingo Research Award. You can hear Part 1 in Episode #241.

Episode page with transcript, links, and more My guest for Episode #243, Michael Bungay Stanier, takes us a bit outside of the Lean realm... but that's good. Our topic today, which ties in very nicely to Lean and Kaizen (as you'll hear in our conversation) is coaching. His most recent book is titled The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever and it's available today....

Episode #242 is unique in that it's a collection of audio clips from videos that Joe Swartz and I shot in late 2014 at his health system, Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis. In the videos, a number of nurses and leaders talk about continuous improvement in a way that's fun, wise, and inspirational. As we did last year, Joe and I are hosting a learning event at his system called "Kaizen...

Joining me for Episode #241 is a returning guest and friend of mine, Dan Markovitz (@DanMarkovitz on Twitter). He was a guest on Episodes #135 (talking about A Factory of One) and #52 (talking more generally about office Lean). He has also written a number of guest posts here. Oh, and he has his own blog. Today we're talking about his most recent book Building the Fit Organization: Six Core Princi...

My guest for episode #240 is somebody I've wanted to interview for a long time, Leah Binder, the president and CEO of Leapfrog Group, "a voluntary program aimed at mobilizing employer purchasing power to alert America's health industry that big leaps in health care safety, quality and customer value will be recognized and rewarded." In this episode, Leah talks about the story behind Leapfrog Group...

Joining me for Episode #239 is Pascal Dennis, somebody I really respect and have learned a lot from over the years... I'd call him "sensei" gladly (although he and I agree that's not a term one should bestow upon themselves... see his blog post). I'm very happy to have him as a guest again for what is just his second time (I thought it had been more frequent). In Episode 96, we talked about his bo...

Episode #238 is a conversation with somebody I've wanted to talk with for a long time, Kevin Cahill. He is the executive director of the W. Edwards Deming Institute. He's also a grandson of Dr. Deming! Kevin played an instrumental role in getting NBC to publicly release the 1980 documentary, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that featured Dr. Deming (see my blog posts about it). We talk about that in...

Episode #237 is, like the last episode, a bit different... but in a different way. My guest is my friend Paul Akers, author of the new book Lean Health. Paul was previously a guest for Episode 133, where he talked about his book 2 Second Lean and also for Episode 122. Today, we're talking about his new book, just released. What's different about this podcast is that I attempted to broadcast it liv...

For episode #236, things are a little different than usual. Today, I wanted to share a video discussion between my friends Ted Stiles and John Toussaint, MD. Ted is a partner with the recruiting firm Stiles & Associates. John, of course, is the president of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and has been a frequent guest in my podcast series. John's most recent book is Management on the...

For the episode and more details, visit http://www.leanblog.org/audio235. If you've been a listener of my LeanBlog Podcast series, you might know that I normally record conversations and then publish them into the podcast feed. Today, I'm going to do my first live broadcast of a podcast discussion via the "Blab.im" streaming platform. My guest is Sam MacPherson and we are talking about Lean leader...

Today's guest is Mitch Cahn, president of Unionwear, a manufacturer of hats, bags, and apparel in Newark, NJ. I first learned about Mitch and his company because of a display they had at the Northeast LEAN Conference, which I blogged about here. What caught my eye was their display of politician hats they produce, including the famous red "Make America Great Again" hat that Donald Trump wears. Bey...