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

My guest for podcast #158 is Art Byrne, author of the new book  The Lean Turnaround: How Business Leaders Use Lean Principles to Create Value and Transform Their Company . Art is very well known in the Lean community for his successful run as CEO of Wiremold, having previously worked at GE and Danaher.  He is currently Operating Partner at the private equity firm J. W. Childs Associates L.P. In th...

Show notes: https://leanblog.org/157 Remastered June 2021 Joining me for episode #157 is  Nick Sarillo , founder of  Nick's Pizza & Pub  and author of the new book (out September 13) called  A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business . I had a chance to meet Nick and visit one of his restaurants in 2010 after I  blogged  about an  Inc. magazine article  about their culture and their ap...

My guest for episode #156 is a friend,  Mike Stoecklein , the  Director of Network Operations  for the  Healthcare Value Network . I was able to work with Mike when I was an employee of the  Lean Enterprise Institute , working closely with the HVN team and its  members . Our conversation is about Mike's reflections on meeting  Dr. W. Edwards Deming  in the late 1980s, volunteering to assist with s...

Joining me for episode #155 is  Jim Benson , co-author of the book  Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life . Jim is the founder of a company with a great name,  Modus Cooperandi . He is, most notably, the creator of the “ personal kanban ” approach for managing work. It's not kanban as in material management, but rather a way of visualizing work and setting WIP limits (much as kanban migh...

My guest for episode #154 is  Rick Morrow , a director at  Healthcare Performance Partners  and author of the book  Utilizing the 3Ms of Process Improvement in Healthcare: A Roadmap to High Reliability Using Lean, Six Sigma, and Change Leadership , from Productivity Press (which is  my publisher, as well ). We talk about the book as well as a favorite issue of mine – why we shouldn't ask patients...

Joining me for Podcast #153 is  Robert Maurer, PhD ,  Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and a faculty member with the UCLA School of Medicine. We are talking about his excellent book titled  One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way . I discovered Maurer's book when doing research for our recently-published   Hea...

My guest for podcast #152 is  Matt Stewart , and we are talking about his book  The Walk-On: Inside Northwestern's Rise From Cellar Dweller To Big Ten Champ . Matt and I are both graduates of Northwestern University. While he played football on a championship team, I was on the field as a marching band drummer. There are a lot of football stories in the book, but our episode focuses on the lifelon...

Joining me for episode #151 is my friend  Karen Martin , talking about her newly-released book  The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence . Karen is the founder of Karen Martin & Associates and she is previously the co-author of  The Outstanding Organization:  Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service,...

My guest for episode #150 is  Jeffrey M. Lobosky, MD , the author of the book  It's Enough to Make You Sick: The Failure of American Health Care and a Prescription for the Cure . Dr. Lobosky talks about what he thinks is lacking in current healthcare reform efforts driven by Washington D.C. We talk about how he defines the crisis in healthcare – “why are things going bad?” After we diagnose the pr...

My guest for episode #149 is  Gregory Jacobson, MD , the co-founder and CEO at  KaiNexus . We'll be talking about his early work with Kaizen in emergency medicine settings – how did he get introduced to Kaizen principles and how did train others, especially physicians, in getting started with this methodology? In a future episode, we'll talk more about KaiNexus and use of software, but today's foc...

Episode #148 is a conversation with a returning guest, Naida Grunden ( previous episode ) and her co-author  Charles Hagood  (of  Healthcare Performance Partners ), talking about their new book  Lean-Led Hospital Design: Creating the Efficient Hospital of the Future . It's an outstanding book and I was happy to  endorse it , as did John Toussaint, MD and many others. In the podcast, we talk about...

Episode #147 is a part two of a conversation with   Scott Patten  and  Peter Armstrong  from   LeanPub.com  (listen to  part one in episode #140 ). They want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. In this episode, we are talking  about how they are applying the concepts of the  Lean Startup  methodology to their service and their business. We'll talk about some of my own experiences...

Episode #146 is a discussion with a returning guest (# 54 , # 62 , # 72 ),  John Toussaint, MD , the CEO of the  ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value . Today, we're talking about his latest book, recently released, called  Potent Medicine: The Collaborative Cure for Healthcare . John talks about the three aspects of his collaborative cure: patient-centered care redesign, transparency, and payment...

Episode #145 is a conversation with  Natalie J. Sayer , co-author of the recently updated 2nd edition of the book  Lean For Dummies . I was able to meet Natalie at the recent ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference, where she was also a presenter. While I was a bit  resistant at first to the “for Dummies” being associated with Lean  (given that “dummy” is a sort of disrespectful word), I came around whe...

Episode #144 is a discussion with  Dean Gruner, MD , the president & CEO of  ThedaCare , talking about  Accountable Care Organizations   (ACOs) and how ThedaCare is using this approach, along with Lean methods, to improve the coordination of care for patients. Dean was  previously a guest in  episode 119 , talking about the “strategy deployment” methodology. Dean will be presenting at the upcoming...

Like  podcast #133 , this episode is a Q&A that follows up a webinar I did for my good friends at  Gemba Academy  recently, on the topic “Using Statistical Process Control (SPC) to Make Better Management Decisions.”   You can view a  recording of the webinar here  or on the  Gemba Academy website . You can  get the slides here . This might seem like an esoteric topic, but it's one I've found to be...

Episode page Episode #142 brings us a returning guest ( #115 ),  Eric Ries , author of the best-selling book  The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses . In the book, Eric cites the work of Taiichi Ohno, including the “5 Whys” problem-solving approach. In this podcast, Eric shares his story about finding Ohno's work (including t...

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/141 Remastered audio June 2021 Episode #141 is a chat with  Norman Bodek , as he shares his recollections of working with  Taiichi Ohno , one of the creators of the Toyota Production System. Norman met and worked with Ohno in Japan and then published the translation of Ohno's classic book  Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production  in 1988. For a...

Episode #140 is a discussion with  Scott Patten  and  Peter Armstrong  from  LeanPub.com   – they want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. We'll be talking about  lean publishing  and how that's different than self publishing and about how leanpub.com works. In the upcoming  part 2  of the podcast, we'll talk more about how they are applying the concepts of the  Lean Startup  met...

Episode #139 is a conversation with  Dave Munch, MD , the Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for  Healthcare Performance Partners  (HPP). Before joining the consulting firm, Dave was a senior C-level clinical leader at Exempla Lutheran Health System where he led their Lean Production applications for more than five years, resulting in substantial improvements in both clinical and non...

Episode #138 is a discussion with Al Norval from  Lean Pathways , talking about his new publication titled: “ The Lean Manifesto: Back to basics – how a Lean business system creates value by engaging everyone in improvement .” It's a free six-page document and you can download it  here . The manifesto is a fun, upbeat guide to the basics of the Lean methodology and management system, including a b...

Episode #137 is a chat with Jerry Bussell, founder of the Jacksonville Lean Consortium. I've met and talked with Jerry many times through LEI, so I'm thrilled to finally get him on the podcast. Jerry is a retired Medtronic executive (leading Lean efforts in a unit that won the Shingo Prize); he's now doing work with healthcare quality improvement, he's writing a new book, and he's speaking at the ...

Our guest for episode #136 is  Paul Akers , President of  FastCap  and author of the book  2  Second Lean . Remastered August 2021 Here, we are talking about the new book and how small improvements that save two seconds in your daily work can contribute to an engaging and fun “Lean Culture.” You can also  view a video recording of the discussion here on YouTube . Paul was previously a guest on epi...

Our guest for episode #135 is Dan Markovitz, author of the new book  A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance . If your New Year's resolutions include improving your own personal productivity, Dan is a great person to talk to about the application of Lean principles to your own professional work – whether you work in an aspiring Lean organiza...

Episode #134 is a different topic than usual. Instead of strictly talking Lean, today's discussion is about broader issues of healthcare quality and our United States military. Joining me are  Daniel Sullivan , President and General Manager of the  The Sergeant Thomas Joseph Sullivan Center (SSC) , a non-profit organization that  is dedicated to improving health outcomes for current and former mil...