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

This is an excerpt from Episode #380 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast. Host Mark Graban interviews Dr. Randal Pinkett and Dr. Jeffrey Robinson and, in this clip, they reflect on Randal winning "The Apprentice" (the only person of color to do so) and how Donald Trump asked him if he would share the prize with the runner up, a white woman (Rebecca Jarvis). For a transcript and the entire episode,...

https://www.leanblog.org/380 Today's episode, #380, is very special to me for a number of reasons. For one, it's part of the  #RootCauseRacism series  that Deondra Wardelle has organized on my blog this week. Secondly, I'm joined by Dr. Randal Pinkett and Dr. Jeffrey Robinson to talk about important issues of race, diversity, and equity in organizations. Together, they are co-authors of the book ...

https://www.leanblog.org/379   My guest for Episode #379, joining me for the fifth time, is Katie Anderson, author of the newly-released book  Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning.   In today's episode, we talk about how the book came to be and we, of course, talk about the process — the process of writing and publishing....

This is a portion of a much longer interview (Lean Blog Interviews Episode #378):    I'm joined by Christopher D. Chapman, Senior Lean Transformation Coach at Chapman Lean Enterprise and Dr. Valeria Sinclair-Chapman,  a social scientist, Associate Professor, and Director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion at Purdue University.   I was first introduced to Chris through his articl...

https://www.leanblog.org/378     Joining me for Episode #378 are Christopher D. Chapman , Senior Lean Transformation Coach at Chapman Lean Enterprise and Dr. Valeria Sinclair-Chapman ,  a social scientist, Associate Professor, and Director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion at Purdue University.   I was first introduced to Chris through his article that was published on the Lean...

http://www.leanblog.org/377   My guest for Episode #377 is  Ritu Ward , an experienced healthcare executive who has had success delivering quality, growth, and strategy while leading high performing teams. We have known each other for a while through Lean healthcare circles and she presented a webinar in our KaiNexus series titled, “ Leadership Behaviors to Guide Effective Change .” She was, until...

http://www.leanblog.org/376   Joining me for Episode #376 of the podcast is Lauren Hisey , a continuous improvement coach and consultant at her firm, Lauren Hisey Consulting .  Before becoming a consultant, Lauren worked for AT&T and Nielsen in various technical and Lean Six Sigma roles. She has a BA in Political Science and Government and an MBA. Read more about Lauren via her bio. Today, we talk...

http://www.leanblog.org/375   My guest for Episode #375 of the podcast is Mohamed Saleh, Ph. D.   Dr. Saleh has been a practitioner in Lean & Six Sigma transformations, in both manufacturing and service sectors. Mohamed was directly mentored by one of the country’s foremost experts on enterprise-wide Lean transformation and the Toyota Production System (TPS).   He has extensive experience in hands...

http://www.leanblog.org/374   Joining me today for Episode #374 of the podcast are two colleagues, Brittany Wilson and Mark Valenti .   The topic, as Mark and I discussed in Episode #306 , is " Motivational Interviewing ." We will all be exploring this topic in the context of talking to people about wearing masks during the pandemic. But, there are many applications to workplace situations, as wel...

http://www.leanblog.org/373 Joining me today for Episode #373 of the podcast is Professor Peter Hines , author of many books including Staying Lean: Thriving, Not Just Surviving . Peter founded S A Partners in 1994 as a spin-out from his activities in running the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff University. Before this, he worked in supply chain and distribution and manufacturing industr...

http://www.leanblog.org/372 My guest for Episode #372 is Karen Gaudet , author of the excellent book Steady Work , which was published by the Lean Enterprise Institute. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a former employee of LEI and they provided a review copy of the book. In today's episode, we discuss her experience with Lean at Starbucks. It's a fascinating story that includes a transitio...

http://www.leanblog.org/371 For Episode #371, we bring the discussion back to Lean Manufacturing applications, as our guest is Marc Lushington-Murray . He currently lives in the Fort Worth, Texas area but, as you'll discover from his accent, he was originally born and raised in England. Marc is currently searching for a new opportunity, but he brings a great deal of experience from his time workin...

http://www.leanblog.org/370 Joining me for Episode #370 is Edward Blackman , the founder and managing partner of Kelda Consulting . He has previously had Lean and process improvement-focused roles at organizations as varied as Whirlpool, Amway, and Spectrum Health. Today, we are discussing behavioral science and the need to combine practices and lessons from that field with Lean and continuous imp...

http://www.leanblog.org/369   Joining me again for Episode #369 of the podcast is Dr. Rachel Mandel , a self-described "healthcare whisperer" and Washington D.C.-based consultant for healthcare organizations. She has her own practice and also works as a Senior Healthcare Advisor for Operational Performance Solutions, Inc .   She was a guest recently for Episode #367, but we had recorded that befor...

http://leanblog.org/368   My guest for Episode #368 is somebody I've met fairly recently through his excellent posts on LinkedIn, Steve Feltovich .   He is the president of SJF Consulting, Inc. and he previously had a long career in the automotive industry, in particular collision and repair.   Steve learned about Dr. Deming's approach and also learned the Toyota Production System from Toyota and...

http://www.leanblog.org/367   Joining me for Episode #367 of the podcast is Dr. Rachel Mandel , a self-described "healthcare whisperer" and Washington D.C.-based consultant for healthcare organizations. She has her own practice and also works as a Senior Healthcare Advisor for Operational Performance Solutions, Inc .   She is, of course, a physician (OB-GYN) and previously served as the Vice Presi...

http://www.leanblog.org/366   My guest for Episode #366 is  Harry Moser , founder of the Reshoring Initiative. We talk about “reshoring,” in general, and why that's such an important issue in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. Harry definitely falls into the category of guests where I wonder, “Why haven't I had this person on the show before?” Harry and his work have been on my radar...

Mark Graban interviews Dan Markovitz about his new book. http://www.leanblog.org/365 Joining me again for Episode #365 is Dan Markovitz, now a five-time guest (but he doesn't get a special jacket like SNL). The reason for getting together was to chat about his latest book, "The Conclusion Trap: Four Steps to Better Decisions," now available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats. Why do...

  Joining me for Episode #364 is a returning guest, Mitch Cahn, the president of Unionwear, a Newark-based company. Back in Episode #234 , we talked about how Lean manufacturing has helped them be competitive in the labor-intensive apparel industry, sewing goods in a union shop.   Today (in an episode that is also a video podcast ), Mitch tells us how, a month ago, orders for political campaign ha...

http://www.leanblog.org/363 For Episode #363, I'm joined by Crystal Davis as we discuss: What are you seeing in terms of how Covid-19 is disrupting businesses? How do we move from crisis mode, to survival mode, to recovery mode? Why do we need courageous leadership during these challenging times? This is also the first video podcast that I've done in a while. See the show notes page for the video:...

http://www.leanblog.org/362   My guest for Episode #362 is Adam Lawrence , managing partner with Process Improvement Partners LLC .   He's an industrial engineer who had a long career working with TQM, Six Sigma, and Lean at Thomasvile Furniture and other Armstrong World Industries companies.   Today, we'll talk about setting kaizen events up for success with effective charter documents and team s...

http://www.leanblog.org/361   Episode #361 of the podcast is admittedly not about Lean, but it's an important topic that I think needs to be shared in these times.   I'm sharing audio that came from a KaiNexus webinar yesterday that we called "Ask Docs Anything" and the topic was, of course, coronavirus and Covid-19. We put out a call for questions and got more than 100 questions for our customers...

 http://www.leanblog.org/360 Returning for Episode #360 of the podcast is Leah Binder , the president and CEO of Leapfrog Group . We last talked four years ago in Episode #240 about the patient safety crisis and efforts to improve.  Today, we'll talk about hospitals' preparation for the Covid-19 / Coronavirus threat. Read her statement on this topic and stay tuned for announcements about free webi...

  My guest for Episode #359 of the podcast is Prof. Dr. Alfred Angerer , joining me from Switzerland to talk about Lean healthcare.   I had a chance to visit a hospital with Alfred, in Switzerland, late last year, as we discussed in this episode of his podcast (which we recorded together in his office).   In today's episode, he joins me via the internet and we'll talk about his path into studying,...

  http://www.leanblog.org/358   Returning to the podcast for Episode #358 is Steve Spear , a senior lecturer at MIT and author of the book The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition . He's also the founder and co-creator of a software company and product called See to Solve .   He's also the author of two outstanding Harvard Business Review a...