The Edges of Lean

When I say there are many different flavors and styles of continuous improvement, Design for Six Sigma is the type of style and flavor variation I am thinking of. Product development is hard to achieve. It is also expensive, as almost every company has a graveyard of product development failures. Kris Stokes teaches organizations and people the principles of Design for Six Sigma, and he says that...

Here at the Edges of Lean, we've had a lot of conversations about leadership, with leaders who are practicing Lean and with leaders who are not Lean practitioners but are acknowledged as great leaders.  There have been so many incredible insights and tips to learn from.  However, I believe lean leadership differs from other types of leadership. Kathy Hadizadeh says that lean leaders need to bring...

Continuous Improvement and Your Legacy with Jann Freed   Have you ever thought about your legacy? Jann Freed says that whether we think about it or not., we create our legacies daily. She has written a book about creating and leaving behind a powerful and meaningful legacy and joined me at the Edges of Lean to help us all be more intentional about the legacies we are creating. Her new book is Brea...

  As a lean leader, I have facilitated countless meetings and events. Truth be told, I am a messy and disorganized note-taker with dreadful handwriting! So, I have significant respect for the people who can record the work and results of a meeting in graphic form. Ashton Rodenhiser is an experienced graphic communicator, and she joined me at the Edges of Lean to share her story and give us some id...

As lean leaders, we talk about feedback a lot. We know that feedback is important, and if you are like me, you crave it – so that we can improve! But let’s face it, it’s not always effective or helpful. Carole Stizza has researched the topic of feedback, and she says that there’s a lot to improve! She joined me at The Edges of Lean to share her insights.    Carole Stizza     Carole, an industrial...

  Do you know what your core values are? Have they changed during your life as you grew, gained experience, and broadened your perspectives? Some people are very clear about their core values, while others are not or wonder if they need re-examining. Johnson's work centers on supporting people, especially women, as they define and align with their core values. She joined me at The Edges of Lean to...

Catherine Chabiron is an expert in lean management and an author. She recently wrote a book called Learning to Scale at the Theodo Group, which describes how a company faced with dramatic growth used lean thinking to avoid what Catherine calls Big Company Disease. She joined me at the Edges of Lean to discuss what she learned when she went to the Gemba with this company and its founders.   Catheri...

Robert Indries started his career as an engineer and has taken that scientific and analytical approach into his successful entrepreneurial business career. The general belief is that engineers are not good at the people stuff, but Robert turns that idea on its head. I was curious how he used his learnings as he built his businesses to understand better how to help his clients. He joined me at the...

      When I coach and consult, I focus on my clients and their goals and needs. This raises an important question: where am I in that relationship? Katarina Polonska believes that coaching that is successful for the client requires the coach to be connected to herself and that doing so creates energy and strength for the coach. She joined me at the Edges of Lean to share her insights and how she...

  I hope you are a voter! It is such an important civic responsibility. As a continuous improvement professional, have you ever thought about improving the election process to help make everyone confident that elections are secure and fair? Kerry L. Bass has. He is here to share his insight and tell us about some vital continuous improvement work happening in the US around our election process.   ...

Ep   Success requires expertise, and today’s work world requires leaders to lead beyond their areas of personal skills. Wanda Wallace calls this “spanning” leadership, and she works with leaders to build their success in leading across functions and domains where they have little expertise. Wanda is the author of "You Can’t Know It All: Leading in the Age of Deep Expertise.” She joined me at the E...

Sam Drauschak is a leader in Process Science – his work is to help organizations achieve maximum efficiency in business processes and energy flow. He has even developed a universal process mapping language adopted as the standard for multiple large enterprises globally. Sam joined me at the Edges of Lean to share his insights on process science in the digital age and life in an RV.  Sam Drauschak...

  Kevo, a full-time artist who is also a painter, film, and theater producer, and art teacher, joins me here at The Edges of Lean to share his inspiring story of overcoming a troubled childhood, jail time, and a gunshot wound to pursue his passion for art. There is a lot to consider in this conversation for all of us in the continuous improvement world.   Kevo  Kevo, a native of Houston, Texas, is...

  Katherine McCord was the little girl who played HR rather than princesses, and when other kids were selling lemonade, she sold shares in her imaginary "company". She even fired her mother when she was five years old. Katherine, a physically and neurodiverse woman, built her career on inclusive innovation in People Operations and HR Tech. She lives by the motto that difference is not a deficit an...

  Hey, this is The Edges of Lean’s 100th episode!  So I’m starting today with a message of gratitude to all of my listeners. Thank you for your support of the Edges of Lean! And if you are a listener who would like to tell your story on the Edges of Lean, reach out to me on LinkedIn!  Zach White is an engineer, like many lean and continuous improvement professionals. He is here to share his story...

  When you work with your employees or clients, what assumptions are you making about their reading skills? If you are like me, you might assume that almost everyone you work with reads easily, but that is likely untrue. Lois Letchford joined me at the Edges of Lean to talk about her experience as the parent of a child with dyslexia and how lean thinkers can help to create success for adults with...

An essential principle of lean thinking is “one-piece flow.” One way of looking at that is to focus on finishing what you start before you take on other tasks, whether building a car in a factory or managing paperwork.  But our lives constantly call us to multitask and take on more than we can complete, and as a result, we get overwhelmed.   Lean coach Stéfany Oliver has been studying how to overc...

I love to interview people with unusual career paths. Shana Francesca started her career as an interior designer. Her work in intentionally creating physical environments that supported people’s needs led her into coaching leaders in intentional leadership to build effective and efficient and healthy work environments. Let’s hear Shana’s story!   Shana Francesca   Shana Francesca is a sought-after...

  Miwako Bukres has taken the honorific “sensei" – teacher. She is not a lean sensei but a beloved teacher of the Japanese abacus. She’s here to tell us what we can learn about Japanese culture by developing the practices of learning from failure and discipline and encouraging clear analytical thinking using the ancient Japanese practice of doing math on the abacus.   Sensei Miwako Miwako, affecti...

  Harriet Stein would like us to pay attention.  Paying attention is an absolute necessity for lean practitioners – but it is not something we all find easy – or even know how to start practicing.  Harriet kindly spent some time with me at the Edges of Lean explaining how to build our attentiveness skills and why improving them can improve our lean practices and our quality of life. Harriet is the...

  Catherine Llewellyn is a humanistic psychologist who coaches and consults with business leaders who want to "go up a level" whether that is personally or in their business. I spoke with Catherine here at the Edges of Lean to learn what humanistic psychology is and how she helps these leaders raise their consciousness and reach their next level. She delves into the challenges faced by individuals...

  Do you like your voice? Does your voice help you to get your message across? How do you take care of your voice? John Henny is a voice coach who works with speakers to help them use their voices to be more compelling and influential, and he is here at The Edges of Lean to give us methods and tips for being better users and caretakers of our great voices.    John Henny John Henny is a highly expe...

  Are you thinking of writing a book? Did you write a book? Are you wondering about getting your book out in the world? College media instructor Karl W. Beckstrand is the best-selling author/illustrator of twenty-seven multicultural/multilingual books. He is here at the Edges of Lean to help us take advantage of his lessons learned with writing and publishing.   Karl Beckstrand   Karl Beckstrand i...

  Brad Eisenberg of BE Lean is a scalability consultant with over 15 years of experience as a Founder, COO, and consultant. He works with growing businesses that are at the point where everything that used to be fun and easy has become messy and complex. Brad is here at the Edges of Lean to help us understand what scalability is and the relationship between scalability, lean, and seeing things as...

  Jim Gitney has been coaching and consulting for decades and, over the years, has seen many strategies fail because of poor execution. He knew there had to be a better way to bridge strategy and results. He developed the Business Hierarchy of Needs to clearly show how to make the decisions that lead to excellent execution of strategy. Let’s hear Jim’s approach from him and discuss how it relates...