Yay!! Google Bard 🤖 makes the business case for Lean! We’ve been saying this for decades, but now that the AI machine says it, leaders might finally believe it! But there is only one problem: There is still no answer for the mindset/culture shift that is needed. Bard needs new information. So do you. Click […]

Instead of seeking advice from “Dear Abby,” we can now seek advice from “Dear Bard.” So let’s ask Dear Bard for some advice: “How do you convince a CEO to abandon classical management and transition to Lean management?” Unfortunately, Dear Bard. 🤖 has no idea that all the things it recommends have been tried by […]

The Balanced Scorecard is a management framework that combines traditional financial metrics with strategic measures to give managers a more complete view of business performance. The approach rests on the premise that many business measurement schemes are weighted too heavily toward financial performance and ignore other strategically important, but often more challenging to measure, priorities. […]

The book giveaway contest that I’m running ends Friday at about 3 pm ET. ENTER TO WIN a set of all six books that I’ve written or co-authored over the past 15 years. I made a mistake today in my attempt to do an unplanned LinkedIn Live video to promote the contest. See more about […]

In the fast-paced world of manufacturing, productivity is one of the most important factors in determining the success of a business. A productive shop floor can help a manufacturing company to produce more goods at a lower cost. As a result, this can lead to increased profitability, improved customer satisfaction, and a competitive edge over […]

It took 13.79999999996 billion years for Lean management emerge from the fetid gas of interstellar space, and as far as we know Lean does not exist anywhere else in the universe (universe = “the totality of existence”). 👽 Click here to find out how it all got started.

tl;dr summary: A journal article evidences Lean’s effectiveness in healthcare, challenging skeptics. It finds that Lean adoption in U.S. public hospitals is linked to lower costs, along with better patient care and experiences. Success relies on leadership commitment, daily Lean practices, and proper training. However, study limitations and potential biases question its conclusive impact on […]

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern business, staying ahead of the competition requires more than just adept management – it demands a strategic embrace of cutting-edge technology. As companies navigate the complexities of a globalized marketplace, the need for efficient, streamlined operations and continuous improvement has never been more pronounced. Enter the realm of business […]

Imagine a monthly ritual that doesn’t just review performance but revolutionizes it. Monthly business reviews can redefine your approach, elevate critical metrics, and propel your organization toward unparalleled growth. The journey to peak performance starts with a commitment to regular reflection.  For example, Salesforce implemented a practice of monthly business reviews to assess key performance […]

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #494 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Chad Bareither, the founder and principal consultant of Bareither Group Consulting. He brings a wealth of experience as a change agent in the corporate world, having worked with organizations that include several Fortune 500 […]

 In the workplace, often the most valuable insights often happen during informal moments. It’s these pockets of space, in between meetings and events, where casual, off-the-cuff conversations take place and ah-has emerge. Quick question, have you ever wondered what it would be like to listen in to these “hallway” conversations to discover what leaders […]

The history of progressive management, from Scientific Management to Toyota’s management system to Lean management, is marked by efforts to try anything — literally anything — to get CEOs to abandon classical management. What “try anything” really means is that there has been no learning and that experience has not produced the desired result. Yet […]

The history of progressive management, from Scientific Management to Toyota’s management system to Lean management, is marked by efforts to try anything — literally anything — to get CEOs to abandon classical management. What “try anything” really means is that there has been no learning and that experience has not produced the desired result. Yet […]

In the previous posts on this series of the Toyota Practical Problem Solving (PPS) I went into detail on how to understand the problem by clarifying the problem and breaking it down to get the prioritized problem. In this post I will look at target setting and root-cause analysis. Setting the target and doing the […]

By Pascal Dennis Hi folks, recently I spoke with Brad Jeavons and the fine Enterprise Excellence podcast. Topic: Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World: The Role of Senior Leaders (Part 1). Hope you enjoy it! 2 minute tip: Best regards, Pascal In case you missed our last few blogs… please feel free […]

Prologue: Occasionally I get feedback from people who perceive my work as being negative. It seems they get that perception mainly from my LinkedIn posts and perhaps from my recent books. When it comes to social media, I think it is especially important to challenge people’s thinking about the problems that the Lean community faces. […]

Below are lists of videos and podcasts organized from newest (top) to oldest (bottom). Videos Closing the Gap Between How Kaizen Is Understood and How Kaizen is Practiced What Have We Learned in 50 years of TPS and 35 Years of Lean? From Shop Floor Kaizen to Speed Leadership Transitioning to Lean Management Embracing a […]

In Episode 43, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban begin by talking about each of our interviews regarding the new book by Steve Spear and Gene Kim, Wiring the Winning Organization. Mark interviewed Steve and Gene for the LeanBlog podcast, and Jamie interviewed Steve for a forthcoming episode of People Solve Problems podcast. We then shifted […]

Employee engagement is crucial for the success of any organization, and the manufacturing industry is no exception. In fact, according to studies, the manufacturing industry has one of the lowest employee engagement rates compared to other industries. In this blog, we’ll discuss the top reasons why employee engagement matters. From increased productivity to reduced turnover […]

Listen: In Episode 43 of the “Lean Whiskey” podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban begin by talking about each of our interviews regarding the new book by Steve Spear and Gene Kim, Wiring the Winning Organization. Mark interviewed Steve and Gene for the Lean Blog Interviews podcast, and Jamie interviewed Steve for a forthcoming episode […]

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on […]

Leadership behaviors: The continuing faith that the Lean community has on changing top leaders’ behaviors, from the old way of leading to the new Lean way of leading, is worrisome. Will people ever think to explore the domain that Taiichi Ohno considered most important: preconceptions? Leadership’s role in the culture of continuous improvement begins with […]

Based on the web pages for all 28 of Bob Emiliani’s books, he appears to be: 1. A management consultant and author: He offers various products and services related to leadership development, organizational improvement, and Lean management. His website includes books, online courses, coaching services, and speaking engagements. 2. A proponent of Lean management: The […]

Below are two thought-provoking chapters from a book written by Professor Edgar Swift and published in 1925. The main topic is sales, but it contains two very interesting chapters on how we (all humans) underutilize our intellectual and creative abilities in business. Why is that? There are three reasons: Precedents (and preconceptions) slow down or […]

In these early days of AI, one thing is clear: AI makes work easier. Leaders, like anyone else, want to make their work easier. And so they will turn to AI for answers to their questions and problems. Since AI learns from humans, it will almost surely perpetuate classical management until it can make associations […]

In the world of modern manufacturing, achieving a balance between material flow and ergonomic considerations can be tough. The relentless pursuit of cramming more material into confined spaces often leads to an undesirable compromise between efficiency and worker well-being.  But this isn’t a compromise you and your peers need to settle for. Understanding the relationship […]

In the People Solve Problems podcast, hosted by Jamie Flinchbaugh, John McCullough, Director of Continuous Improvement at Sharp Services, shares his expertise and experiences in problem-solving within the pharmaceutical industry. John, a global continuous improvement leader, strategic thought partner, and change agent, also extends his lean journey expertise to various other industries, achieving measurable performance […]

Are you interested in receiving the entire set of my 35 research papers shown in the images below? I am not looking for those who merely want to add papers to their collection for the fun of it. I am looking for serious individuals who have interest in studying the work I have produced. The […]

This is a repost from my blog post about a talk I gave in 2018… I always enjoy the KaiNexus User Conference (now called KaiNexicon starting this year) and they ask me to give a talk each year. Last year, I gave a talk called “When Being Right is the Wrong Strategy for Change” and […]

You will ❤️ this video! Click on the image to view the video. Description of my talk:“Over recent decades, kaizen — as fundamental as the 3Rs, Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic — has fallen out of favor and largely replaced with things like value stream maps, gemba walks, A3s, and kata. Where kaizen is practiced, it […]

How much of your day do you spend problem solving?  It could be responding to requests from senior leaders, helping team members work through an issue, or just figuring out where to park in the morning.  If you’re anything like me, it seems like every day is a stream of problems waiting to be solved […]

Our monthly webinar/AMA series “The questions that drive us” returns tomorrow to question #1: What if we put agreement on outcomes before solutions? Essentially, this is principle #1 framed as a question. Framing it that way makes it even less prescriptive than it would be otherwise and more likely to spark innovation. Moreover, asking it […]

In November 2007, the world was introduced to the Cynefin (pronounced ku-nev-in) “sense-making” framework in a Harvard Business Review article authored by David Snowden and Mary Boone titled, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making.” The online version of the article contains these words at the start of the article’s summary: Many executives are surprised when […]

In my last post I introduced the Toyota Practical Problem Solving approach (PPS) and gave an overview how it is rooted in PDCA and often used in the form of an A3. Now let’s dig deeper and go into the details of the individual steps. The first is to clarify the problem. The second is […]