Critical thinking or scientific thinking. What is the difference? And which should you practice? Let’s begin with definitions of these two cognitive skills: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide […]

Navigating Corporate Politics & Leading Through Influence What’s your reaction when you hear the phrase “corporate politics”? Does it make you cringe and want to run away, or do you get curious about how to leverage them to influence outcomes? In this episode, Betsy Jordyn joins me to discuss the essential skill of successfully navigating […]

Embracing Imperfections and Learning from Mistakes: A Leadership Insight from the 2022 AME Annual Conference… In a riveting conversation between Larry Culp and Katie Anderson at the 2022 The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) Annual Conference, valuable lessons on leadership, transparency, and fostering a culture where challenges and imperfections are openly shared were illuminated. Here’s […]

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to […]

Designing a workstation is not about creating a physical structure; it’s about crafting an optimized space tailored to specific tasks, workflows, and user needs. Whether you’re setting up a desk for logistics processing or creating an inspection or packing station, defining the workstation’s purpose is the first step toward efficient design.  After you understand the […]

The cover for my book mistakesbook.com is in the running for this book cover design contest… please check it out and consider voting for this creative design by Don Coon. Vote for your favorites among the finalists here People voting online don’t have the ability to see the full design as it wraps around the […]

It has been 25 years since the workbook Learning to See was published. The historical consequence of its publication is two-fold: 1) It was the first “Lean tool” book, and 2) People have become more accustomed to drawing value stream maps than eliminating waste. After 25 years, it’s time to move on and return to […]

I recently spoke and facilitated at a health system’s quarterly leadership forum event on the topic of “Psychological Safety as a Pre-Condition for Continuous Improvement.” It was very well received, and I’m very passionate about the need for leaders to help every team member believe that it’s both safe and effective to speak up in […]

Gaining mass appeal for something usually means to simplify it so that people can both see a need for it and to make it easier to understand and use. That means ensuring the product or service is an advancement while at the same time not breaking so many norms that people avoid it. The Holy […]

On Forbes: Forget Time Management—Manage Your Attention Baseball players can easily hit home run after home run in batting practice. But things are different when it’s the bottom of the ninth and the game is on the line in a stadium full of people cheering (or maybe booing). The difference is a player’s ability to […]

This is the third post in my series on how Fendt handles its rather large variability. As mentioned before, all of their tractors—eleven different models with countless variants—come from the same assembly line in Marktoberdorf. This includes small tractors that are just barely one meter wide and huge ones as you see here on the […]

2024 Update: A new April Fool’s Post for KaiNexus… or is it? The Rediscovered Origins of KaiNexus: A 1980s Video Game The Full Collection of Previous Posts: Here’s a collection of my April Fool’s Day posts and pranks from previous years that might give you a chuckle. Some of these did fool people 🙂 Do […]

A song about Toyota and Lean management. (Verse 1)Oh Toyota, king of the road, your cars reliable, your work showed us the codeYou built a system, a perfect flow, kaizen forever, let the good times grow (Chorus)Respect for people, that’s the key, continuous improvement, constantlyBut the West came knockin’, got it all wrong, took your […]

April Fools’ Jokes Posted on LinkedIn I hope you enjoy my series of seven April Fools’ jokes that I wrote and illustrated. The theme is satire. We have to laugh at ourselves and the absurdities (denial of logic) that people find ways to justify as normal. These April Fools’ jokes are more than humor. They […]

I wrote this piece for IndustryWeek… it starts: “In January, passengers, crew and the public were stunned by the latest high-profile incident involving a #Boeing 737 MAX-9 jet. A door plug blew out during an Alaska Airlines at 16,000 feet. Thankfully (and perhaps luckily), nobody was killed in the incident. In the aftermath, the general […]

I’ve been following Mark Graban’s Lean Blog for so many years now. He’s been a friend for quite some time due to our connections within the Lean community. His contributions in this area have certainly been highlighted here before. Perhaps like many of you each year you may look forward to today to see what […]

By Pascal Dennis (bio) In honor of my late father, Frank. I learned the fundamentals of management at my dad’s restaurant, the Imperial Grill Value & waste, standardized work, visual management, flow & pull — Mama & Dad practiced them all. They didn’t call it Lean, of course. It was just common sense. Value at […]

In their quaint unsuspecting neighborhood of the 1980s, two young visionaries, Greg Jacobson and Matt Paliulis, embarked on an adventure that would unknowingly pave the way for a future innovation. While their peers were preoccupied with the latest Atari games and BMX bikes, Greg and Matt found themselves enthralled by a different kind of challenge: […]

In the six books shown at right, I answered the question of why most top leaders throughout time have resisted, rejected, or ignored progressive management. Due to the complexity of the problem, I had to analyze it from six different directions: Status, rights, and privilege Irrationality Secular spirituality Aesthetics Preconceptions Workmanship This comprehensive analysis shows […]

In today’s fast-paced world, continuous learning has become a necessity. Udemy, a leading provider of online education, embraces this principle by offering a variety of sales throughout the year, making a vast selection of courses accessible to learners worldwide. Since its inception in 2010, Udemy has dramatically expanded its course offerings, now boasting over 155,000 […]

Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better. Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation Seeking Perfection is Back Setting “zero defect” targets for […]

If this image inspires even just one CEO to go to the genba on a regular basis, it will have been a success! 😂 Post this image to social media every year on “CEO Genba Day,” June 9th.

The other day, I was presenting at a company about “Psychological Safety as a Pre-Condition for Continuous Improvement.” It was a hybrid event and I noticed, during the Q&A period, that somebody on Teams chatted about me making a mistake. I said, “Thank you for pointing out the mistake!!” I think that’s a helpful way […]

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 […]

In the search for operational excellence, businesses are continually refining their processes to enhance efficiency and value creation. At the heart of this pursuit lies the Lean methodology, a powerful approach that emphasizes waste reduction to improve overall performance. However, recognizing and understanding the types of waste that can hinder progress is fundamental to this […]

In this episode of the People Solve Problems podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh welcomes Rebecca Snelling, the owner of RS Consulting. The conversation focuses on the themes of collaboration, problem-solving, leadership, and the importance of a culture that supports these endeavors within the design and construction industry. Rebecca brings a wealth of experience in coaching individuals, teams, […]

“Bridging the gap between Industry 4.0 vendors & manufacturers” As an unintended consequence of my lean work I’ve spent the last 2 years advising clients on where digital manufacturing might add value. Might is the word to ponder in the previous sentence. For example, I’ll encourage a client to run an experiment to test a […]

Real life examples of lean thinking The picture at head this blog is a great way to explain Change Points (Henkaten) – an important lean principle – through real life. People serious about understanding lean and kaizen tend to embrace the world around them, by mining for examples. We’ve put out blogs ourselves about discovering […]

In this edition: The Great Consolidation (featuring the new Obstacles Fast and Slow video); The Great Rebalancing (news on books 4 & 5 and my next keynote); April’s webinar and experience/practice sessions; Leading in a Transforming Organisation; Top posts; Upcoming events The Great Consolidation On Tuesday I announced the release of Inside-out Strategy (II): Fit […]

As a lean community we’re at it again… …the lazy business of reducing a very useful habit into a stand-alone tool to package up and sell. I first came across a structured way of purposefully walking the shopfloor, with sharp eyes, 15 years ago whilst working with a Japanese automotive transplant. I’ve been coaching and teaching […]

Copy-and-paste doesn’t work in lean transformation The title of this blog was originally a line from a poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. He died in 1939 so would have no idea that his poem “Traveler, your footprints” holds a key lesson for strong lean thinking (and life!). The poem (translated by Mary Berg […]

In a related blog, about the secrets of a great Team Leader start of shift brief, we ended with the following statement: “A final word on Change Points. In our opinion we can quickly give a Team Leader 3 simple skills, Change Point management being one of them” Over the years we’ve spent a lot […]

Our blog “2 lean skills your Team Leaders should have: Change Points” covered one of several simple skills that make a real difference to the life and effectiveness of a Team Leader. This blog covers another, the much underrated ability to think like a dead Italian economist. Practically speaking, how to peer out onto your manufacturing empire, big […]

In lean manufacturing there’s a lot of talk and focus on Team Leaders mastering tools like 5s, Standardised Work and the 7 Wastes. These “Kaizen skills” are really important but will be of little value if your Team Leaders haven’t got the fundamental “Control Skills” What is an effective Gemba walk: “Patrolling your Patch”? “Gemba […]