“No” is a bad word for leaders to say. It broadcasts to people, “Don’t try new things,” “Don’t experiment with different ways to correct the problem,” and “Don’t take action when problems arise.” It shut’s down people’s minds and disables the uniquely human challenge to make things better through thinking and creativity. Unfortunately, organizations are hierarchies […]

A professor asked the following question: “One of the items that stands out from your writing is the need for leadership. Given the (at best) lukewarm reception so far for Lean in higher education, the question is: What are we doing wrong? Why are we failing to engage colleagues and administrators? What different strategies could […]

My son, Michael, started playing trombone in 4th grade, played in high school band, and in the first two years of college. In his sophomore year of high school, Mike took up the electric bass. While his trombone playing was good, it was his bass playing that amazed me. He developed a passion for that sound […]

Organizations implement process improvement initiatives, using various process improvement tools, to drive operational excellence, enhance customer value, achieve cost savings, and remain competitive in their respective industries. By continuously evaluating and improving their business processes, companies can continuously evaluate and improve their processes to adapt to changing market dynamics, deliver superior products or services, and […]

Instead of sitting in your office and expecting different results from your team, go and see where the real work happens. In today’s blog, we list the seven steps you should follow to perform an effective Gemba walk. But first, let’s get into what a Gemba walk is. What is a Gemba Walk? Gemba is […]

In the article “More than MOOCs” (Academe, May-June 2014), author Jonathan Rees makes a good case that academic freedom must include not only what professors teach, but how they teach. The combination of knowledge of the content and pedagogy appropriate to the content represents skilled educational labor, which risks being displaced by MOOcs and the […]

The eight wastes – overproduction, waiting, transportation, processing, inventory, movement, defects, behaviors – plus unevenness and unreasonableness. Where do they come from? Are they naturally occurring phenomena? No. They come from people. Waste, unevenness and unreasonableness are the product of how people conceptualize, design, and execute work processes, human imperfections, how people lead others in hierarchical organizations, […]

A recurring conversations that I have with many people pertains to how profoundly disappointed they are with their leaders because they are not progressive and lack interest in Lean management. They struggle to convince senior managers to embrace Lean and wish they had a boss like Art Byrne, who, through daily practice, learned how to […]

The 2nd International Lean Six Sigma Conference for Higher Education was held at HAN University of Applied Sciences on 2-3 June 2014 in Arnhem, The Netherlands (click here to see conference participants standing in front of the giant pink aardvark sculpture). The conference objectives were three-fold: How to get teaching staff and administration on-board Set […]

What is the purpose of leadership? After reading my paper, you might need a big rethink!  Comment from one of the reviewers: “The notion of two distinct views of the purpose of leadership, versus the assumption of one singular, universally agreed upon purpose — and the consequent gap this produces — is a helpful and valuable […]

WEB SERIES – In the second episode of our docuseries on lean in Chile, we learn how, with a clear purpose and strong commitment from leadership, SKC is transforming its processes and mindset and building a competitive advantage.  Scripted, edited and narrated by: Roberto Priolo This organization sells and maintains equipment for a variety of industries. […]

The 2nd International Lean Six Sigma Conference for Higher Education was held at HAN University of Applied Sciences on 2-3 June 2014 in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Here are some Day 2 conference highlights (Day 1 conference highlights are here): DAY 2: June 3 2014 Two faculty from the Academy of Information Technology, Media, and Communication […]

Bottom Line Up Front: I wrote a book about mistakes. That book was published… with some mistakes. Since it’s a book about learning from mistakes, that’s the intent of this post. Initial Reflections: As I’ve hosted a podcast about learning from mistakes (which led to a book), there are a few key points that I […]

At the 2nd International Lean Six Sigma Conference for Higher Education (click to read Day 1 and Day 2 highlights), three speakers presented the view that Lean in higher education is failing or that higher education is distinct from other application domains and adjustments have not been made by practitioners that are necessary to succeed. […]

In my previous blog post, “Don’t Wait For Your Leaders,” I said that most top leaders will never “get it” when it comes to Lean management. Why is that? It is because Lean management represents an implied threat to top leaders. The threat, simply put is as follows: “You’ve been doing a bad job.” or “Everything […]

The dictionary defines “principle” as “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or a chain of reasoning.” Principles help us see the positive and negative results of our actions. They enable us to make smarter decisions about what we choose to do. In business, when […]

Anyone who has worked in an environment where Agile is working well will agree: when it’s great, it’s really great. However, this post is not about what separates the great from the mediocre or worse (for that I would recommend my 2019 book Right to Left), but about Agile’s impact on the organisation more broadly. […]

Visual controls are an important part of Lean management. They are simple and practical ways of reminding us of what to do or not do, and signal to us the existence of abnormal conditions. In addition, they are fun to create and an opportunity to share ideas and improve teamwork. Last year I posted a […]

Part 1 of a 3 part post. Don’t forget to also read parts 2 and 3.  One of the things that interested me since the very beginning of my Lean experience 20 years ago is the relationship between leadership behaviors and information flow. More recently, I have also become interested in the time function of […]

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more For Episode #480 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast turns the tables, as regular host Mark Graban is interviewed today by a guest host, his friend Paul Critchley. Paul was previously the host of the New England Lean Podcast and he’s been a guest of Mark’s […]

Part 2 of a 3 part post. Don’t forget to also read parts 1 and 3.  It would be wonderful if changing a few leadership behaviors were all that were need to become a capable Lean leader and achieve Lean transformation success. But there is much more to it than meets the eye, and so […]

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 […]

Part 3 of a 3 part post. Don’t forget to also read parts 1 and 2.  In the previous two blog posts, “Leadership Behaviors: The Path To Lean Culture” and “More Than Leadership Behaviors,” I shared with you the development of my work on Lean leadership from the mid-1990s to the early-2000s. Lean behaviors (1995) Leadership […]

No confidence votes by faculty against top administrators are a common occurrence in higher education. It seem that no confidence votes come about for one primary reason: The president or provost does not know how to lead people. The problems cited are typically general in nature, such as incompetence, dictatorial leadership style, lack of transparency, and […]

What is the value of a professor? This is an increasingly important question as administrators evaluate options for teaching courses beyond the use of full-time and adjunct professors. If we cannot articulate our value to students and to our university leaders – and back it up with actual results – then our role in higher […]

When we think of a process to make a product or service, we must be concerned about various settings. The settings are important because they control the process to ensure quality and consistency in what is produced. If settings are absent or incorrect, the process is uncontrolled produces bad results – defects, scrap, customer complaints, […]

The idea of improving teaching and administrative aspects of higher education is not new. Complaints by business people about college graduates in the early 1900s resulted in a study commissioned by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and a report titled “Academic and Industrial Efficiency” (1910). You can read the entire report here. The complaints by business […]

This second post on continuously moving assembly lines will look at the math behind the correlation between the speed of the line (line takt or customer takt), the length of the line, and the amount of work that has to be done on the line. Luckily, the calculations are not very tricky. And, different from […]

Nearly every current or former Toyota employee can tell you the wonderful things they learned about The Toyota Way (TW) and about the Toyota Production System (TPS). But of course, not all of us have had the benefit of working at Toyota Motor Corporation. But, some of us are fortunate to have learned about TW+ TPS […]

I saw this chart recently that shows the monthly average length of stay (LOS) at a hospital: The narrative about the chart said it was: “”continuing a trend of reduced variation and improvement in length of stay results, [down a total of] 24% past 12 months” But is there really a statistical trend there? Of […]

Does the lineage of the training that you receive in Lean management matter? Does it make a difference if you learn Lean (Toyota Way + Toyota Production System) from current or former Toyota employees? I think it does. But it is not as simple as that. The image below explains why. Most Lean consultants, perhaps […]

What are the secrets of Lean leadership? Big news: There aren’t any – at least not any more. As recently as 20 years ago, nobody understood what Lean leadership was and what steps one needed to take to become a capable Lean leader. Lean leadership was a mystery, its hundreds of secrets shrouded in a dense […]

The following is excerpted and adapted from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. I admire the culture that KaiNexus leaders have been cultivating — as with a garden, tending to the culture is a never-ending process.

Are college presidents overpaid? In most cases, yes. Overpaid or not, I expect more from the person in that position, and the pay and benefits that come with it, in terms of job performance. Most university presidents do what every other university president does. Sameness, along with professional stasis, should not be rewarded with high […]