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  In this episode of the People Solve Problems podcast, host Jamie Flinchbaugh is joined by Patrick Elwer, a Senior Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation. Patrick brings over 34 years of experience to the table, with a significant portion of his career dedicated to improving Intel’s work processes using lean

Episode 47: “Decriminalizing Medical Errors, Mouse Jiggling, and New (to us) Bourbons”   In Episode 47, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh attempt another experiment in format, covering a range of quick-hit topics in the news rather than a single deep dive. As always, we welcome feedback. Before we got to

In the latest episode of the People Solve Problems podcast, host Jamie Flinchbaugh sits down with Art Byrne, the retired CEO of The Wiremold Company. Art’s profound influence on the lean community is well-known, having introduced lean principles to over 30 companies from his positions as CEO and author of

On Forbes: Why More Employees Should Learn Hanlon’s Razor Hanlon’s Razor isn’t part of any company’s new employee orientation, but maybe it should be. It can make you a more effective employee and also make the organization better, especially in tricky situations. But before I explain further, we should probably

In this episode of “People Solve Problems,” Jamie Flinchbaugh hosts Frank L. Douglas, CEO of Safe Haven Dialogues. Frank brings a wealth of experience as a former Executive Vice President and Board Member of Aventis, now Sanofi, and shares insights from his storied career in the pharmaceutical industry and beyond.

On Forbes: 14 Executive Skills Middle Managers Need To Become Senior Leaders While leaders at all levels need effective communication skills to succeed, the required interpersonal competencies can vary significantly between the C-suite and middle management. Generally speaking, lower-level managers are often more involved in direct, task-specific interactions with employees,

I recently rediscovered a great quote from President John F. Kennedy. It was during Lehigh University’s commencement, where I was observing my daughter Emma’s graduation. The original quote is from Kennedy’s commencement speech at Yale University on June 11th, 1962, and was echoed by Lehigh’s President Joseph Helble in his

  In this episode of People Solve Problems, host Jamie Flinchbaugh welcomes Lee Moore, Director of Foundry and Fab Materials at Qorvo. With nearly 25 years at Qorvo, Lee is deeply committed to developing a culture of proactive problem solvers within the organization. His role not only involves negotiating capacities

On Forbes: When The Big Picture Can Be Counterproductive Sometimes, the big picture can be overwhelming. When it is, it leads to doubt, delay, overthinking and other counterproductive behaviors. Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, who we could call Marcus the Practical, offers some helpful advice in this regard:

When someone utters the phrase “problem solving”, what is the first image that comes to mind? For most people, those words immediately take you into problem solving tools and templates. This is because many of us have gone through training program after training program to learn various tools. For myself,