lean journey

This article originally appeared on IndustryWeek.  I’ve been rereading, in greater depth, Art Smalley’s book Four Types of Problems. Art and I first worked together about 25 years ago on the transformation of Chrysler.  It went from near bankruptcy to the most profitable company in the industry, until it was

On Wednesday I participated in a webinar, hosted by Lean Frontiers, which included Jim Huntzinger, Karen Martin, and David Veech. We hosted almost 500 participants, received many questions, and tried to answer as many as we can. We covered a range of topics from the mindset of returning to better,

Trust is mandatory for optimization of a system. All of the parts of an organization must work as a whole. Jamie shares 5 points to approach trust in your organization. Please watch his video here:    

Can questions really be the answer? In this video, Jamie breaks down the benefits of using deliberate questions to develop your organization. Questions need to be used to help your people to think on their own. Questions need to have a purpose. He will give you examples of effective questions

I posted this question on LinkedIn and received numerous responses, and while each one furthered the discussion, there were also many differences between them. Some I believe were wrong, and some were just a different perspective. I think this is an important note in its own right because we often

While we could all still travel, I recorded a podcast with Ron Pereira of Gemba Academy. In fact, I was the first in-person guest in their new studio, which was great. Here’s the recording, where we talk about a range of stuff but focus on my recent deep-dive into the

People need to be able to rely on trust now more than ever. Are the actions you’re currently taking building trust with your internal and external customers? In this video I’ll share how to use the 4Cs: Demonstration of Care, Communication, Competence, and Consistency to help build trust in these

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve had numerous conversations with internal lean resources with all sorts of titles, struggling with how to support lean during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Some are shut down, others are on work from home restrictions. Some companies are at full tilt, supporting the crisis

In a special live-to-YouTube Episode 15 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh begin their week by catching up, drinking whiskey, and talking shop. This episode was an experiment both in video recording the episode and in streaming it live to get viewer participation and questions. We didn’t have

In this (somewhat dated) interview with Professor Nelson Repenning, he explores that question. Nelson was a first-year professor at MIT when I was there and was one of my favorites, teaching systems dynamics. He suggests “leaders who can formulate clear problem statements get more done with less effort and move