lean

No matter what your profession, everyone should consider at some point in time a personal work retreat. For me, it is usually about research and writing. Certainly, almost all of People Solve Problems was written across multiple retreats up to the mountains. Bill Gates would take his “think weeks” away

Happy Heuristics is a podcast about using rules of thumb, decision criteria, or heuristics to help leaders operate with speed and effectiveness in a complex and uncertain world. Podcast partners Jamie Flinchbaugh and Jeff Grimshaw explore specific heuristics, one theme at a time, that you can either adopt or use

A long time ago I was running an off-shift in operations. Late at night, we didn’t have any resources coming to train the team, and so if we wanted to learn, we were on our own. We began reading and applying books, beginning with two books from Kiyoshi Suzuki, The

This article was originally published in March 2021.    I’ve been asked to help dozens of clients with their lean certification plans at some point in my engagement. How should we design our lean certification program? This is often the question presented to me. Before you get to design, you

I coach coaches. That’s obviously the only thing that I do, but I spend a significant portion of my time coaching people who are trying to coach others. One of the most common questions I receive in this domain is… What do we do when someone is resistant to coaching?

In “People Solve Problems,” I dedicate a whole section to the role of the leader. Whatever level of people-leader you find yourself in, this section of the book helps guide you to important aspects of your role. In this short video, I walk through a little bit of the role

Why do people resist change? Don’t they want things to be better? Of course, they want things to be better. We all do. However, what is the snake-oil salesman really pitching? What kind of dystopian world is planned? We don’t fear change but fear that the change will bring something

Episode 30: “Celebrating 30 Episodes, Writing Books, and Great Whiskey” In Episode 30, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh find things to celebrate, starting with the fact that we have hit 30 episodes. In that time, we’ve had 14 guests or co-hosts and tasted 56 different whiskeys (not counting the gin

Your spectrum of problems that your team engages with can span from firefighting to strategic breakthroughs, and many levels in between. However, it is very difficult for a team to operate all across the spectrum at once. You have a critical mass of problem-solving efforts and that anchors what your

Episode 29: “Yellow Cards, Coffee Cocktails, and a Barrel Down the Drain”  In Episode 29, it’s been a little while since Mark and Jamie got together for Lean Whiskey. We catch up on what’s new, which includes Mark’s new certification with distinction with the WSET Level 2 Spirits certification, and