Lean Blog Audio

Blog post A Question -- Email From a Listener: But I was prompted to think about this recently when I received an email from a podcast listener: "So I heard an interesting distinction between Gemba and Genba today. The M version is a place of work The N version is a place of investigation (used by Japanese police). So you go to the place of work before you go to the place of investigation." Hmmm. I had never heard that. So I thought I'd do a little research and check with friends who have varying levels of Japanese language skills. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

The episode's blog post Leaders and organizations have a choice: 1) cultivate a culture of fear and punishment or 2) a culture of learning and innovation. That choice significantly affects happiness and performance at all levels within the organization. A culture of fear and punishment drives mistakes underground. An organization with a culture of fear cannot learn from mistakes because people don't feel safe admitting them. People who do admit mistakes to their manager aren't more virtuous or courageous; they likely are in circumstances where they are able to feel safe doing so. Instead of telling people to be brave, leaders must help people feel safer. Those who fail to learn from mistakes are doomed to repeat them. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Read the blog post In this episode, Mark recounts an unexpected ordeal in an Italian hospital after his mother-in-law broke her arm while on vacation. Faced with difficult choices about surgery and travel, the family navigates a foreign healthcare system. Amid the stress, a seemingly small act of kindness by a hospital staff member leaves a lasting impression, exemplifying universal compassion. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Direct blog post link It’s not unusual to see individuals get blamed for systemic errors and problems. Case in point, this article: Delta Air Flight Attendant Makes Expensive Mistake After Emergency Slide is Accidentally Deployed Shortly After Landing in Dublin It seems like a fact that the flight attendant deployed the slide. But is the mistake their fault? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

To read the article and comment, click here or leanblog.org/audio340. This is an article that I wrote, published on the Quality Digest website. It begins: "I can’t count how many times during the past 20 years I’ve heard executives complain that their people aren’t enthusiastically participating in their lean program. Leaders lament that while the company has spent a small fortune to put everybody through continuous improvement training, hardly anybody submits ideas. The problem isn’t their employees; it’s a cultural problem and, therefore, a leadership problem." --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog Post I was very excited to learn about an event that is being produced by GE, next Wednesday, September 6th, in New York City. I'm thrilled to have been invited to attend in person, along with other "Lean Influencers," including my friends Katie Anderson and Jamie V. Parker. We will be fortunate to be there in person to share highlights from the event via social media, blog posts, podcasts, and more -- on Wednesday and beyond. See the LinkedIn Event page: The Lean Mindset: The Pursuit of Progress --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post From the post: This is really hard to write, as I was stunned and saddened by the recent passing of a good friend and colleague, Chris Burnham. Word had started to spread on LinkedIn and I feel bad about having to share this news here. You can read his obituary here: There will be a celebration of life event on Sunday that I will be fortunate to attend. Chris was, most recently, the Senior Director of Lean Strategy at KaiNexus, a company I have been involved with since 2011. Many of his colleagues will also be there to pay our respects, to honor him, and to support his loved ones. I say this with all sincerity that Chris was one of my favorite people in the Lean community. I appreciated his positive and thoughtful approach to Lean and to our work. We shared a love of discovering new Bourbons to share and discuss, which then lubricated the social fun and work discussions. Christopher Burnham Obituary --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post When you do work related to processes, quality, improvement, and learning from mistakes… the universe has ways of testing you (or playing a prank on me). As I share at the end of the post, I failed that test in one way. A big way. My wife and I had a 3-piece sectional couch that we've recently replaced, so we were looking to donate the old one to a good cause. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post This is something from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, that I shared on LinkedIn recently. Here's something I figured out thanks to education in a combination of fields, including Lean management and psychological safety. I wish I had understood this much sooner: “Speaking up isn't a matter of character or courage–it's driven by culture. People feel safe to share when their leaders and colleagues treat them with respect. Instead of asking people to be brave, leaders must create conditions where people can feel safe.” --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Visit our website: https://leanblog.org/audio --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post This post shares a story I heard at the Michigan Lean Consortium annual conference earlier this week. They've been kind about sharing ideas and doing a book club discussion around my new book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. During a book signing session at the conference, an attendee, Cori, told me a story that's too good to not pass along. I'll do my best to be true to the details of the story. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post page Below is some material that I wrote, but didn't use, in my book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. Maybe it was a mistake to cut it. But the material wasn't really related to my podcast. It was based on some interactions with some Veterans Administration Health Care leaders after giving a talk on learning from mistakes last November. What is culture? Some say it's simply how we do things in this organization. The late Edgar Schein, a famed MIT professor, wrote that we can observe and describe culture through artifacts, espoused values, and assumptions. One example of an artifact is a small card given to me by a U.S. Veterans Health Administration site leader who is building a culture of learning from mistakes.   On one side, the card said the holder was “free to fail.” The card framed a “FAIL” as the: “First Attempt In Learning.” An Artifact from a Veteran's Administration Healthcare Site --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.s

Blog post with photos and more I was saddened to learn today that Masaaki Imai passed away, as announced this week by the organization he founded, KAIZEN Institute. He was 92. Mr. Imai was well known for his books, including KAIZEN, his follow up Gemba Kaizen, and his latest, Strategic KAIZEN™ (published in 2021). He traveled the world teaching people about continuous improvement. I'd like to first express my deepest condolences to Mr. Imai's family, friends, and colleagues. I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Mr. Imai a few times -- once in Seattle when he was visiting and speaking at a healthcare organization, and twice during Japan study tours organized by Kaizen Institute. Thank you for your contributions to the world, Mr. Imai! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Read the blog post and get links My new book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, is still only in a draft state before final proofreading (actually, the proofreading is taking place now). Trying to get some proof copies printed by Amazon sure does open up the possibility of mistakenly hitting "Publish Your Paperback Book" instead of "Save as Draft." --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post link The following material was found on the “cutting room floor” for my upcoming book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. And I've supplemented it with some new material to flesh it out into a post. Come to the live book cover reveal event tomorrow (Tuesday, May 2) if you can! I've asked more than 215 people the same question (releasing 208 episodes to date): “What's your favorite mistake?“ You might wonder why I seem to be so obsessed with this question. It's not because I love embarrassing people or because I want to gloat about the mistakes of others. I ask this question to learn and improve myself as a person and leader.  The book and the podcast series are meant to be reminders that we shouldn't mock people for their mistakes. We shouldn't be too hard on ourselves, even if that's easier said than done. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Link to the blog post at Value Capture's website As we explore concepts like psychological safety and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in this blog post series, I’d like to kick things off with a look at some serious problem statements that we must address. I’m thankful for the organizations, including Value Capture clients, who aim to close these performance gaps in systematic and sustained ways. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Episode page and blog post If you're interested in my upcoming book (available June XX, date TBD), The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, the Kindle edition is available to be pre-ordered now through Amazon! The date is set as June 27th, but it will likely be available sooner. Amazon (and their KDP platform) make it easier to pull a date forward… and they punish you for pushing a date back. The book will also be available at the same time in paperback and hardcover formats. I'm going to work on an audiobook version over the summer. Amazon also makes it more difficult for me to make a paperback or hardcover book available for pre-order. But again, I think it will be on sale early- to mid-June. You can also enter this contest to win a free signed copy of the paperback edition. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post for this episode Here's another reader question, this one received from The Netherlands, a country I have loved visiting over the past eight years (see my blog posts about the country and Lean healthcare efforts there). Here is the question, in part: Your work has been an inspiration here, so I started to research the origin and dissemination of lean in healthcare in the USA. Your first book, can be considered a standard work in this field and won a number of awards. But what I couldn't found in my search, was your motivation to write it. Can you please answer that for me: what triggers made you decide to start practicing lean in healthcare? In a nutshell, here's the answer... --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post for the episode I'm happy to announce that I've finished the manuscript for my upcoming book (a real one, not an April Fool's Joke). The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation It's taken about a year from saying, “I'm going to write a book based on the My Favorite Mistake podcast” to completing the book writing. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lean-blog-audio/support

Blog post including a link to buy the book Tomorrow is the 4th anniversary of the paperback release of my book Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. Long story short, I'm running a limited-time sale to celebrate. Looking back to the release, I took an odd approach, perhaps, in that the eBook and Kindle version were available first, in August 2018, I think. I wanted to test my hypothesis about people being willing to buy the book. Once I saw eBook sales start coming in (and getting positive feedback), I made the investment in getting the paperback book created (a professional page design and layout process). By the way, the phrase “self-publishing” is a misnomer. My company is the publisher, but I didn't do it myself! For my next book, The Mistakes That Make Us, my company will be the publisher again, but the plan is to launch Kindle and paperback versions together at the same time. Probably this summer. But I need to finish the manuscript first! I'm almost there. That's m