Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond

Crystal Y. Davis, Karyn Ross, Dorsey Sherman Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/411 My guests for Episode #411 are the co-founders or "founding mothers" of the group called "Women In Lean: Our Table." They are Crystal Davis, Karyn Ross, and Dorsey Sherman. Crystal was my guest back in episode 363 and Karyn was my guest in episode 266. Dorsey, welcome as a first-time guest! All three of them were part of this panel discussion webinar that I moderated last year. Crystal's company is The Lean Coach, Inc., Karyn's is Karyn Ross Consulting, and Dorsey's is Modele Consulting. Topics and questions in today's episode (and related links): How did the Women in Lean group get started, and why? Why do they (and many women) feel like they don't have "a seat at the table"? Why can "creating your own table" be helpful? How can women get involved? What can we do about the lack of equal representation on stage at Lean conferences? How can men be better allies for women in the Lean community? The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Senior Manager, Lucid - Formerly Toyota & Tesla Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/410 My guest for Episode #410 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast is Keith Champion, Senior Manager ofOperational Excellence at Lucid Motors, a new entrant in the electric vehicle marketplace, with their Lucid Air luxury sedan hitting the market very soon. Keith worked for Toyota for more than 17 years (thanks to fellow Toyota alum and previous podcast guest Tim Turner for making the connection). As Keith talks about in the episode, he started as a Team Member at Toyota Georgetown, progressing his career to Team Leader, Group Leader, and other roles. He then spent nine years working for Tesla Motors. Keith then joined Lucid in 2019 -- BTW, the CEO of Lucid, Peter Rawlinson, was previously Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S. Topics and questions in today's episode (and related links): What's your Lean / TPS origin story? It sort of starts before Toyota What happens when you "pull the andon cord" at Toyota? How is Lucid trying to build the culture right the first time? What is the leadership team like at Lucid? Is there a management "philosophy" as Toyota might talk about? What are the core values of Lucid Motors? What's the biggest operations (and supply chain) challenge related to starting a new factory in Arizona? How do you build for scalability? How important is it to have "built in quality" for a luxury vehicle (or any car)? What is an empowering continuous improvement program? Not just suggestions, but implement... What are the five key goals and metrics that are used throughout the factory? Lucid article (and video) about General Assembly A look at the paint shop The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more.   This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.   

40 years with Toyota, founder and the first president of Toyota China. Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/409 My guest for Episode #409 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast is Ritsuo Shingo. I first met Mr. Shingo at the Shingo Institute Annual Conference in 2009 when my book Lean Hospitals received the publication prize that's named after his father, Shigeo Shingo. I was also blessed to have time to speak 1x1 with Mr. Shingo, thanks to our mutual friend, the late Norman Bodek, which included discussions about the need for mistake proofing in healthcare -- very vivid memories for me. Ritsuo Shingo is an expert in leadership with more than 40 years of experience serving at top management positions at Toyota.  He was the founder and the first president of Toyota China. Under his leadership, Toyota China became one of the most successful ventures of Toyota worldwide. Following this success, he was appointed as the president of Hino Motors and then served as the president of GAC-Hino until 2009. Shingo was the translator of the first book on Toyota Production System in English written by his father, TPS pioneer, Shigeo Shingo in 1976.  He applied his father's and other TPS pioneers' teachings into his management practices. Today he dedicates his time to coaching high-level executives as well as teaching the next generation of leaders his learnings from the practice of Toyota style management. He is teaching a virtual master class in leadership and management, which starts this Thursday: Practical Leadership Skills – Microcertification program in Management There will be a discount available for listeners of this podcast - use code 8QQV4AWY0VDF and tell them you heard about it via the Lean Blog Podcast. Disclosure: the NK Institute for Human Advancement offered me a free virtual seat in the workshop. Topics and questions in today's episode include: What was the most important thing you learn from your father? What do you remember about translating the green book? Big misunderstanding… in the West, they thought suppliers should keep big inventory even though Toyota had none Just in time requires local suppliers, frequent deliveries, and high quality You need close relationships with suppliers, win/win collaboration How do you explain TPS? “An accumulation of small improvements” “Wherever you go, workers are not the problem” “It's a management problem, but sometimes they blame workers” He told a plant manager he was “escaping from his responsibility” What is the origin of the term SMED – Single Minute Exchange of Die? What are the golf origins? Should it have been called SDED – Single Digit Exchange of Die, since it means “single digit minutes” not “one minute”? “It's too late” You define TPS as “organisational fitness to adapt” rather than a set of methodologies — what do you mean by that? Please tell us more… “Nobody ever told me what Toyota culture was” — the culture is the people Is a fully automated plant the best plant? No How has Toyota fared so well during the pandemic? Helping the supplier reduce costs together, versus just demanding a lower price (Nissan, Tesla, etc.) Favorite memories of our friend Norman Bodek? Tell us more about the workshop The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Author of new book, trainer, consultant My guest for Episode #408 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast is Katie Labedz, the author of the new book How to Improve Absolutely Anything: Continuous Improvement in Your Home, Office and Family Life. Katie Labedz is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with over 20 years of experience implementing continuous improvement solutions within non-manufacturing and manufacturing environments.  Her company is Learning to Lean. Katie also has her Master's certification in instructional design, her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification through PMI and is a certified instructor/facilitator through Langevin. Topics and questions in today's episode include: What's your Lean origin story? What did you learn moving from IT to manufacturing to working with Lean in office settings? How is Lean different with “carpet walkers”? How do you define “continuous improvement”? When do you need to take a break from improvement to stabilize things? Lessons from working on virtual improvement this year? Why write the book? Favorite practical tips and tricks (Lean methods at home) from the book? Lessons about motivations and “resistance to change”? The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/407 My guest for Episode #407 is Joy Mason, a Strategist, Author, Speaker, and Entrepreneur based in Indianapolis. He is President and Senior Business Strategist at her company, Optimist Business Solutions, that she started after 18 years at Eli Lilly. She is the author of the book The Optimist Workbook: 5 Steps to Sustainable Solutions for Women In Business and also Purpose: A Shift from Driving It to Embracing It. Topics and questions in today's episode include: How Joy got started with continuous improvement Being introduced to Six Sigma first… then Lean tools… then looking beyond the tools How did “scientific problem solving” resonate with scientists (and others) at Eli Lilly? How can you “break down silos” (or is it better to “work across silos”)? “Lean before layoffs” or “Lean instead of layoffs”? What does being an optimist mean to Joy and why is that important? Joy talks about the work she does now, in particular with non-profits The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.     

Veterinarian & Entrepreneur, Ivan Zakharenkov, DVM My guest for Episode #406 is Dr. Ivan Zakharenkov, he's a doctor of veterinary medicine and he's Chief Executive Officer at the company Veterinary Integration Solutions. He goes by Dr. Zak for short and he's based in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. I'm joined, as my co-host, by Chip Ponsford, DVM — he was also co-host of Episode #254 with a veterinarian as our guest then, as well. Chip also has a blog called Lean Vets and a book titled Lean Veterinary Practice Management. Today, we all talk about the important issue of burnout — Ivan wrote a whitepaper on the subject and you can download that as a PDF: “Lean Thinking in Veterinary Organizations to Improve Employee Experience.” He also wrote an MBA dissertation of the same name. In that research, he considered a correlation between human and animal healthcare and proposed that lean thinking can help reduce burnout. This is a topic that we've explored twice on the podcast with Dr. Paul DeChant, looking at it in the realm of “human healthcare.” I agree that Lean can be part of the solution, in these settings and elsewhere!! Topics and questions include: Tell us about your background as a veterinarian and entrepreneur How did you get introduced to Lean? The Goal by Eli Goldratt John Toussaint, MD and the Catalysis Summit How bad is the burnout problem? Is it worse for women? Female vets 3.5x rate in society, male vets it's 2.5x Spectrum of burnout? What is compassion fatigue vs. burnout? “Compassion fatigue goes away on vacation, burnout is deeper” What other conclusions did you draw from your dissertation? What are the six triggers of burnout? How does Lean address burnout? Lean as a technical and social system?

I interviewed Adam a year ago... and his concept (The Wheel of Sustainability) is now a book! Check out the original episode and enter to win here: https://www.leanblog.org/2020/03/podcast-362-adam-lawrence-on-kaizen-events-the-wheel-of-sustainability/

CEO at DeondraWardelle.com, Co-host of "KataCon7" For show notes and discount codes for KataCon7 and for Deondra's workshop, go to http://leanblog.org/405 or scroll down. My guest for Episode #405 is Deondra Wardelle, CEO of her own company and one of the hosts of next week's virtual KataCon7 event. She is, among other things, a Visionary, Coach, Strategist, Speaker, Consultant, Kata Geek, Leader of the #RootCauseRacism Movement. Her mission is developing a world of problem-solvers. You can register for 10% off of KataCon7 by using code LF10 (thanks to Lean Frontiers for that code). Deondra is also doing a Strategic Vision Board Workshop on Saturday and you can register with a 20% discount by using code LEANBLOG. In today's episode, Deondra shares how and why she became a “Kata Geek” and how that built upon her continuous improvement foundations from her time in manufacturing. We'll talk about the similarities with Lean across industries (“it's always going back to the people”) and what “Respect for People” means to her. Deondra shares stories about how Kata helped her become a better manager — less of a micromanager. We also discuss communities including Lean Communicators and Women in Lean. All of that — and more — in this episode… released early because of the timing with these two events — KataCon7 and Deondra's workshop. The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more.  

Senior Director, Enterprise Continuous Improvement at Cleveland Clinic Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/404 My guest for Episode #404 is Nate Hurle, a Senior Director of Enterprise Continuous Improvement at Cleveland Clinic. He was previously a guest on Episode 282. He was also recently a virtual keynote speaker for the Society for Health Systems annual conference. Today, Nate shares stories and reflections from the past year — the pandemic year — and how Cleveland Clinic quickly stood up drive-thru testing, how they built a 1000-bed hospital (that thankfully wasn't needed), and how they've been ramping up Covid vaccination. What happened when Nate got a surprise phone call about the need for testing to be up and running “in a few days.” Why was the approach of “get it up and running… then make it better” a useful one and how were mockups and other methods used to put safety first, given the cars and people on foot. How did they utilize effective standardized work and training methods, huddles, and continuous improvement methods? Why was the question of “What's the most important problem to solve?” such a useful one? How are they balancing the need for higher throughput with having a patient experience that's not too rushed? How did Cleveland Clinic get so much done in such a short period of time, and what were the lessons learned that could be applied in more normal times? Why is Cleveland Clinic now looking to continuously improve (again) their Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model? We also chat a bit about their adoption of “Process Behavior Charts” (as I have written about) and we'll talk about that more in a future episode. Thanks for listening! Please subscribe (or follow), rate, and review!

Show notes: https://leanblog.org/403 My guest for Episode #403 is Arnout Orelio, author of the book Lean Thinking for Emerging Healthcare Leaders: How to Develop Yourself and Implement Process Improvements. Arnout is from the Netherlands, but we have crossed paths a number of times when he and many of his Dutch colleagues have come to the U.S. for events like the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, produced by Catalysis. His book, written in English, has a lot of great lessons for leaders and Lean practitioners in American healthcare and beyond. He has also written two books in Dutch. Arnout and I have strikingly similar professional backgrounds and paths, which we discuss in the episode. We are both engineers who progressed from the automotive industry into healthcare. We talk about how he shifted into healthcare (in 2005, same year as me) and how this experience has reinforced that: “Leadership is not a person, it’s a process. Everyone can be a leader if you want to change something.” We talk about the differences in the Dutch healthcare system, at a high level, and the similarities in how Lean can be applied. We also discuss topics near and dear to my heart: Why Lean should keep employees (and patients) happy Process Behavior Charts Training Within Industry / Job Instruction Eliminating overburden for healthcare staff (see the first bullet point) The relevance of TWI to Covid vaccination Here are his website and his publisher's websites, so please take a look. The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.