Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

Is "Kaizen" a Slogan or a Methodology for the Seattle Mariners? Here is an interesting article that a few people pointed me toward the other day about the Seattle Mariners team: Mariners Sunday mailbag: Explaining the Japanese origin of the team's new slogan “Manager Scott Servais does have a mantra each year for the team, which is supposed to serve as a reminder of their purpose and responsibility… This year, Servais chose a Japanese word: Kaizen. An avid reader, Servais got it from a book by Masaaki Imai called Kaizen: The key to Japan's competitive success.”

Today, I'm writing about another view, from an article co-authored by our friend Dr. John Toussaint and the CEO of ZSFGH, Dr. Susan Ehrlich: Changing Leadership Behavior Gets Real Results As I blogged about yesterday, new leadership behaviors (sometimes as the result of getting a new leader) can make a huge difference for an organization — this was true during my time at General Motors and I've seen it in healthcare.

Today, I'm reading the latest issue of Health Leaders magazine (March/April 2019) whose cover features a number of stories about nursing retention. The lead article shares some data about recruitment and retention. The article says that 17% of “newly licensed RNs” leave their first nursing job “within the first year.” 33% leave within two years. Instead of blaming nurses for leaving, better organizations are looking in the mirror to see what they can do to improve the work environment. That's always been one of my primary motivations for Lean in any workplace — providing a better, more fulfilling work setting.

Here's an interesting recent article from the Wall Street Journal (you might require a subscription to read it): The Economy's Last Best Hope: Superstar Middle Managers Anemic growth, millennial malaise, you name it–blame a lack of inspiring bosses I'll comment first that organizations that have high aspirations of “Lean Transformation” need to have “transformational leaders.” Sadly, those transformational leaders seem to be few and far between. How many organizations have “bureaucrats” at the helm?

Lean Should be the Solution to Hospital Overwork or Understaffing

When I had the chance to go back to Japan last October with Honsha, there was a big focus on what the former Toyota people kept referring to as "a development company." The meaning was that Toyota (and companies with similar performance) focus first and foremost on developing people.

Value is Defined by the Customer (and not all Customers are the Same) http://www.leanblog.org/audio263 It's said in the Lean methodology that “value is defined by the customer.” Value can be defined as, in most cases, “Something the customer is willing to pay for.” In healthcare, this gets complicated when patients aren't the ones paying and when patients need care instead of wanting it.

For Big Leaps With New Year’s Resolutions, Start With Baby Steps Thanks to the Lean Enterprise Institute for publishing my article about Kaizen, new habits, and New Year's resolutions: Take Baby Steps Towards Improvement Get the link: http://www.leanblog.org/audio262

Back in 2013, I wrote a post that I published as part of the LinkedIn Influencer series: The Carrot and The Stick “On Steroids” Please check it out. I hope it makes you chuckle and think.

It's been a while since I've contributed something to the Lean Enterprise Institute's online publication, The Lean Post (see past articles). Today, they're allowing me to introduce some ideas from my book Measures of Success. Many "Lean thinkers" just haven't been exposed to these ideas. Many haven't read Deming or Wheeler... it's not their fault for not knowing of Process Behavior Charts and methods like this. But, I hope this post helps people see that "bowling charts" and "red/green" analysis are not the only way (or the best way) to look at metrics. My article: "React Less and Improve More by Using SPC More Effectively"