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

http://leanblog.org/audio68 Before I head out on vacation, here is a reader question that I am sharing for your input.I'm sharing this with permission and I'm obscuring a few details at their request.Please read and leave a comment below the post. My approval of comments might be a bit slow after Tuesday evening as I start to travel. The Question: I thought I'd get in touch. I have genuinely listened to every podcast you have on your site. They're brilliant, and I'm very grateful for the time you put into making them. I'm getting in touch because I'm faced with a question I've never heard tackled anywhere. As the most accessible lean expert I know of, I thought I'd come to you.

http://leanblog.org/audio67 My wife and I are getting ready to leave tomorrow night for a two week vacation, so it jogged my memory about this story I saw back in December in the WSJ: Airlines Try to Make Coach Classier. Anything that makes long flights more bearable is good news to me.One detail that caught my attention in the WSJ article was this: "Etihad is rolling out new economy features taken from business and first class. There's nighttime turndown service--flight attendants put the window shade down, put a blanket over the passenger and offer hot chocolate or camomile tea. There's a new coach amenity kit coming, with a sleep mask that's green on one side if you want someone to wake you up for breakfast and red on the other if you want to sleep as long as possible. The amenity kit doubles as a storage pouch for eyeglasses and stray pocket items you don't want to sleep on."

http://leanblog.org/audio66 I'm a big nerd in that I love reading newspapers basically cover to cover. I'm a nerd in many ways, I guess. You don't have to be a survey nerd to take my short reader survey (and you might win a book!).I was a pretty unusual child, reading the entire Detroit Free Press every morning before school. I was a news nerd then. I wanted to be a sportswriter, since the father of one of my best friends from elementary school got to travel with the Detroit Tigers as a "beat writer." I am still a pretty big consumer of newspapers, often in print form (although I read the WSJ on my iPad). Recently, I was perusing the San Antonio paper (cover to cover) and even glanced at the "Hints from Heloise" column that was traditionally aimed at housewives (that seems like an outdated sexist way of saying it, but that's the history of the column).

http://leanblog.org/audio65 The Wall St Journal loves writing about how "Just In Time" (JIT) is a risky inventory strategy. See my past posts about how the WSJ is so often wrong on this.The WSJ seem to only understand Lean as JIT, as opposed to seeing Lean as a broader methodology and management system. JIT is just one component of the Toyota Production System (built-in quality being the other). See Toyota's website for info straight from the source. Whenever there is a highly unusual event, like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the WSJ will say "see, just in time doesn't work." Well, keeping a lot of inventory stored in a warehouse isn't a good strategy if an earthquake or tornado hits the warehouse. The Stanley Cup Was Late! Even though I'm a Detroit Red Wings fan,I can say congrats to the Chicago Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup Finals in the NHL. Chicago was ahead in the series meaning they were in a position to put the series away last Monday night, playing at home.

http://leanblog.org/audio64 When I teach about Kaizen and continuous improvement, I try to use scenarios and cases to help people think through how they would respond to, coach, and collaborate on employee ideas.One key point is that leaders have to thank employees for pointing out problems or opportunities for improvement. They need to do so even if they think the idea or proposed solution isn't ideal or might not work. Here is a "Kaizen card" that I usually show in my training and coaching sessions, areal scenario:

http://leanblog.org/audio63 I've been intrigued by the "Lean Startup" movement since I first saw Eric Ries speak at MIT back in late 2009. I've read his book The Lean Startup, have attended a bunch of the conferences (speaking at two of them - see video of one). I've interviewed Eric on my podcast series (listen here and here).There's a lot to learn and apply in life and at KaiNexus. I'm by no means an expert in Lean Startup approaches... but at the core, Lean is Lean. Eric gives credit to Taiichi Ohno in his book (and listen to us discuss that here). I'm excited to have been named a "faculty member" to help plan thisyear's Lean Startup Conference, to be held in San Francisco this November. My role is to help identify and recruit speakers to talk about "traditional Lean" -- the universal Lean philosophies and management practices that apply in factories, healthcare, startups, etc. Sort of like what John Shook talked about last year. So, I hope to see you there!

http://leanblog.org/audio62 Last week was an amazing week of learning and networking. I was in Dallas for the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit (as I wrote about). As I mentioned yesterday, it was also my wife's five year reunion from her MIT master's program. As I also mentioned, I nerded out and sat in on a number of lectures that were part of the weekend.I'll also blog later about Steve Spear's lecture (you likely know him from the Lean community), but I also really enjoyed a lecture by MIT professor Zeynep Ton, from the Sloan School of Management (she's formerly of HBS... and also an industrial engineer, like me). Prof. Ton gave an engaging lecture on her book The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits. I had heard of the book but hadn't yet gotten to the Kindle sample that I downloaded, yet alone the full book. The Kindle version is only $5.99, by the way, or it's free if you have a "Kindle Unlimited" membership. I've finally read the book and I highly recommend it.

http://leanblog.org/audio61 My wife and I were in Boston over the weekend, as it was her fifth reunion from her MIT master’s program. I’m also an alum, but was considered a “guest” since I graduated 16 years ago from my program and you don’t have to have an MIT degree to know 16 divided by 5 is not an integer. Being MIT, the reunion wasn’t just about parties (and it’s not a homecoming weekend with a football game, as my Northwestern 20th reunion will be this fall). The reunion was also full of lectures by alumni and notable faculty. I’ll be blogging soon about lectures by MIT Sloan professors Steve Spear (check out my podcasts with him) and Zeynep Ton (I’m reading her book The Good Jobs Strategy now and hope she’ll be a podcast guest too). A few things caught my eye on the Boston Herald and Boston Globe on Saturday.

At this year's Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit (see my summary here) Dr. John Toussaint talked about and introduced his newly released book Management on the Mend, a follow up to 2010's On the Mend. Summit attendees received a copy of the book, so they're the first to have a chance to read this important work.

In American healthcare, there's a growing gap between hospitals and clinics that are being innovative and those who are stuck in the "way it's always been done" mode. For example, innovative primary care clinics are using a combination of better processes and better technology to deliver a patient experience that I wish I could experience.