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

Dr. Fred Southwick, Teaching Quality, Patient Safety & Lean

http://www.leanblog.org/352
 
Joining me for Episode #352 of the podcast is Frederick Southwick, M.D. He is a Professor of Medicine and is also Director of Patient Care Quality and Safety in the Division of Hospitalist Medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
 
Fred is the author of many books including Critically Ill: A 5-Point Plan to Cure Healthcare Delivery. In the podcast, Fred will talk about why he shifted from infectious diseases to focusing on hospital medicine and healthcare improvement. This was driven partially by two very personal episodes with problems in the healthcare system that his then-wife and he both suffered from. Fred was appointed as a Harvard University Advanced Leadership fellow, where he studied business and public health.
 
Fred was exposed to Lean through MIT Prof. Steven Spear and they have published an article together, where they call for "all academic physicians caring for patients to focus on systems and quality improvement." In the episode, Fred reflects on how he personally shifted from blaming doctors to looking at systems as the primary driver of quality and safety problems.
 
He also teaches Lean to medical students and has two public classes on "Fixing Healthcare" (including one with a deeper focus on Lean) through Coursera.
 
I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
 

Joel Tosi and Dion Stewart, "Creating Your Dojo"

http://www.leanblog.org/351 
Joining me for Episode #351 of the podcast are my friends Joel Tosi and Dion Stewart, co-founders of the company Dojo & Co.
They're the authors of the new book (to be released on November 19) called Creating Your Dojo: Upskill Your Organization for Digital Evolution. 
A "dojo" is a learning environment -- whether that's for the martial arts or if it's a "safety dojo" in a Toyota factory. Today, we talk about what it means to create an "immersive learning environment" in a workplace, such as a software company or a product development group within a larger company -- the goal is more effective learning, progress, and adoption of new methods or products. It's interesting to think about how one might use a "dojo" in the context of Lean design or improvement efforts in a hopsital or other settings. 
Joel, Dion, and I have collaborated before on a few events, including our Learning Symposium where we visited Toyota and Garrison Brothers Distillery last year.
 

Tim Turner - Building Lexus, Leaving Toyota, and Helping Elsewhere

http://www.leanblog.org/350 
Our guest today is Tim Turner, who joined us previously in 2010 for episode #90. Tim was the lead author for a book called One Team on All Levels that was about the Toyota plant and its people in Kentucky. Tim was involved in the ramp up of Kentucky Lexus production and then left Toyota after 22 years. He was at another manufacturing company and now works as a consultant, so it's interesting to hear about all of those different experiences. 

The Facade of Excellence: John Dyer on Fear-Based Leadership

http://www.leanblog.org/349 -- show notes
My guest for episode #349 is John Dyer, president of his consulting firm, John Dyer & Associates, Inc., and author of the new book, The Façade of Excellence: Defining a New Normal of Leadership, which will be released on October 1, 2019.
 
John has been a guest previously in episodes #229 and #280, talking about Dr. W. Edwards Deming, "The Red Bead Experiment," and more.
 
Today, we talk about the book, how to find out of there is a "facade" of excellence, and why "fear makes good people do stupid things," as John says. What's a façade? "A false appearance that makes someone or something seem more pleasant or better than they really are."
 

Cinnamon Dixon, Tiered Huddles at Cleveland Clinic

http://www.leanblog.org/348
 
Our guest today for Episode 348 is Cinnamon Dixon, Director Of Continuous Improvement at Cleveland Clinic. I interviewed her for the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast series and I'm cross posting that interview here to give it more exposure.
 
Our KaiNexus team members who were at the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in June were really impressed with Cinnamon's presentation on their "tiered huddle" process that's part of their Lean methodology. So, we asked her to do the podcast.
 
You can a full transcript via the KaiNexus blog.
 
I recently had a chance to visit Cleveland Clinic and I spent the morning observing their tiered huddles, so I'll be writing a blog post about that soon. Thanks to Cinnamon and Cleveland Clinic for being so willing to share!
 

Brad Parsons, Hospital CEO & Co-Author of "Creating an Effective Management System"

http://www.leanblog.org/347
 
Our guest today for Episode 347 is Brad Parsons, the CEO of NEA Baptist, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. NEA Baptist is a 228-bed hospital and 140-provider medical group serving northeast Arkansas -- part of Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation.
 
Brad is also the co-author of the new book Creating an Effective Management System: Integrating Policy Deployment, TWI, and Kata. His co-authors have been guests on the podcast before -- Patrick Graupp and Skip Steward.
 
In this episode, we'll talk about core themes from the book, including his role as the leader of their transformational efforts to implement and continue improving an effective management system -- something that's important for so many reasons. We'll also talk about "Process Behavior Charts" and his experience with Don Wheeler.
 

Mark Ryan, Transformation, Kaizen, and Management at Franciscan St. Francis Health

 
http://www.leanblog.org/346 
 
Joining me for Episode 346 of the podcast is Mark Ryan, a Transformation Coach and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at Franciscan Health.
 
Mark will be one of the hosts and facilitators at our upcoming "Kaizen Live!" site visit event at Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis. Only two spots remain, so register today if you'd like to join us.
 
As we talk about in the episode, Franciscan does much more than daily Kaizen. They've built upon that foundation of staff engagement to add other Lean practices -- under the banner of what they call "Managing for Daily Improvement," or MDI. They use "strategy deployment" and other methods to align the organization in their goals and improvement efforts.
 
I hope you enjoy the discussion, whether you are joining us in Indianapolis or not.
 

Edward Niedermeyer on "Ludicrous" Stories About Tesla & Toyota

 http://www.leanblog.org/345 

David B. Reid, P.E., Lean & Kaizen at Chick-fil-A *

http://www.leanblog.org/344
Remastered audio June 2021
Joining me for Episode #344 is David Reid, a mechanical engineer whose career has taken him from improvement work at Michelin Tire, to being a pastor, to now helping the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain improve through Lean and Kaizen practices and mindsets.
I was really excited to see the cover story that was in the May 2019 issue of ISE Magazine (Industrial & Systems Engineering). The headline inside reads, “From lean modules to a lean mindset — Chick-fil-A's success shows how leveraging your greatest asset speeds up cultural change.”
In this episode, I get to ask David about some of the drivers for Lean at Chick-fil-A, which is already a high-growth company with many happy customers and employees.
How do they influence the owner/operators of stores to embrace Lean and to engage every employee in continuous improvement? Why did they learn that a top-down engineering-driven model couldn't possibly drive enough improvement? How does a Facebook page enter the equation for employees (and note that using Facebook was an employee idea) instead of “building an app.”
There are many great “nuggets” of wisdom here from David, pun absolutely intended. I hope you enjoy the episode!

Amanda Mewborn, Combining Engineering and Nursing

My guest for Episode #343 of the podcast is Amanda Mewborn, an executive director of project management for Piedmont Health.
I've known Amanda through the Society for Health Systems and she's one of the very small number of people I know with both engineering and nursing degrees. She has a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering and an M.S. in Health Systems from Georgia Tech and a B.S. in nursing from Georgia State University.
So, in today's episode, we talk about that interesting combination of skill sets and why she got a nursing degree. We also chat about her career in healthcare, along with some of the facility design and construction work she has been involved with. We also hear her thoughts on why it's important to have the engagement and involvement of front-line staff (and patients) in the design process.