Lean Blog Interviews - Healthcare, Manufacturing, Business, and Leadership

My Many Mistakes Related to Today’s Lean Podcast Episodes – Yup, Plural

I'm sorry for mistakenly releasing two episodes on the same day... now three.
Blog post related to this bonus episode

What a Unicorn Knows: Authors Matt May & Pablo Dominguez Discuss Their New Book on Entrepreneurship

New book, available now!
For links, video, transcript, and more visit the episode page 
Joining us for Episode #469 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are Matt May and Pablo Dominguez, the authors of the new book What a Unicorn Knows: How Leading Entrepreneurs Use Lean Principles to Drive Sustainable Growth. It's available now!
Matt has been before, in episodes 67 and 103… and he was my guest for episode 39 of My Favorite Mistake.
Pablo Dominguez is an Operating Partner at Insight Partners, a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that drive transformative change in their industries.
Pablo has spent his entire career as a go-to-market and sales-focused operator, working in consulting, public companies, startups, and, most recently, ScaleUps. The application of lean principles has figured centrally in driving sustainable growth in each of these ventures.
Matthew E. May leads the Lean ScaleUp program at Insight Partners, with Pablo.  His mastery of lean principles and methodologies comes from spending nearly a decade inside the Toyota organization, where he played an integral part in launching the University of Toyota, a corporate university dedicated to teaching, preserving, and expanding the Toyota Way. Previously the author of many great books, including The Elegant Solution and, most recently, Winning the Brain Game.
In this episode, we discuss their new book and how they are both influenced by Toyota and broader Lean thinking, including the Lean Startup methodology — and we discuss the questions and topics listed below:
Questions, Notes, and highlights:
Pablo, since this is your first time here, it would be great to hear your “Lean origin story”
Helping people cope with the discovery of waste and opportunities to improve? Feeling bad about it before moving forward?
Congratulations on the release of the book… in startup circles, what's meant by the term “Unicorn”?
What's a ScaleUp compared to a startup?
What is product-market fit? An example?
Risk of trying to scale prematurely?
One of the core themes in your model is “Constant experimentation” 
Investors – do they want to hear about “constant experimentation”? Do they want certainty?
How to prevent Big Company Syndrome (a.k.a., Big Company Disease)?
What is meant by “Lean ScaleUp”?
How do you react when you hear this aversion to “process” in agile or startup circles, as if process means being inflexible?
What's a “lean kaizen sprint”?
Applying this to the sales process?
Lessons Toyota about “building team spirit”?
Building teamwork across silos?
The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in its 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. 

Jody Crane, MD: Lean in Emergency Medicine and Hospitals; 3 Big Issues Causing Tough Times in Healthcare

Chief Medical Officer of TeamHealth 
Episode page with video, transcript, and more
Joining us for Episode #468 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jody Crane, M.D. He's the Chief Medical Officer for TeamHealth, and he was previously a guest for Episode 120.
As a proven leader, Dr. Jody Crane, M.D. is considered one of the leading experts in emergency department operations in the United States. Dr. Crane has taught and led healthcare and emergency department improvement efforts with hundreds of organizations in a wide variety of settings on six continents. In this role, he supports clinical quality and safety and performance improvement initiatives for all clinical service lines.
We're talking today because he's a keynote speaker at the upcoming Healthcare Systems Process Improvement conference, which is brought to us by the Society for Health Systems. I'm a member, and I'll be there at the event this year as usual, February 15 to 17 in Louisville, Kentucky. See Jody's full bio and more about his keynote talk.
His book, co-authored with Chuck Noon is The Definitive Guide to Emergency Department Operational Improvement: Employing Lean Principles with Current ED Best Practices to Create the “No Wait” Department.
Questions, Notes, and highlights:
First off, give us a bit of a preview of the core messages for your keynote talk…
It's a tough time in healthcare — three big issues
The impact of pay, culture, and working conditions?
Moral Injury vs. Burnout?
Fixing an imperfect system — broader value stream issues that aren't in our control?
Transitions between facilities and communication across shift handoffs – process improvement opportunities?
Helping people see improvement opportunity vs. “this is just the way it's meant to be”
Framing the problem as “not enough nurses” or “too much waste”?
The impact of Lean? The untapped potential of Lean?
Two questions for executives – Have you heard of Lean? Have you been part of a Kaizen Event?
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. 
 

Unlocking the Power of Kata: Tracy Defoe on Adult Learning, Coaching, and Asking Questions

Coach at www.TheLearningFactor.ca
Joining us for Episode #467 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Tracy Defoe.
She is an adult education consultant and researcher specializing in workplace education. For parts of the last 10 years, she has been puzzling over the challenges of participation and leadership in continuous improvement.  
She has taught communication, writing, teamwork, and cross-cultural communication as well as teaching methods to adults in colleges, universities, and the workplace. A regular consultant to business, labour, and government, Tracy is also an advocate for plain language and clear design.
Questions, Notes, and highlights:
Her website
Your origin story for C.I., Lean, Kata…?
How to navigate the distribution of varied mix-level knowledge / experience in a room when it's not 1×1?
How much can somebody absorb at once when learning?
“I don't know Yeti” – the mascot for Kata School Cascadia
The benefit of making learning fun?
Starter Kata questions – when is it OK to move beyond the rigid starter questions?
Teaching and coaching through questions
Being a 2nd coach? Mentor for the coach
Difficult to not jump in with advice when you DO know the process — for kata coaching?
Intervening vs. allowing them to make the mistake?
Being heard vs. feeling heard
The power of plain language… as opposed to jargon? What example comes to mind? Kata / Kaizen?
“Problem solving” sounds too definitive
Kaizen Events off track… Kata goes off track how?
Having a “third coach”?
Tell us about Kata Girl Geeks
Master Class with Tracy and Tilo Schwarz
Time in the coaching dojo and how you learn every time?
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. 

Billy Taylor Discusses His New Book, ”The Winning Link”

Episode page with video, transcript and more
My guest for Episode #466 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is a returning guest, Billy Taylor. Since his last appearance, Billy has written and released a great book titled The Winning Link: A Proven Process to Define, Align, and Execute Strategy at Every Level.
Billy had a long career at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, where he served as plant director for both union and non-union facilities, leading lean transformations in Goodyear's largest and most complex tire-producing sites. Billy more recently founded his firm LinkedXL, where he is CEO.
He was previously a guest in Episodes 293 and 298, back in 2017. He was also a guest on Episode 5 of “My Favorite Mistake.”
Questions, Notes, and highlights:
Before we talk about your book, what stood out to you most at the AME conference this year?
How to understand the level of trust? How do build it??
“Coaching leaders on how to show up”
Productive huddles – Key Performance Actions (KPA)
What is “title-itis”?
Best people… best processes
Defining winning — why is that a challenge for some organizations? Lack of agreement on what winning means?
Purpose mapping – agreeing on this first?
Developing your strategy — how do we know if a strategy is the “right” strategy?? Truly differentiating??
What's your CPI – critical performance indicator? 
“Have you defined what winning means to you?”
SOAP – Strategy on a Page
Aligning to win — As you write — Making jobs better not making jobs go away?
“America… not a hiring problem… a retention problem”
Psychological Safety
“Covid changed the way we do business”
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. 

Tom Peters on His Compact Guide to Excellence – New Book

Episode page with transcript, video, and more
My guest for Episode #465 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is the legendary (my word, not his) author, consultant, and speaker — Tom Peters. His new book is Tom Peters's Compact Guide to Excellence.
Click here to enter to win a paperback copy (through December 20).
He was previously a guest in Episode 382 of this podcast and My Favorite Mistake Episode 58. See previous blog posts about Tom and his ideas.
Today, Tom and I talk about some core concepts from his book, but we also weave through many topics including leadership that demonstrates “extreme humanism” (and leaders who do not, such as Elon Musk). As always, it's a fun, free-wheeling, and thought-provoking conversation when Tom is involved.
Note: Tom says he swears like a sailor… there are a few occasional mild curse words, so please be warned about that.
Questions, Notes, and highlights:
The moral bankruptcy of “maximizing shareholder value” — are we really moving away from that? Getting lip service from the Conference Board and others?
“People got ‘the brand called you' all wrong — it's not about self-marketing”
“Being good is good business. When you take the high moral ground it is difficult for anyone to object without sounding like a complete fool.”
Caring about people… Reminds me of Paul O'Neill saying nobody should ever get hurt at work (Alcoa) — “habitual excellence“
The HP Way – Management By Wandering Around (MBWA) is an “intimate act”
Following up on our Aug 2020 discussion about leading during Covid… how is MBZA (management by zooming around) working out?
You've been very active on Twitter — still there? Should we still be using Twitter, even the free service?
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. 
 

Katie Anderson Discusses Larry Culp’s AME Keynote and Their Fireside Chat

Katie Anderson, her 6th appearance
Episode page with video, photos, transcript, and more
My guest for Episode #464 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Katie Anderson, who is, among other things, the author of the book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.
She has previously been a guest here in Episodes 233, 275, 302, 326, and 425. Katie has also been a guest twice on “My Favorite Mistake” — once with Isao Yoshino and once on her own.
Today, Katie and I talk about the recent AME annual conference that was held in Dallas. We both heard Larry Culp, CEO of General Electric (and GE Aviation) speak for 15 minutes, and we discuss that here today. We also recap highlights from (and our reflections about) the fireside chat that Katie had with Larry on stage.
Notes and highlights:
Listen to Katie on the internal GE podcast (named “Andon That Note”) she mentions in this episode
Discussing the panel discussion that I moderated with Deondra Wardelle and Amy Gowder
Gary Michel, another great CEO speaker at the event
Larry: “This is how we manage” (Lean)
Going to the gemba? Why? Process and people
Top down and bottom up – operationalizing Hoshin Kanri
Learning from mistakes, how a leader reacts to bad news
From telling to asking questions – breaking the telling habit
Having a coach as CEO… why Larry thinks that's so important
Larry: “You don't go to HBS to learn how to ask questions”
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. 

Jim Benson on The Collaboration Equation, His New Book

Episode page with transcript, video, and more
My guest for Episode #463 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jim Benson, the CEO of Modus Cooperandi, and co-founder of Modus Institute.
He was previously a guest on Episodes 155 and 401. He was also a guest on Lean Whiskey #25 with me and Jamie Flinchbaugh (and #31), and was guest #4 on My Favorite Mistake.
A pioneer in applying Lean and Kanban to knowledge
work, Jim is the creator of Personal Kanban and is co-author of Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life, winner of the Shingo Research and Publication Award. His other books include Why Plans Fail, Why Limit WIP, and Beyond Agile.
His latest book is The Collaboration Equation: Strong Professionals, Strong Teams, Strong Delivery.
Today, we discuss topics and questions including:
How do you define collaboration? 
As an angry punk rocker? Parallels to startup software companies??
The balance between “every building/patient is unique “vs. having knowledge/structure/process??
Standard work for encountering complexity
When a major problem gets solved and nobody ends up in tears – From lawsuits, yelling, and strife — to collaborative problem solving? How?
Culture as it exists… culture as we are creating…??
Team deciding the culture vs. the CEO or leader having a vision of what the culture should be?
What the CEO says vs. what is the reality?
Value Stream Mapping as a “ruse”… a way to uncover team breakdown problems
Flapping our mouths vs. information about what's really happening??
Get comfortable with change happening every day
Be hard on the process, not the people? But the system is made of people…
The FEELING of being respected
Fear as a cause of problems — “Every real collaboration has psychological safety”
What have you learned about PS, how to gauge it, and how to create it?
“You can't go buy a box of psychological safety”
An NBA superteam… how would YOU lead them?
Getting over your damn self
The power of team members who are more likely to talk about others than themselves
“Do you feel heard…” — or are you actually heard?
What readers would get the most out of this book?
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. 

Professor John Grout, a Deep Dive on Mistake Proofing and Lean

Expert on mistakes and mistake proofing, professor and former business school dean
Episode page with video, transcript, and more: https://leanblog.org/462 
My guest for Episode #462 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Professor John Grout the former dean of the Campbell School of Business at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. 
He was recently a guest on “My Favorite Mistake” — Episode 186, so I encourage you to check that out.
He's the current Chair of the Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Data Analytics Department and the David C. Garrett Jr. Professor of Business Administration. John has overseen the development, approval and implementation of Berry College's Creative Technologies program and Berry's makerspace, HackBerry Lab. 
Dr. Grout has researched mistake-proofing extensively and published numerous articles on mistake-proofing. In 2004, John received the Shingo Prize for his paper, “The Human Side of Mistake-Proofing” with Douglas Stewart. John has also consulted with a large variety of firms to mistake-proof their processes.
He's also published “Mistake-Proofing the Design of Health Care Processes” a book that's freely available online.
His Website: https://mistakeproofing.com/
Today, we discuss topics and questions including:
Your origin story – how did you first get introduced to TPS, Lean, etc? Context of discovering mistake proofing?
Shingo's book on Poka Yoke
“Shingo was not kind to Statistical Quality Control”… use SQC and/or mistake proofing?
Acceptance sampling… keeps bad product out… maybe?
Field goals — Conformity to specs vs. closer to center?
Successive checks and self checks
Source inspections – Shingo's gold standard
Why should you react when a part's out of control but still in spec??
Do you HAVE to stop the line? Don't be dogmatic??
Statistics don't do well with rare events
Do we have data on how universal the “universal protocol” is?
Doctor signing vs. you signing the surgical site?
ZERO – “the only way to go” in terms of goals
The goal of “zero defects” can be controversial.. is it possible? Motivating? Demoralizing?
Possible research – optimal time to stop doing final inspection??
Why is it easier to error proof now? Technology
“People don't like to own up to mistakes”
Naida Grunden episode on aviation safety
Can't error proof everything??
Preventing execution errors is easier than preventing decision errors
The balance and benefits of examples to copy vs. developing thinking?? “Catalog or catalyst”?? BOTH
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. 

Gauthier Duval on Kaizen Events, Organizational Development, and ”Veryable” Labor

Video, transcript, and more: https://leanblog.org/461 
My guest for Episode #461 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Gauthier Duval, the Director of the Lean Center of Excellence at Veryable.
He's applied and taught Lean for over 18 years, including time with Freudenberg-NOK (an auto supplier featured in the book Lean Thinking), Simpler Consulting, and other manufacturing companies in the U.S. and Europe.
Today, we discuss topics and questions including:
Your Lean origin story?
The next steps in your career and learning??
Freudenberg-NOK — 2004 — Growtth Consulting spinoff
Working with Lean – Europe vs. US?
Simpler – worked with Chris Cooper – Episode #129
Your view on the role of what's often called “kaizens” (kaizen events) vs. ongoing daily kaizen improvement?
Multi-day events vs. small discontinuous improvements?
How should people be participating?
The role of the senior leader?
Kicking a company president out of a Kaizen Event??
Lessons you've learned on the psychology of change?
Organizational behavior and organizational development? — how do you define that? 
What makes an organization a “learning organization?”
Chris Argyris — why should more Lean people be reading his work?
Tell us about Veryable – the company, the problems you solve and how it works…
How to expand “JIT” beyond just materials?
Variable labor in a “lean mindset” way — including “respect for people”??
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.