Lean Blog Audio — The Toyota Andon System in South Africa: Two Buttons Instead of a Cord
In this episode, I read my recent post about a visit to Toyota’s plant in Durban, South Africa, before I spoke at the KZN Lean Conference. I asked to see …
Lean Blog Audio — Fear-Based Leadership Worked at Volkswagen. Until It Didn’t.
In July 2013, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn stopped a test drive to lecture his engineers about paint that was less than a millimeter too thick. A year later, he complained …
Lean Blog Audio — We Thought We Solved That: The Art and Judgment Calls in the PDSA Cycle
What does it really mean when a problem “comes back” after a team thought it had been solved? In this episode, Mark Graban reads his article, “We Thought We Solved …
Lean Blog Audio — A Bending Column, a Bad Answer, and the Real Test of a Speak-Up Culture
A construction worker named Sean Dow was working on the 22nd floor of Pfizer’s former Manhattan headquarters, a massive office building now being converted into residential apartments with additional floors …
Lean Blog Audio — Calling Someone a “Process Coach” Doesn’t Make Them One
A title change is not a culture change. In this episode, Mark Graban draws on his early experience at GM in the mid-1990s — where “foreman” became “team coordinator” overnight …
Lean Blog Audio — Still Learning: A Live Event with Elisabeth Swan on May 7
Blog post with links Three years ago, The Mistakes That Make Us came out. Around the same time, Elisabeth Swan published Picture Yourself a Leader. Both books' third birthdays felt like a decent …
Lean Blog Audio — Watch the Lean Hospitals Coach in Action — Live, Unscripted, With Your Questions
Most AI tools answer your question with a 500-word essay full of numbered steps. You nod, close the tab, and carry on doing what you were already doing. The Lean …
Lean Blog Audio — What a Brandi Carlile Concert Teaches About Practicing Continuous Improvement
Read the blog post TL;DR: A sound check, live song requests, and a naming regret — what watching Brandi Carlile perform taught me about specific problem-solving, vulnerability, and continuous improvement. …
Lean Blog Audio — What Deming and Fujio Cho Agreed On: Stop Demotivating People
The blog post TL;DR: Deming and Toyota’s Fujio Cho asked the same uncomfortable question: why do management systems destroy motivation in people who started out wanting to do good work? The …
Lean Blog Audio — Create Your Own Lean System — But Don’t Lose Sight of These Three Things
Read the blog post TL;DR: In a 1993 speech, Toyota leader Fujio Cho said organizations can create their own Lean systems, but success depends on three principles: leaders going to …