Lean Blog Interviews

My guest for episode #255 is Mark DeLuzio, author of the recently-released book Turn Waste into Wealth: How to Find Cash in Every Corner of the Company. It's Mark's first book, but he's been well known in the Lean community for a long time. Mark started learning and practicing Lean in 1988 when he worked for Jake Brake, a Danaher company (and Danaher has long been considered a great Lean company). As his bio says, "After studying TPS under Taiichi Ohno's influential Autonomous Study Group, he was instrumental in developing Jake's first zero-defect line for Toyota's Hino Motors. He has spent considerable time in Japan implementing TPS at various world-class companies and has had a successful career in finance." In 2007, Mark was inducted into the Shingo Academy for his contribution to the Lean movement. He is also CEO of the consulting firm Lean Horizons. hixgdxw5

Episode #254 is interesting to me for a number of reasons. For one, I have a "guest co-host" joining me for the first time. He's Chip Ponsford, DVM, a doctor of veterinary medicine and former practice owner who I've gotten to know here in Texas over the past few years. Chip has been a great student of Lean, following a path similar to that of Sami Bahri, DDS ("The World's First Lean Dentist") in reading the "classic" Lean books from industry because there had been nothing written about Lean in VetMed. I've been helping Chip with his "Lean Vets" blog and we've collaborated in a few other ways to promote Lean in veterinary medicine. Our guest is Samantha (Sam) Parrett, the Director of Business & Administrative Services at North Carolina State University Veterinary Health Complex. Chip and I ran across Sam's name in one of the few articles we've found on Lean in VetMed: NC Vet College Dives Into Lean Training In the podcast, we'll discuss their story at NC State and the potential for Lean to make the jump in

Joining me for Episode #253 is Ash Maurya, author of the book Running Lean:Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works and his latest, being released this week, called Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth. Ash is an entrepreneur and a big part of the "Lean Startup" community. Visit his website at www.LeanStack.com.

My guest for episode #252 is Jordan Peck, a Senior Director in the Center for Performance Improvement at MaineHealth and Maine Medical Center. Jordan and I first met when he was a graduate student at MIT and was involved with the Lean Advancement Initiative (and I was working basically across the street at the Lean Enterprise Institute). At MIT, he earned a PhD in Engineering Systems and Health Care Systems. Jordan and I have continued to cross paths every year at the Society for Health Systems annual conference. His career has taken him to the Veterans Health Administration and now into the private sector at Maine Health, as we discuss in the podcast.

Episode #251 is a bit different in that it's audio shared by the good folks at Lean Frontiers. They recently hosted a webinar where Jim Huntzinger, founder and president of Lean Frontiers asked questions that answered by Russ Scaffede about Lean leadership. See their other webinars here. Russ has a lot of great wisdom and experience to share, so I asked Jim if I could share it here. Russ is a big part of the upcoming event - The Summit on Lean Leadership, which is being produced by Lean Frontiers. It's being held June 21-22 in Charlotte. You can save 25% off that event by using the discount code leanblog. I should also mention that I'm going to be a keynote speaker at their upcoming Lean Accounting Summit in San Antonio this August. In this discussion, Russ shares a lot of gems not just about how Toyota does things (as he learned in his time there), but also some key insights about transforming an organization that is NOT Toyota (as he learned from his experience at Tiara Yachts and other companies).

Episode #250... a big round number. 250 podcasts in just under 10 years. Thanks again to Norman Bodek (my first guest and frequent guest) for the idea back in 2006.My goal with the podcasts has always been to showcase my guests. Occasionally, I take the stage or share the stage with audio of me. Today is one of those episodes.Earlier in May, I had the chance to co-present a webinar with Dr. Jack Billi from the University of Michigan (archived here). The webinar was hosted by the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, which is being spun off by the American Medical Association.Before the formal webinar, Jack and I recorded some informal Q&A with the host, Stephen Davidow. This audio, shared with the permission of the PCPI also includes the Q&A that was done after the webinar presentation. I hope you enjoy our discussion about how we each got started with Lean in healthcare and more.

My guest for episode #249 of the podcast is Steve Leuschel, author of the book Lean Culture Change: Using a Daily Management System. You might remember a post from January that included an excerpt from his book on "huddles." In this episode, we discuss topics including his greatest influences, the lessons he learned from Rodger Lewis (a former Toyota general manager), "mutual trust," PDCA cycles, daily huddles, and more. What's the potential of a Lean management system and why is it difficult to get organizations and leaders to embrace a holistic system like that?

Joining me for episode #248 of the podcast is Drew Locher, an author, consultant, speaker, and, also like me, a faculty member for the Lean Enterprise Institute and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. You can read his bio via his consulting website, Change Management Associates. Drew's books include Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market, Lean Office and Service Simplified: The Definitive How-To Guide, and Unleashing the Power of 3P: The Key to Breakthrough Improvement. He also, most recently, released a second edition of The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Office and Services, a recipient of the Shingo Research Award. You can also read his two guest posts that I've published on this blog. In this episode, we talk about his books, how Lean is about more than just tools, and the need to focus on "the critical few things" instead of falling victim to a "scattershot" approach to reducing waste. "We learn more by doing than talking about

My guest for episode #247 is James Chisholm, a principal and co-founder of the Toronto-based ExperiencePoint. James is a pioneer in the design of online game-based learning, and has authored numerous leadership simulations in use by over 100,000 executives and managers worldwide. I fell in love with their "Lakeview" hospital change management simulation a few years back when I first got to try it and I've been very happy to learn from James and to partner with ExperiencePoint. James speaks and writes widely on the subject of games, learning and change. He co-authored chapters in the "Handbook of Experiential Learning" and in the Center for Creative Leadership's Fieldbook, "Experience-Driven Leader Development: Strategies, Tools, and Practices" (both published by Pfieffer). Read his full bio: (PDF). In this episode, we discuss topics including why change management is such an important issue for him and organizations, the role of simulations and experience-based learning, how "leadership is a process," and how

Episode #246 is my second episode in recognition of Patient Safety Awareness Week. My guest is Steve Montague, who talked about Lean and Crew Resource Management with me in episode #195 in 2014. He's a retired Navy fighter pilot, a commercial pilot, and a consultant for hospitals and health systems... and a fellow Texan and a near-neighbor of mine. See his full bio here. Today, we're talking about a number of topics, including patient safety and checklists... what's the difference between good checklist systems and bad (and what are the parallels to Lean done well and Lean done badly). We talk about a number of articles and recent events about how NHS employees are afraid to speak up, an Iowa hospital that had four wrong site surgeries in 40 days, and the recent NEJM brouhaha.

See http://www.leanblog.org/245 Today is the first of two episodes that I'll post here during Patient Safety Awareness Week. I agree with the National Patient Safety Foundation that every day should be patient safety day. I'm sure my guest for episode #245 would agree with that. He is Tom Evans, MD, FAAFP, the President and CEO of the Iowa Healthcare Collaborative. I've know Dr. Evans for many years, but was prompted to do the podcast by this editorial he wrote in the Des Moines Register: "Iowa hospitals succeed at keeping patients safe." In this episode, we talk about the progress being made in Iowa hospitals, what they are doing, and the lessons learned.

See http://www.leanblog.org/244 Joining me again for Episode #244 is Dan Markovitz (@DanMarkovitz on Twitter). Today's episode is part 2 of our discussion about his most recent book Building the Fit Organization: Six Core Principles for Making Your Company Stronger, Faster, and More Competitive, a recipient of the Shingo Research Award. You can hear Part 1 in Episode #241.

My guest for Episode #243, Michael Bungay Stanier, takes us a bit outside of the Lean realm... but that's good. Our topic today, which ties in very nicely to Lean and Kaizen (as you'll hear in our conversation) is coaching. His most recent book is titled The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever and it's available today. It's a very practical book that's full of tips and seven key questions that you can use as a coach. Michael is "founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work."

Episode #242 is unique in that it's a collection of audio clips from videos that Joe Swartz and I shot in late 2014 at his health system, Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis. In the videos, a number of nurses and leaders talk about continuous improvement in a way that's fun, wise, and inspirational. As we did last year, Joe and I are hosting a learning event at his system called "Kaizen Live!" where you have a chance to see and hear what a culture of continuous improvement is really like. We hope you'll join us April 5 & 6 for the main experience (where we'll be out visiting departments instead of spending all of our time in a conference center) and we have some optional classes on April 4. We hope you enjoy the stories and reflections here in the podcast.

Joining me for Episode #241 is a returning guest and friend of mine, Dan Markovitz (@DanMarkovitz on Twitter). He was a guest on Episodes #135 (talking about A Factory of One) and #52 (talking more generally about office Lean). He has also written a number of guest posts here. Oh, and he has his own blog. Today we're talking about his most recent book Building the Fit Organization: Six Core Principles for Making Your Company Stronger, Faster, and More Competitive, which, like his first book, is a recipient of the Shingo Research and Publication Award. Congrats!

My guest for episode #240 is somebody I've wanted to interview for a long time, Leah Binder, the president and CEO of Leapfrog Group, "a voluntary program aimed at mobilizing employer purchasing power to alert America's health industry that big leaps in health care safety, quality and customer value will be recognized and rewarded." In this episode, Leah talks about the story behind Leapfrog Group, the scale of the patient safety problem in America, some efforts of Leapfrog Group to grade hospitals, the connections between Lean and patient safety, and other topics. Please check out Leapfrog Group and their Hospital Safety Score website. How does your hospital measure up? How do the hospitals in your community compare? What can hospitals be doing to close their gaps so they get an "A"? How can large businesses who pay for healthcare and have their employees' interest in mind, like manufacturers, help put positive pressure on healthcare to improve?

Joining me for Episode #239 is Pascal Dennis, somebody I really respect and have learned a lot from over the years... I'd call him "sensei" gladly (although he and I agree that's not a term one should bestow upon themselves... see his blog post). I'm very happy to have him as a guest again for what is just his second time (I thought it had been more frequent). In Episode 96, we talked about his book The Remedy. Today, we are talking about the new third edition of his book Lean Production Simplified.

Episode #238 is a conversation with somebody I've wanted to talk with for a long time, Kevin Cahill. He is the executive director of the W. Edwards Deming Institute. He's also a grandson of Dr. Deming! Kevin played an instrumental role in getting NBC to publicly release the 1980 documentary, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that featured Dr. Deming (see my blog posts about it). We talk about that in the podcast, along with his other recollections of Dr. Deming and how he watched the original NBC airing with him. We also discuss his reflections on learning the Deming philosophy and his attempts to utilize the ideas in his career (and how challenging that can be when it flies in the face of the prevailing business culture). It was a really fun discussion and I hope you enjoy it. If you have follow up questions for Kevin, please post a comment, as I'm sure we can do another podcast in the near future.

Episode #237 is, like the last episode, a bit different... but in a different way. My guest is my friend Paul Akers, author of the new book Lean Health. Paul was previously a guest for Episode 133, where he talked about his book 2 Second Lean and also for Episode 122. Today, we're talking about his new book, just released. What's different about this podcast is that I attempted to broadcast it live via YouTube. We eventually got there, but not until after some errors I made (and reflected upon here). What appears here is an edited audio-only version of our conversation, which includes some questions from live viewers. Paul has put a lot of time and money into this book. You can buy it on Amazon or download a FREE version as a PDF or audiobook via his webpage.

For episode #236, things are a little different than usual. Today, I wanted to share a video discussion between my friends Ted Stiles and John Toussaint, MD. Ted is a partner with the recruiting firm Stiles & Associates. John, of course, is the president of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and has been a frequent guest in my podcast series. John's most recent book is Management on the Mend. For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/236.