Toyota Kata Case Study
The wildly popular website and training organization Go Lean Six Sigma just published my case study on how I applied the Toyota Kata practice routine at a non-profit human service agency. In the article, I describe how I applied the four-step improvement routine along with the...
Don’t Be So Sure
Don’t be so sure. These were the words written on a sticker that was handed out to all KataCon5 (a conference about scientific thinking) attendees. The meaning behind the sticker? We think we know more than we do. Our brains jump to conclusions and create facts...
Go Negative: Why You Need to Focus on the Obstacles to Your 2019 Goals
Resolutions You’ve probably set at least one goal you hope to achieve in 2019. How’s it going so far? If you’re started to lose motivation and progress is waning, instead of taking more action, consider the obstacles in your way. Wait, isn’t it better to “think positive” and...
Does Coaching Your Employees Feel Awkward? Here’s Why + Another Way
Telling Doesn't Work There has been a gradually increasing awareness among leaders that telling people what to do all the time doesn’t build the adaptive capacity of a team. This management style may be faster in the short term, but it creates a dependency that is...
3 Reasons Why You Need an Improvement Routine
How does your organization solve problems? Are there goals you are striving to achieve that improve the customer experience in terms of cost, quality or efficiency? How do you strive for these goals? Unfortunately, many businesses don’t have a clear answer to these questions. If...
Not improving? Here’s the missing piece.
We all WANT to make changes – at work, at home, to our processes, our relationships -- but actually following through is the hard part, don’t you think? Day-Dreaming We all have ideas about how we’re going to be a better wife/husband/son/friend/boss. How we need to be more patient,...
Grasping Your Current Condition: I don’t know how!
The Challenge We were in the planning stages of new Improvement Kata story board in a small outpatient doctor’s office. I was coaching the coach, a director was in the coach role and the manager of the clinic, Ellen, was in the learner role. Ellen was...
There is nothing we can do…now what?
Daily Huddle I recently attended a daily communication huddle at an inpatient nursing unit. I was coaching one of the leaders in meeting a challenge related to getting all care team members to have the same understanding of each patient’s plan of care and expected discharge...
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