WLEI - Lean Enterprise Institute’s Podcast

This week The Management Brief kicks off an extended series on the coaching and co-learning that is occurring throughout the lean community. We’ll be exploring the benefits of mutual learning in all its forms — senior leaders with their lean coaches, be they external or internal to the organization, as well peer-to-peer relationships — that deliver more value and open avenues of understanding and growth not possible when going it alone. Most if not all leaders are looking for guidance tailored to their positions, and that’s especially true of lean leaders seeking to transform themselves and their organizations. Effective coaching and co-learning relationships offer a “follow me and we’ll figure this out together” association that enables both partners to navigate a lean journey, establish a path for lean transformation, and achieve sustainable results. We will examine what makes lean coaching and co-learning relationships effective, and, in the process, provide insights into how to establish your own co-learning opportunities. Our initial installment in this series brings together Marco Lopez, CEO Dreamplace Hotels, & Resorts in the Canary Islands, which embarked on a lean “never-ending” journey 15 years ago, and Oriol Cuatrecasas, coach with the Instituto Lean Management in Spain and a lean practitioner for decades. Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer, Strategy, interviews the duo who discuss co-learning and the Dreamplace journey, including: In 2009, Marco says he and others in the company asked, “What can we do to be more competitive,” and realized they had to do something new and that lean was an option. He is grateful they came to the decision to pursue lean, now seeing it as “the only way,” despite not recognizing early on that the journey would not be easy or fast and takes continuous attention and effort to sustain. Marco recalls directors working on the first A3s with Oriol, with them being instructed to go out to the gemba and solve real problems. He realized this approach was going to take time, and he and directors would need to be patient and support people every step of the way. Marco recognized that lean was not a “plug-in solution.” Oriol recalls what attracted him to working with Dreamplace. Around 2010, he was speaking at a public conference and, at the end of the event, advised attendees to take a problem, take a team, learn, apply lean, and share successes (as Jim Womack often advised). Five years later he received an email from an operations manager at Dreamplace who described doing precisely what Oriol had suggested, wanted to share with him what a team was working on, and asked, “When are you going to come?” Oriol went to Dreamplace and met the manager and Marco. A Dreamplace team had begun breaking down silos (lodging department, kitchen, housekeeping, etc.) that prevented flow in serving hotel guests better, and also was working to have a majority of business decisions made by frontline employees. “Immediately I fell in love with these people, and said ‘When do we start?’” Marco and Oriol discuss how lean was meant for the hospitality industry, an environment that is purely value-added and in which every customer requires a customized experience. This environment requires a reliance on cross-functional teams to seamlessly support the customer’s journey throughout all aspects of their stay. Coaching has helped Marco and managers within Dreamplace learn how to set goals, manage and empower people, and be honest and open with teams. For example, Marco learned to show up at the gemba and support staff without dominating the situation. Dreamplace started its lean journey internally, working on its own for five years. In hindsight, Marco advises others to ask for professional help from the beginning: “You will save at least two or three years.” Oriol says it helps to be coaching “the right executive,” someone who can make real decisions to change things, own the tr

Sarah Milstein shares practical guidance for engineering and product leaders on building respectful cultures, streamlining roles, and sustaining lean product and process development.

This week, The Management Brief features Dr. Steven Spear, MIT senior lecturer and co-author of Wiring the Winning Organization, in conversation with LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich. Spear shares insights from his early experiences with the Toyota Production System and explains how organizations win by enabling people to see and solve problems faster and more deeply.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Carl Klemm reflects on his journey from GM to Toyota, sharing lessons on leadership maturity, long-term management thinking, and creating cultures of trust, respect, and continuous improvement.

In this edition of The Design Brief, Eric Ethington and Matt Zayko share how skilled chief engineers build strong teams and robust product and process development systems. They discuss essential chief engineer skills, the role of conflict in innovation, system integration, and real stories of lean product and process development in action.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Josh Howell and Mark Reich talk with Rich Calvaruso, Senior Director of the Lean Management Office at GE Appliances. Rich shares how GE reshored manufacturing, built lean systems beyond kaizen events, and developed leaders through hands-on immersion. His core message: develop people and improve process at the same time.

In this edition of The Management Brief, LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich talk with Jamie Bonini, President of Toyota’s TSSC, about how Toyota develops people and spreads TPS. They explore the role of CI groups, differences between Toyota’s internal and external approaches, and why building leaders’ problem-solving capability—not just installing tools—is key to lasting performance.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Jim Lancaster, Owner and CEO of Lantech and author of The Work of Management, joins LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich to reflect on Lantech’s decades-long lean journey. From early Shingijutsu-led workshops to building a resilient management system, Jim shares lessons on leadership, sustaining improvement, and how Lantech grew 75% since 2020 by staying true to lean principles—even through the pandemic.

In this episode of The Management Brief, Josh Howell and Mark Reich speak with Scott Heydon, former Starbucks VP of Global Strategy and current Senior Lean Coach, about his journey from top-down problem-solver to hands-on lean leader. Scott shares lessons from Starbucks’ lean transformation, the power of learning from the frontlines, and advice for leaders looking to support real improvement: go to the gemba and ask better questions.

Josh Howell, LEI President, and Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, join Olivier Larue, President of Ydatum, and discuss the Toyota Production System (TPS), the three elements embedded within TPS that make it more than just a production system, and the ability of TPS to foster problem-solving and creativity. Olivier worked with Mark at the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in the late 1990s and has led Ydatum since 2000, assisting companies in implementing its version of TPS. Olivier recently authored the first of three volumes of The Toyota Economic System, which will present the three elements of the “Toyota triangle” — philosophical, technical, and managerial — and their necessity in making TPS an economic system for growth. TPS has enabled mass production to accommodate customization, which had been minimized in the pursuit of lower costs for large quantities of standardized goods, says Olivier. TPS allows companies to “build a product affordably and very much customized to the desires of the customer, one without compromising the other.” Yet when attempting to apply TPS it remains difficult for many organizations to simultaneously achieve the primary goals of TPS — highest quality, lowest cost, and shortest lead time. Josh and Mark explore with Olivier the importance of the Toyota triangle in achieving TPS goals, especially longer-term goals, and examine the relationship of the triangle to the better known TPS “house” (the roof of three goals, supported by jidoka and just-in-time columns, etc.). The house embodies philosophical, technical, and managerial elements throughout, notes Olivier, but they are not specifically called out in the house. Human development, also not shown in the house, is at the center of the Toyota triangle. Olivier says human development is critical because despite advances in artificial intelligence, currently only people can solve complex problems, human problems. “TPS at the end of the day is trying to solve a human problem using people through the human creativity and the human intelligence.” Olivier also discusses the organizational problems he encounters with problem-solving. For example, he often sees people gravitating toward problems they know how to solve instead of solving the right problem. This occurs because it’s not always safe to solve the right problem and individuals don’t have the courage to take them on. “It’s very important for companies to realize that if they don’t provide an environment where it’s safe to solve problems, two things are going to happen: problems are not going to get solved, or if some problem gets solved it will be the wrong one... As management and leaders, you have to be able to encourage the people to solve difficult problems without fear of having negative consequences if they fail.” Learn more about TPS and lean leadership at lean.org

Josh Howell, LEI President, talks about the relationship of problem-solving and daily management with Jill Miller, Manager for Global Learning and Development at MillerKnoll, a maker of office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Jill supports the development, use, and expansion of the MillerKnoll Performance System (MKPS), which she says is designed to meet customers’ needs by engaging and developing people to daily surface and solve problems. “At its heart, it’s really about building capability across the organization.” Josh and Jill describe their experiences with how an effective daily management system makes it easy and straightforward for organizations to know what problems they should be solving. “One of the most powerful things about MKPS is that it helps make problems visible every day, right where the work is happening,” says Jill. “So when people ask, ‘What problem do we need to solve?’ the system actually helps answer that by revealing the problems that might otherwise go unnoticed. I think at that point, the problems are plentiful. There’s no shortage of problems.” MKPS intentionally sets up both the system and culture to support daily problem-solving by: Designing work to clearly show abnormalities and make them visible in real time, Making it easy and safe for individuals to quickly highlight problems (people are not blamed or ignored), Providing a prompt, supportive reaction to an associate’s call for help (an “andon call”), and Ensuring the problems that are surfaced actually get solved; team leaders (called “facilitators” at MillerKnoll) are developed to be skilled in practical problem-solving, identifying root causes, and eliminating problems in ways that keep them from recurring. The two also discuss the development of ongoing MKPS expertise within MillerKnoll: building capability in a way that is standardized so that MKPS is effectively executed in a consistent manner. This involves a partnership between the MKPS leadership team, operations leaders, and the human resources group that supports operations for selecting individuals to train (“students”), creating alignment based on behaviors and characteristics, and reflecting on the learning process and its effectiveness. Jill says students have called the development program “life changing” — who they are as a person, how they think, how they see their roles, how they interact with people, and how they approach their careers within the company.

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Sandrine Olivencia, author of Build to Sell: The Lean Secret to Crafting Irresistible Products, co-founder of Taktique Academy, and partner at Lean Sensei Partners. This is the second time Sandrine has joined us on the WLEI podcast, and in this particular conversation, we discuss why lean product and process development principles are crucial for entrepreneurs in today’s rapidly shifting market demands. The conversation explores: How Sandrine found her way to lean and agile and how early work by lean product and process development thinkers Al Ward, Jim Morgan, Durward Sobek, and more have influenced her career trajectory; How to get started when it comes to building a product-led organization, in part by moving from “feature frenzy” to a focus on value-driven, performance-based product development; What startups should be thinking about if they want to make it past those very challenging first five years; Where leaders tend to stumble with lean product and process development in tech; What excites Sandrine most about the future and the kinds of products and companies that inspire her. Learn more about lean product and process development at https://www.lean.org/explore-lean/product-process-development/