A few of you sent me this article... and you were correct to think I would be interested:"Inside Alabama's Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs

The South's manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price."

It's been 10 years since I first wrote about my awkward acronym L.A.M.E. Is it helpful to distinguish between true Lean principles and "Lean As Misguidedly Explained?" Will we see more L.A.M.E. talk and behaviors in the future?

Today, I'm happy to share a link to a white paper that I co-authored for Catalysis (formerly the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value).The paper is titled: "Lean for Doctors."

Appropriately, the co-authors are two physician leaders you might very well know: Dr. John Toussaint (founder of Catalysis) and Dr. Jack Billi (from the University of Michigan).

Today's Post in&t;50 words: Lean thinkers don't blame individuals who in a bad system, whether that's a presenter at Oscars, a kicker in a football game, or a healthcare professional in a hospital.

In today's post, I write about how Kaizen starts with you. I share some examples of "personal Kaizen," including the way I've streamlined my call scheduling process, for my benefit and for others.

http://leanblog.org/audio186

While I'm writing here about Northwestern men's basketball learning from Duke (without copying everything), the same ideas apply if you're Ford learning from Toyota or a hospital learning from ThedaCare.

http://www.leanblog.org/audio185

Thanks to GoLeanSixSigma.com for asking me some questions for a discussion that they've posted on their website.

Today's Post in&t;50 Words: I get worked up about labeling a troubled surgical department as "a factory," but there are far more important issues of patient safety and hospital culture to be discussed related to a Seattle Times investigative piece.

http://www.leanblog.org/audio183

Art Byrne's latest book, The Lean Turnaround Action Guide, has a lot of great tips that he's trying to share, CEO to CEO. How many CEOs are reading this book and heeding his advice, in manufacturing or in healthcare?

Registration is now open for our "Kaizen Live!" event, where you can visit Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis to see what a "culture of continuous improvement" is like in a way that will help you in creating the same for your organization.