Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/428

My guests for Episode #428 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are Nick Katko and Mike De Luca. Nick is president and owner of the firm BMA and Mike is a Lean coach, serving as principal and owner of Torre Consulting.

Nick and Mike have a new book out called Practicing Lean Accounting. And I'm thrilled that the title is inspired by the book I edited called Practicing Lean. Their book is available now in paperback and Amazon Kindle formats.

Nick has been practicing lean accounting for over 25 years, both as a CFO and as a lean accounting trainer and coach. Nick is also the author of the book The Lean CFO (2013) and is co-author of The Lean Business Management System (2007).

Mike's lean journey began with implementing lean accounting as a finance leader in the early 2000's – evolving the finance department's role to meet the changing needs of a lean organization.

Today, we talk about the book and more, with topics and questions including:

• Nick and then Mike, how did you first get introduced to Lean and what was the context?

• Manufacturing and healthcare

• “It's not about the numbers, it's about the people using the numbers”

• Is there a clear message about what Lean means to the org?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/427 

My guest for Episode #427 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is a returning guest, Karyn Ross. She was previously a guest in Episodes 266 and 411. She was also my guest for Episode #3 of My Favorite Mistake.

Karyn has a new book called The Kind Leader: A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust, and Leading with Kindness. Scroll down for a 20% coupon you can use if you buy through the publisher. You can also enter to win a copy.

Today, we talk the book and more, with topics and questions including:

• How do you define kindness?

• Workshop with Jessica House on the topic

• Morning session

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

CEO of Growing Champions, LLC

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/426

My guest for Episode #426 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is John Gallagher, Founder and CEO of Growing Champions, LLC, an Executive Coach, Mentor, and Consultant. John was with Simpler Consulting for over a decade after being an operations manager and a division president for two different companies.

He's also the host of a new podcast called The Uncommon Leader. I'll be John's guest in an episode to be released on October 19th.

Today, we talk about topics and questions including:

• Where did you first get exposed to Lean?

• Lenny Walls, my trainer

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Show notes, links, and video: https://www.markgraban.com/425

My guest for Episode #425 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Katie Anderson, who is joining us for the seventh time as a guest.

Katie is, of course, the author of the book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning. It has now been out over a year as eBook and paperback, and the audiobook is now available.

Today, we sketched out a few topics for a fun conversation. First, we talk about “breaking the telling habit” (get Katie's free guide). When do leaders have to “tell”? Does it get annoying when you only ask questions?

You'll also hear about how Katie “pulled the andon cord” (virtually) when she had a concern about the sound of me typing some notes. So, we'll talk about countermeasures and such related to that, and you'll hear our problem solving minds at work.

Katie then shares a story about the use of “Process Behavior Charts” at a non-profit organization. I share a story about seeing what appeared to be a “signal” in the listener metrics for the My Favorite Mistake podcast, so we again chat about problem solving and causal analysis.

We also talk the “Leading to Learn Accelerator” program that she's running soon.

And I tell an awful joke about asking questions. I'm sorry.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/424

My guest for Episode #424 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Balaji Reddie, the founder of The Deming Forum of India.

An engineer by trade, Balaji was exposed to W. Edwards Deming's ideas through his father, then became highly interested in the Deming Philosophy after a chance introduction to the founder of the British Deming Association, Dr. Henry R. Neave, who became Balaji's mentor.

As it says in his bio:

“Balaji's contributions have been featured in textbooks and coursework on Quality and the Deming Philosophy. He holds a Degree in Electrical Engineering from COEP (the Government College of Engineering in Pune), and a Master of Science in Quality Management from BITS (Birla Institute of Technology & Science).”

Topics and questions:

• Tell us more about your professional background

I hope you enjoy the conversation. We managed to have a lot of laughs, even though we're talking about serious topics.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

My guest for Episode #423 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Laura Kriska, a Cross-Cultural Consultant and the author of the book The Business of We: The Proven Three-Step Process for Closing the Gap Between Us and Them in Your Workplace.

Notes: https://www.leanblog.org/423

She was previously my guest on Episode 61 of the “My Favorite Mistake” podcast.

Laura was previously the author of the book The Accidental Office Lady: An American Woman in Corporate Japan, a book about her time as the first American woman to work for Honda in Tokyo, Japan. We talk about those experiences and so much more today.

Topics and questions:

• How did you get to become the first American woman to work at Honda HQ in Japan? 

• Quality Circles

• Use of data?

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Author of Disruption Proof and The Lean Entrepreneur

My guest for Episode #422 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Brant Cooper, appearing for the third time and the first time solo. Brant previously appeared, alongside Patrick Vlaskovits, in Episodes 99 and 162.

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/422

Brant is the author of the upcoming book, Disruption Proof: Empower People, Create Value, Drive Change, due out in late October, but is available for pre-order now.

Brant is The New York Times bestselling author of the book The Lean Entrepreneur (now in a 2nd Edition) and he's CEO and founder of the firm Moves the Needle.

He is also organizing a virtual summit — the Endless Disruption Summit — on Sept 30.

Topics and questions:

• “One thing in life is certain: Disruption is the new norm.” — Why is that increasingly so?

• Working from home and now what?

• The entire world is understaffed?

• The people are amazing

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

We've been on hiatus over the summer here, so I've taken a look back at some of the older episodes from the podcast archives, while being on a bit of a hiatus from recording new episodes. New episodes will be coming again in September

Today we're looking back at the episode that I did with John Shook.

It was Episode #56, released in January 2009.

I hope you enjoy our discussion -- I think it's just as relevant today as it was then even though his book Managing to Learn has been available for more than a decade (it was new when we did this episode).

I had a chance to talk with John a few months back and I'm hoping to do a new episode with him sometime soon.

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

I don't always share new episodes of the "My Favorite Mistake" podcast with you here, but when I do... it's a Lean practitioner.

Today, that guest is David Meier, a former Toyota team member and leader, author of two https://amzn.to/3xPHcre with Jeffrey Liker, and a TPS/Lean consultant. Oh, and he has a great distillery in Kentucky now called Glenn's Creek Distillery.

Toyota / Lean topics include:

• More background about what you learned at Toyota

Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean

We've been on hiatus over the summer here, so I've taken a look back at some of the older episodes from the podcast archives, while being on a bit of a hiatus from recording new episodes.

Today we're looking back at my first episodes with my good friend, Jamie Flinchbaugh.

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/2021/08/podcast-bonus-episode-jamie-flinchbaugh-revisited-from-2006/

My voice has gone on hiatus this week… since he can’t talk, he asked me to record this intro for a podcast where we look back at some episodes I’ve been involved in.

Jamie was my guest for Episodes 5 and 6 back in 2006, then again for Episode 10 that year. In 2008, he turned the tables and interviewed me in Episode 50. Then, I interviewed Jamie in Episodes 64 and 261, and Jamie turned the tables once again to interview me, in Episode 316, about my book “Measures of Success.”

In April 2019, Jamie and I started the “Lean Whiskey” podcast and we plan on recording episode #29 of that series on Sunday… if my voice is back to normal.

Today, we’re sharing Episodes 5 and 6 together. The episodes were shorter back then, so combined it’s just under 30 minutes of audio, talking about Waste and the Role of Leadership.

I hope you enjoy our discussion from 2006, lmost exactly 15 years ago. As always, thanks for listening, and please do check out “Lean Whiskey.”

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.