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Today’s guest is Kara Cuzzetto,   Kara is a Pacific Northwest Native, has been married for 30 years, is blessed with three beautiful children, and is expecting her first grandchild in July. She began her continuous improvement journey in 2001 while working as a Revenue Operations Manager at Virginia Mason Medical Center. In 2014 she took a job at King County in Seattle as a full-time lean practitioner to help the county expand their lean management methodology. Today she manages the lean program for the Finance and Business Operation Division at King County and enjoys coaching and mentoring the 170 team members across FBOD. “Anything is possible when you trust the process.” Humble leadership is the key to it all. Links: Connect with Kara on LinkedIn The Power of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic): 10th Anniversary Edition by David Emerald Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Greeny, et al David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

Today’s guest is Paul Dunlop, Paul brings with him over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience across a broad range of industries. In his operational management roles, Paul has led successful Lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System. His passion for operational excellence using Lean tools and methodology has helped drive sustained continuous improvement and financial performance at many client businesses. Established in 2017, Dunlop Consultants delivers customized Lean based consultancy, coaching, and training. Paul recognized a gap in the market for a practical and accessible approach to continuous improvement and leadership that works for everyone and delivers sustainable results by building genuine capability in the client business. The pillars of People, Process, Play, and Profit are central to Paul’s values and the effectiveness of his approach with a focus on enriching the quality of people’s working lives through inclusion and engagement and building cultures of problem solvers and learners. With human beings at the center of the change and improvement process, we can mine the wealth of talent and experience we have in our organizations to innovate and provide unique and sometimes simple solutions to the problems that frustrate and inhibit performance.   Links: Dunlop Consultants  (Paul’s Company) Connect with Paul on LinkedIn Paul’s YouTube Channel   Books by Adam Grant   Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy by Massaki Immai Visual Workplace Visual Thinking: Creating Enterprise Excellence Through the Technologies of the Visual Workplace by Gwendolyn Galsworth Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink, Leif Babin Atomic Habits by James Clear

Today’s guest is David Veech, David has an extensive professional background in leadership, operational excellence, lean systems, and problem-solving.  He has built a solid foundation on what it takes to deliver compelling messages that provide deep, authentic inspiration that surfaces one’s full potential to obliterate obstacles, accelerate innovation, and elevate performance.   He is the author of two best-selling books, The C4 Process: Four vital steps to better work and Leadersights: Creating great leaders who create great workplaces. He built two successful international consulting firms from the ground up & he has taught Operations and Leadership courses on the faculty at four different Universities (Stetson University, the Defense Acquisition University, the University of Kentucky, and the Ohio State University)   Links: Leadersights (David’s Company) Connect with David on LinkedIn Connect with David on Twitter Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long by David Rock The C4 Process: Four Vital Steps to Better Work by David Veech Leadersights: Creating Great Leaders Who Create Great Workplaces by David Veech David’s YouTube Channel

One of the benefits of producing this podcast is to meet people who have had a transformational influence on my career, one of those people, David Marquet, wrote a book that allowed me to take a really close look at the improvement work that my team and I were doing and to improve the way we lead. David is our guest today David is a student of leadership and organizational design, former nuclear submarine Commander, and named one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers by Inc. Magazine. David is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller: Turn the Ship Around!, and The Turn the Ship Around Workbook.  David’s latest book, Leadership is Language, is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.   David imagines a workplace where everyone engages and contributes their full intellectual capacity, a place where people are healthier and happier because they have more control over their workplace where everyone is a leader. Links: Intent-Based Leadership International Connect with David on LinkedIn Connect with Intent-Based Leadership International on LinkedIn Connect with David on Twitter Leadership Nudges with David Marquet on YouTube Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet Leadership is Language by L. David Marquet

Today’s guest is Elisabeth Swan. Elisabeth is a co-founder of the Just-in-Time Cafe, with a mission to cultivate a hub where problem solvers connect, share, and grow. She’s the co-author of The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide to Your Lean Six Sigma Journey and Co-host of the Just-in-Time Cafe Podcast. She's a 30+-year veteran of the Continuous Improvement world who performed for ImprovBoston back in the day. As a Lean Six Sigma consultant, she uses improv every day.   Links: Connect with Elisabeth on Twitter Connect with Elisabeth on LinkedIn E-Mail Elisabeth   Elisabeth’s Website Karen Martin Clarity First The Problem Solver’s Toolkit by Elisabeth Swan & Tracy O’Rourke Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn by Katie Anderson Improv Workshop

Today’s guest is Katie Anderson is an internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, speaker, and author of the bestselling book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.   Best known for her focus on helping individuals and organizations lead with intention, Katie has supported thousands of leaders across a range of industries, including organizations such as Roche, Facebook, Toyota, to connect and align their purpose, process, and practice to achieve higher levels of performance.   Katie has lived in seven countries and leads study trips to Japan for leaders looking to deepen their knowledge of lean leadership, the Toyota Way, and Japanese culture.   Katie holds a BA with honors from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Australia, where she received her Master's degree in public health from Sydney University. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two sons, nearly a dozen chickens, and hundreds of daruma dolls. Links: Connect with Katie on LinkedIn Connect with Katie on Twitter Katie’s Book LearningToLeadLeadingToLearn.com Katie’s Website http://kbjanderson.com/ Upcoming Japan Study Trip  Karen Martin - Clarity First Karen’s Episode on the Lean Leadership Podcast Patrick Adams - Avoiding The Continuous Appearance Trap Karyn Ross 

Today’s guest is Jamie V. Parker. Jamie is the founder of Process + Results, which provides people leadership development for Lean-practicing organizations. With 17 years of multi-unit operations management experience, Jamie specializes in helping operations managers build engaged & adaptable teams, integrate improvement into their culture and overcome their most pressing challenges. Links The Gold Mine by Michael Balle Creating a Lean Culture by David Mann Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last Radical Candor by Kim Scott Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn Jamie’s Website Process + Results   Get on-demand access to some of Jamie’s most-requested mini-trainings and talks covering things like: The transition from DOING Problem Solving to COACHING Problem Solving Spark Improvement Behavior through Effective Recognition Feedback The Role of Ops Leaders in Integrating Lean   To get access to those free resources, head over to: https://processplusresults.com/free/

Today’s guest is Billy Taylor.  Billy is a retired executive from Goodyear and is now the CEO of his own firm LinkedXL. Since joining Goodyear in 1989, Billy has progressed through a series of leadership positions. He has served as a plant director for both union and non-union facilities, leading lean transformations in Goodyear’s largest and most complex tire-producing sites. Today Billy and I will talk about a wide range of topics including how leaders set the standard by what they accept,  How to build a culture of engagement, and how to develop the technical and personal competencies to challenge the process.   Links The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin Connect with Billy on LinkedIn Billy’s Company LinkedXL

Today’s guest is Steve Spear.  Steve is the author of the award-winning and critically acclaimed book, The High-Velocity Edge. He is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is also a founder of a consulting firm built on the tenets of his book, and of See to Solve Corp., a business process software company. Expert on the ways that “high-velocity organizations” generate and sustain advantage, even in the most hyper-competitive markets, Spear has worked with clients spanning technology and heavy industry, software and healthcare, and new production design and manufacturing. Spear’s 1999 Harvard Business Review article, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” is part of today’s lean manufacturing canon. “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” was an HBR McKinsey Award winner in 2005 and one of his four articles to win a Shingo Research Prize. Spear helped develop and deploy the Alcoa Business System, which recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in annual operating savings, and he was integral in developing the “Perfecting Patient Care” system for the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative. He has published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and Academic Medicine, and he has spoken to audiences ranging from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence to the Institute of Medicine. Spear has a doctorate from Harvard Business School, a master’s in engineering and in management from MIT, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton.   Important Links: The High Velocity Edge See to Solve Andon Solution Gene Kim’s IT Revolution   Interesting Excerpts from the High Velocity Edge Lean Healthcare Designing Systems to See Problems High Yield Problem Solving

Today’s episode is with Steven J. Spear.  Steven is the author of the book The High Velocity Edge and is a multiple Shingo Research Prize winner.  He helped develop and deploy the Alcoa Business System. He is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is also a founder of a consulting firm built on the tenets of his book.  Steve and I had a great conversation that actually turned into a two-part interview.  This week we will talk about Steve’s early experiences with Lean and Continuous Improvement.   Next week, we will talk about two papers that Steven has recently released that talk about accelerating innovation and succeeding in periods of abrupt change.

Today’s guest is Tim Mclean. Tim is our first guest from Australia and is the Principal and Managing Director of TXM Lean Solutions. In his mid 20’s Tim was promoted in to a Plant Management role and this lead to senior operations and general management positions at Hoechst and in major Blue Chip companies including PPG Industries, Carter Holt Harvey and Amcor. In these roles, Tim continued to increase his knowledge of continuous improvement and lean methodologies and successfully apply these approaches to achieve breakthrough improvements in operations that he was managing.  

Today's guest is Jim Huntzinger. Jim began his career as a manufacturing engineer with Aisin Seiki (a Toyota Group company and manufacturer of automotive components) when they transplanted to North America to support Toyota. Over his career he has also researched at length the evolution of manufacturing in the United States with an emphasis on lean’s influence and development. In addition to his research on TWI, he has extensively researched the history of Ford’s Highland Park plant and its direct tie to Toyota’s business model and method of operation. Huntzinger is the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers and a graduate from Purdue University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology and received a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He authored the book, Lean Cost Management: Accounting for Lean by Establishing Flow, and was a contributing author to Lean Accounting: Best Practices for Sustainable Integration. Today Jim and I will talk about: building communities within the lean community The economic potential of Lean The need to experience failure and setback to increase your rate of learning The history of Training Within Industry and how it's benefits and success can be applied today. Learning by doing Jim's new book, The Roots of Lean

Audition Template: 1 Mono Host track (with Speech Volume Leveler), 1 Mono Interview track (with Speech Volume Leveler), 1 Stereo Sound FX with effects, 1 Stereo Music Bed track. 44.1k, 16 bit, Stereo Master.

Today's episode is a continuation of our conversation that we had with Mike Orzen in Episode 31. So if you haven't heard episode 31 yet, after you listen to this episode go back and check out the beginning or our conversation with Mike. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Mike, he is the founder and President of Mike Orzen and Associates. He has been consulting and coaching improvement efforts for over 20 years. Mike is an Adjunct Professor with The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence and is a faculty member of the Lean Enterprise Institute. He is also a Shingo Award winning Co-Author of Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Enterprise.