Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.

1485 Articles

Why Do We Need to Set a Hypothesis?

By Jon Miller - August 6th, 2018

Why do we need to set a hypothesis? Because that’s how the scientific method works. Why do we need to follow the scientific method? Because that’s how we solve complex or novel problems most effectively. Why is that true? B

Review of The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2018

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle examines how groups of various sizes and shapes form into great teams. He offers practical pointers on what we can do to improve our relationships within coopera

When Fish Fly

By Jon Miller - July 23rd, 2018

For more than 20 years fish have been flying through the middle of downtown Seattle. Locals come to the Pike Place Fish Market to buy fresh fish. Tourists come for the novelty of seeing the fishmongers throw 10-pound salmon to each oth

How to Set a Rational Frequency for Earnings Forecasts

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2018

In June of this year, financial titans Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffet argued in the Wall Street Journal that short-termism is harming the economy. They called on public companies to reduce or even eliminate their quarterly earnings guid

Deeply Understanding Improvement with Edgar Schein & John Shook

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2018

The Lean Enterprise Institute has put together the transcript of a dialogue between Prof. Edgar Schein and John Shook during the Lean Healthcare Academic Conference at Stanford in September 2017. The fifteen pages are full of stories a

How to Civilize an Elevator

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2018

As recently as four years ago, my worked involved constant international travel. This is no longer the case. I miss very little of that life. One thing that I do miss is the exposure to other cultures, in particular how humans in vario

How to Take a Trail, or Not

By Jon Miller - June 18th, 2018

While shopping for gifts with my family this weekend, I noticed the store had many cards, mugs, printed items on the theme of, “Don’t follow the trail made by others but make your own.” This is spectacularly bad advic

Wellness Programs and the Health of Continuous Improvement

By Jon Miller - June 11th, 2018

Logical. Proven. Life-changing. These words equally describe successful health & wellness programs and continuous improvement programs. But do these programs really work in changing behaviors? Professors David Asch and Shreya Kan

A Simple Hand Gesture that is Key to Goal Alignment

By Jon Miller - June 4th, 2018

Lean management aims to serve others by doing more with less, thereby sustainably reaping just rewards for such service. Among other things, this requires everyone in the organization to continuously improve products, processes, servic

Compassion as a Competitive Advantage

By Jon Miller - May 21st, 2018

“The long-term value of a company is based on the speed and quality of its decision-making.” These are the words of Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. He was speaking to the 2018 graduating business school students at the Univer

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