Kevin Meyer, Author at Gemba Academy

Kevin Meyer

Kevin has over 35 years of manufacturing leadership experience in the automotive lighting, telecom electronics, and medical device industries. He has been responsible for lean transformations at Sylvania, Abbott Laboratories, Newport Corporation, and most recently as President of Specialty Silicone Fabricators. He guest lectures on business, manufacturing, and leadership topics at his alma mater Rensselaer as well as CalPoly.

101 Articles

Refining and Reinforcing Principles

By Kevin Meyer - January 10th, 2020

Earlier this month Ron discussed his top ten lessons from the last decade and Jon what he believes is the most important word of the year (“daily”). Although I have tried to divorce myself from the arbitrary boundaries of

Empirical Evidence for the Power of Kata

By Kevin Meyer - December 13th, 2019

We’ve long known that embracing failure with an aim toward learning and improvement can create future success. Organizations that see failure in that light, and support their people with cultures and systems to learn from failu

Question Yourself

By Kevin Meyer - November 8th, 2019

One of my favorite websites, Brain Pickings, recently turned 13. The reason it’s a favorite is because it offers content that is challenging intellectually – but not to the point of not making sense to humble minds like min

The Wisdom of Humility

By Kevin Meyer - October 11th, 2019

Lately I’ve been reflecting 0n the impact of mistakes on leadership, and how important humility becomes to learning from those mistakes. An article in The Washington Post this week describing the humility of Dr. James Peebles,

Oh, the Mistakes I’ve Made…

By Kevin Meyer - September 13th, 2019

Lately we’ve witnessed what happens when leaders don’t have the emotional intelligence to admit to even the smallest and most originally inconsequential mistakes. This has caused me to reflect on some of mine over the pas

The Divergent Paths of Old Lean Dudes

By Kevin Meyer - August 9th, 2019

I’ve been immersed in the lean world for over a quarter century. From the start when some folks from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence showed me how quick changeover could save my injection molding operation (and pro

More Ways to Dig Deeper Using Five Questions

By Kevin Meyer - July 12th, 2019

On a plane the other day I listened to a Tim Ferris podcast with Chip Conley. To be honest, I’m not usually a fan of Mr. Ferris or his long format podcasts, but I do scan his guest list from time to time to look for interesting

Creating Range Through Exploration

By Kevin Meyer - June 7th, 2019

Last weekend I powered through David Epstein’s new book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The book has received rave reviews from the likes of Daniel Pink, who calls it “an essential read for bosses,

Businessman with vampire fangs in the office

The Problem of Profit as a Purpose

By Kevin Meyer - May 10th, 2019

Just yesterday the Harvard Business Review presented an article by a London Business School professor suggesting that companies don’t always need a purpose beyond profit. I had to take a walk on the beach to get my blood pressure

Resources for Personal Lean Leadership

By Kevin Meyer - April 18th, 2019

Lean, and continuous improvement in general, isn’t just for the professional world. The tools and concepts can also be used to clean your garage (5S), organize your pantry (kanban), set direction (hoshin), or reduce the time it takes

Harnessing Deliberate Reflection to Create Personal Improvement

By Kevin Meyer - April 12th, 2019

My favorite part of last week’s podcast with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, was the last five minutes when he talked about a potential downside of good habits. When we decide to improve, and create a new practice with th

The Limits of Learning From Failure

By Kevin Meyer - March 1st, 2019

Experienced leaders know that failure is not necessarily a negative, and can lead to both individual and organizational learning. We try to embrace failure and create a culture where appropriate failure is accepted as long as it̵

Teaching Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - February 8th, 2019

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. – Shunryu Suzuki A couple of recent Harvard Business Review articles have discussed how higher education isn’t preparing g

Herb Kelleher: Creating Economic Value Based on Human Values

By Kevin Meyer - January 11th, 2019

A legendary CEO, Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, passed away last week. Many articles have already been written memorializing him, including this one by Bill Taylor in the Harvard Business Review and this one by our friend Mark

Avoid the Arbitrary Constraints of Time

By Kevin Meyer - December 7th, 2018

It’s that time of the year again when many people ask “where did the year go?” and furiously try to wrap up projects, crank out potentially unnecessary production, create plans and budgets for next year, and perhaps s

Looking Forward with Alfred Adler

By Kevin Meyer - November 9th, 2018

Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations. – Alfred Adler I’m not really sure how it started, but one day a couple months ago I found myself diving down an i

Treating Lean Psychosis

By Kevin Meyer - October 12th, 2018

The treatment of people with severe mental illness often means locking them away in large, impersonal facilities or letting them bounce between short stays at in-patient units at major hospitals, followed by a rapid decline of function

Midnight at the Gemba

By Kevin Meyer - August 31st, 2018

In the late 1990s I was working in the Silicon Valley for a Fortune-50 medical device company, responsible for a drug infusion pump manufacturing operation. I had just completed a crazy period where I had also “temporarily̶

When Noise Masks the Problem

By Kevin Meyer - August 3rd, 2018

Last week I was reading Mark Graban’s latest book, Measures of Success, which does a great job of discussing how to use data to effectively lead and manage an organization. With new technologies it has become so easy to capture

New Videos: Lean and Sustainability at Texas Nameplate

By Kevin Meyer - July 25th, 2018

Gemba Academy just released a new Gemba Academy Live! video series where we visit Texas Nameplate in Lancaster, Texas. Dale Crownover, CEO of Texas Nameplate, has spoken at numerous lean and continuous improvement conferences, include

Thinking About Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - July 9th, 2018

For the past several years I’ve been fascinated by how we think – and how that affects us, our leadership, and the organizations we’re a part of. A couple years ago I wrote about the beginner’s mind and the va

Going to the Gemba with Anthony Bourdain

By Kevin Meyer - June 29th, 2018

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to

Using Solitude and Silence to Enable Personal Reflection

By Kevin Meyer - June 1st, 2018

I will take time to be alone today. I will take time to be quiet. In this silence I will listen… and I will hear my answers. – Ruth Fishel Last Memorial Day weekend, while the rest of the country was enjoying the roar of the Indy 5

Learn by Preparing to Teach

By Kevin Meyer - May 11th, 2018

Many studies have shown that one of the most effective ways to learn new material is not just to perform an activity with the new knowledge, but to teach it. It’s the reason why several companies ask interview finalists for new

Lean Municipal Government Forum in Grand Rapids

New Videos: Lean Municipal Government Forum

By Kevin Meyer - May 4th, 2018

Is your city’s government using lean? If not, perhaps you should forward this to them! We just released a new video series with the presentations and tours from the Lean Municipal Government Forum recently held in Grand Rapids, M

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