Off Topic Archives | Gemba Academy

GA 572 | Dealing with Burnout with Steven Langer

By Jessica Bush - March 20th, 2025

This week’s guest is Steven Langer. Ron and Steven discussed what it means to optimize workplace culture, what a strong organizational culture looks like, dealing with burnout, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is av

Eight Tips for Managing Up

By Steve Kane - April 28th, 2023

Managing up is an essential skill that can help you succeed in a rapidly changing environment. As businesses and organizations continue to evolve and adapt to new challenges, it’s critical to develop strategies to effectively com

Don’t Change the Culture, Change the Cultural Inputs

By Steve Kane - August 27th, 2021

Company culture, loosely defined, is a set of shared beliefs, values, purpose, practices, behaviors, artifacts, language, goals, and attitudes within an organization. Changing culture continues to be a hot topic in the workplace. While

Reflections on a Lean Futuring Discussion

By Steve Kane - July 26th, 2019

Last week I met with a dozen Lean practitioners, leaders, consultants, and advisors for the purpose of understanding where we’re headed as both individuals and as a community. We had a very deliberate and structured discussion

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

Set Full Sail

By Steve Kane - June 22nd, 2018

Getting started with lean in an existing organization challenging on many levels. Often some of the most important steps in a lean journey are not recognized. A common place people think they start is with 5S. It’s an

Instructions Aren’t Enough

By Steve Kane - May 25th, 2018

During a recent airline emergency, cabin pressure was lost and the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Passengers donned the masks, but not quite as instructed. Mobile phone videos of the incident showed many passengers wearing th

Where Do I Start with Lean?

By Steve Kane - April 27th, 2018

Where should I start with Lean? is a common question we receive at Gemba Academy. Some say starting with 5S is a must. Others favor eliminating the seven deadly wastes. Others still suggest value stream mapping. A great question

Avoid the Ambush

By Steve Kane - February 23rd, 2018

As I’m writing this, I’m attending the Toyota Kata Summit in Atlanta. The early keynotes of the conference touched on several important aspects of Lean leadership. Among them were the general topic of respect for people

Big Decisions Don’t Lead to Results

By Steve Kane - January 26th, 2018

The Big Idea January’s the month for resolutions–big decisions to make significant changes in one’s life. Celebration of the new year offers a sense of renewal and opportunity for change. While the month of Januar

Happy Thanksgiving

By Steve Kane - November 23rd, 2017

During this time of Thanksgiving we would like to express to you our sincere appreciation to each and every one of you for reading our blog, listening to our podcast, and watching our videos. Because of you, we are able to do the wor

“I Didn’t Teach the Dog Anything”

By Steve Kane - June 23rd, 2017

The Dog is a Handful I have a Jack Russell Terrier named Kirby. Kirby has some–how should I put it–less than desirable behavioral traits. He’s a great dog most of the time. Other times, he can be a handful. Fo

Following Their Moral Compass

By Steve Kane - April 28th, 2017

By Steve Kane As an aviation enthusiast and airplane pilot, I take an interest in pretty much all kinds of flying. YouTube provides seemingly endless entertainment for people like me. I recently started watching lots of videos on p

McProcess

By Steve Kane - February 17th, 2017

I recently saw the movie “The Founder”— the story of Ray Kroc and the McDonald’s empire. The movie does a good job of illustrating what one can do with the right opportunity, enough drive, and a lot of moral flexibility. We’l

How Do I Teach My Team?

By Steve Kane - January 20th, 2017

I like to think that a large part of a leader’s job is to teach, coach, mentor and inspire. And, working for people who do this well is often a great experience. The trouble is that there is typically little, if any, training

Lean Lessons from Tough Mudder

By Steve Kane - October 21st, 2016

By Steve Kane May 2016 I had the bright idea that I’d register for the Michigan Tough Mudder Mud Run, then find a way to get in shape (ready, fire, aim). I had seen ads and social media posts from finishers and thought t

Protect the Process

By Steve Kane - September 16th, 2016

This article is a continuation of the series based on best practices from the Gemba Academy community. Part 1: Don’t Let Perfect Get in the Way of Good Part 2: Create a Learning Path It’s easy to get consumed with KP

Don’t Let Perfection Get In the Way of Progress

By Steve Kane - July 15th, 2016

The Gemba Academy team is in a great position to interact with many lean practitioners around the world. With a thousand or so subscribing organizations and presumably hundreds of thousands of Gemba Academy users, we’re able to see

Safety In Numbers: What Message Are We Sending?

By Steve Kane - June 17th, 2016

Guest contribution by Jamie Parker “Don’t tell the team. I don’t want to be the reason our number goes back to zero.” These are the words a front-line team member shared with her plant manager after sustaining an injury. You se

Inspiring a Bias for Action

By Steve Kane - April 15th, 2016

Jamie Parker practices Lean and is passionate about learning and sharing Lean leadership. She has 15 years’ experience in operations management / leadership across retail, service, and manufacturing environments. Jamie serves as

More Than Metrics

By Steve Kane - March 18th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve had some conversations recently about what a successful lean journey looks like. Of course, we talked about key performance indicators and monitoring metrics. As the saying goes, not everything that can be coun

Say No

By Steve Kane - February 19th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve recently committed to more short-term responsibilities in and out of work than I should have. We’ve all be in this situation before, leaving ourselves with insufficient time to meet all the demands we’ve put

Peak Stuff and the Hierarchy of Useless Things

By Jon Miller - January 25th, 2016

In a radio interview this week the Chief Sustainability Officer for IKEA, Steve Howard, introduced the interesting idea that the West has arrived at “peak stuff.” He observed that consumption of “stuff” such

The Only Genuine Knowledge Is That of Actual Experience

By Steve Kane - January 15th, 2016

“The only genuine knowledge is that of actual experience.” ~ Chinese proverb Training is a big part of lean transformation. Countless hours and dollars are spent in training rooms, seminars, and classrooms every year. It’s comm

A Goal to Explore Out of the Box

By Kevin Meyer - January 1st, 2016

By Kevin Meyer Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ralph Emerson It’s that arbitrary time of the year when many folks reflect on the past and set goals for the coming yea

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