Gemba Academy

Engaging Partners and Suppliers on Your CI Journey

By John Knotts - April 15th, 2022

In my first blog on the subject of Continuous Improvement, I highlighted the proverb, “many hands, make light work.” The concept of a culture of continuous improvement is to orient everyone in the organization toward one common g

Have Faith & Trust the Process

By Ron Pereira - April 1st, 2022

My family and I are going through a difficult time right now with a personal situation. Thankfully everyone is healthy…but we have been dealt a blow. After I shared the situation with a close friend, who knows me very well, they

Why Lean Programs Don’t Work

By Jon Miller - March 22nd, 2022

While reading a Knowledge@Wharton article on the subject of why employee wellness programs don’t work, I found myself thinking about why lean programs don’t always seem to work. Management professor Iwan Barnakay found, “Well

Developing Leadership Through Tours

By John Knotts - March 18th, 2022

In my last article, we had a great discussion, in our continuing series, regarding Continuous Improvement Development for Leadership and Professionals. Leadership development is extremely important if you are trying to change or create

Top 8 Reasons Teams Abandon Their Visuals

By Jon Miller - March 7th, 2022

Reader Dan made a great suggestion in a comment to a recent article on using artifacts to make thinking visible, “Next you might delve into why visuals are sometimes abandoned by teams.” Abandoned visual controls, outd

5 Ways to Be More Grateful and Why Lean Thinkers Should Care

By Ron Pereira - March 4th, 2022

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” -Cicero I’ve been thinking about gratefulness a lot lately. Being grateful is something I try to do…but often fail at. There are many

Using Artifacts to Make Our Thinking Visible

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2022

In sports, statecraft, gambling, and other competitive endeavors, it often pays to hide one’s thoughts and true intentions. What we indicate and what we actually intend are often different. We hold our cards close to the chest an

Continuous Improvement Development for Leadership and Professionals

By Steve Kane - February 25th, 2022

This article was written by John Knotts. John is a senior coach at Gemba Academy. If you have studied anything about change management, you will have seen some type of change model; I embrace the change continuum model shown below bu

How to Let Small Things Bother You

By Jon Miller - February 21st, 2022

An interesting New York Times article points out how many of us have become desensitized to the dangers of this pandemic over the past couple of years. This is due to the constant alarm bells that ring, without always seeing real dange

Formalism for Forms

By Jon Miller - February 14th, 2022

One thing I’ve been doing a lot lately in my job at Gemba Academy is preparation. Specifically, I’m making sure that we have the graphics, figures, and forms our video editors need to do their job smoothly. The audio portio

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