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Coaching and Co-Learning — Understanding that Lean Is a Journey
This week The Management Brief kicks off an extended series on the coaching and co-learning that is occurring throughout the…
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20 Years Later: How Toyota’s Product Development Principles Are Still Core to a Lean Enterprise
In this special edition of the WLEI Podcast, hosts Lex Schroeder and LEI President Josh Howell sit down with former product…
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From Fiction to Navigation: Using Cynefin to Choose the Right Improvement Method
Lean thinking doesn't fail in complex environments — it gets misapplied. Nigel Thurlow explains how to choose the right method…
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Bridging Strategy and Execution: How Daily Management and Hoshin Kanri Work Together
Daily management and hoshin kanri serve different purposes — but neither works without the other. Here's how lean leaders connect…
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Wait, That’s My Job | How AI Exposed the Organizational Immune System Nobody Wanted to Talk About
AI isn't just disrupting work — it's exposing the organizational immune system. Tyson Heaton reveals who's blocking progress and who's…
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Better Thinking Faster
Art Smalley draws on decades at Toyota and a national laboratory to challenge the lean community's speed-vs-deliberation debate. The real…
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Four Moments from the 2026 Lean Summit that Stayed with Me
Art Smalley shares four pivotal moments from the 2026 Lean Summit — on LPPD, leadership purpose, coaching, and the future…
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10 Takeaways from the Lean Summit 2026
Members and leaders of the lean community gathered in Houston for the 2026 Lean Summit to explore leadership, management systems,…
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The Management System Your Organization Doesn’t Know It Needs
Most organizations are solving only a fraction of their actual problems — and leaders don't even know it. Here's the…
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Automation, AI, and the Risk of Doing Things Efficiently That Should Not Be Done at All
A recent MIT study found that 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver value. This article highlights a crucial…
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When “Future State” Becomes Fiction: Lean, Complexity, and the Vector Theory of Change
Lean's future-state thinking works beautifully in stable environments -- but in complex adaptive systems like AI adoption, a fixed roadmap…
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Leanshoring: Winning with Customers by Bringing the Business Closer
Offshoring strategies built on low-wage assumptions are failing. LEI Founder Jim Womack and GE Appliances CEO Kevin Nolan explain why…
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