Leadership and Management Insights

"I am totally impressed by the breadth and depth of Bob's knowledge and how clearly he communicates the truth about Lean in his blogs and writings. He is possibly the greatest leader of true Lean Thinking alive in the world today." - John D. 

"Bob's writing is passionate and provocative, stretching us to consider the implications as it touches on various aspects of society, economy, politics, and management. - Bruno G.

All blog posts © Bob Emiliani

Management Chemistry
Coming Soon: The AI CEO
More On Nonproductivity
Lean Zombies
Lean Hypnotized
Thinking About Toyota Kata
Lean Transformation Process Chart
Why There Are So Few Lean CEOs
Kaizen Advice
Why CEOs Won’t Participate in Kaizen
Revolving Door Leadership
Reframing Lean
Introducing Kaizen Kitty!
Losing Faith in Lean
My Favorite Mistake
Videos About the Book Kaizen Forever
Leaders: Are You In or Out of Spec?
Tips for Going on Japan Study Tours
Artificial Intelligence and People Skills
Genba vs. Business Ideology
CEOs, Drugs, and Progress
Chief Confusion Officer
Fooled
Learning is Not Enough
Asking the Wrong Question (for Decades)
Bye Bye Lean Tools
Research Papers
Fake Lean People
The Toyota Way, RIP
The Road to Nowhere
My Inspiration
The 15 Joys of Kaizen
Things I Have Learned
Book Recommendations
Respecting Local Suppliers
“Kaizen Forever” Hoodie
Think Like a 9-Year Old Child
Stakeholder Theory: Toward A Classical Institutional Economics Perspective
Stakeholder Theory: A Process-Ontological Perspective
Many Ways to Win
What Everyone Misses
Taylor’s Vision
Uncovering Problems
Toyota Kaizen
Are You Curious to Ask Why?
Lean Leader Profile
Improving the Economy
Business Decline Contingency Plan
Feedback Circle
Kaizen and Lean
The Problem With Visual Controls for Leaders
A Second Chance for Lean?
Seeing Beyond What You Know
Introducing My AI Chatbot
What is Your Vision of the Future?
Dear Bard
The Machine Says It, So It Must Be True
A Missed Opportunity to Improve
The Cosmic History of Lean Management
The One Thing Nobody Has Yet Tried
The Perception of Negativity
Videos and Podcasts
The Merging of AI and Leadership
Business Power Through Psychology
What Google Bard Thinks of Me and My Work
Random Thoughts
List of Research Papers
Thoughts On the Cynefin Framework
Kaizen Video: Closing the Gap
The Inverse of Science
A Force for Change
Advice to Young Lean Professionals
Ripostes to the Status Quo
The Importance of Business Principles
The Cost of Loving Lean
Trapped by Traditions
What Am I Selling?
Spending Time With Chihiro Nakao
“Why do you post on LinkedIn every day?”
Turning Gold into Platinum
Turning Gold Into Lead
The Lean Tool System
Strange Lean World
The Sustainability Myth
Revisiting The Burning Platform
Was Lean Dead From the Start?
Always Study Your Adversary’s Case
Do You Choose Willful Ignorance?
My “Approach”
Why I Stopped Writing Books
Some Recent Lean History
Bob’s Book Guide
The Toyota Half-Way
True Believers
Understanding Misunderstandings
Scary Halloween Posts
The Tools in Your Toolbox
The Recipe for Being a Top Leader
Six New Videos!
How Did Lean Become So Popular?
Your Biggest Lean Mistake
Summarizing My Books
Lean Politics
The Remarkable Work of Robert B. Wolf
New Lean Principles
Should You Forget About Psychological Safety?
What Surprised Me The Most
Bob Emiliani’s Tips for Writing Books
The Backstory – A Few More Thoughts
Ten Truths Lean People Need to Embrace About Lean
Let’s Improve Together
Understanding Lean Management
The Lean Spectrum
Barriers to Moving Forward
How to Create a Lean Organization
Leadership Behaviors?
Your Emotional Connection to Lean
An Irrational Fear
Keynote Talk Video
Jumping to Solutions
Show, Don’t Tell. Isn’t That Right?
Let’s Get Real
Scientific Management Compendium
Books for Curious CI Professionals
Deming: A Reassessment
Take the Next Big Step
TPS and Mother Earth
April Fools’ Posts
Most Leadership Development Training is Fluff
Revitalizing Leadership Training
The Backstory – The Workmanship of Leaders
“Insights for Improvement” Seminar Series
Why is Deming Irrelevant to CEOs?
Leadership Information Processing
The Backstory – A Changed Perspective
The Laws of Business Thermodynamics
So You Want to Be a Lean Professional?
American Higher Education
Rethinking Strategy
Simplifying Leadership
Kaizen Kaizen Kaizen
Now You Know!
What I Learned
Engage or Ignore?
The Backstory – The Aesthetic Compass
New Bob Emiliani Web Site!
Words and Facts Matter
Revisiting The Toyota Way 2001
Rethinking the Need for Lean
Cancelling Lean Culture
Mechanistic Approach to Status
The Satisfying Spectacle of Classical Management
The Machine Paradigm
Lean’s Culture War
Addition Still Beats Subtraction
Two Lean Journeys
From Thought Leadership to Banal Thoughts
Cuckoo for Kata
The Problem with Lean Thinking
Taiichi Ohno the Businessman
Great Expectations
Apparent Problems More Profitable Than Actual Problems
Misusing the “Respect for People” Principle
Perpetuating A Lean Mystery
Ohno’s Theory of Nonproductivity
Twenty-Four Books
Helpful Feedback to “Another Lean Fan”
Who to Blame for Leaders’ Declining Interest in Lean?
Go See? What For?
Lean and Learning
Lean and Lying
Courage and Bravery
The Backstory – Wheel of Fortune
How My Work Has Evolved
Lean and Iconoclasm
The Disaster of Lean Training
The Fraudulent Claim of High Wages
Cold, Crass, and Graceless
Norman Bodek (1932-2020)
The 737 Max and CSCU Board of Regents
Banished from Lean World
No Santa Claus?
Stupidity at Scale
Mass Producing Happiness
Process-Results Dichotomy
Lean — Survival or Decline
Guide to Books
Are Lean People Stupid?
Move Over Lean!
Wonder No More
The Backstory – Improvement
Lean HE2020 Global Conference Presentation
Second Virtual Lean Mini-Conference
Betting It All On Leadership Behaviors
Confronting the Arguments Against Lean Management
Methods for Changing Leaders: A3 or Kaizen?
Tired of Hearing About Toyota?
What Happened to Lean?
Recent WTFU Articles
Picking Winners
Akio Toyoda’s View of TPS: A Critical Analysis
First Virtual Lean Mini-Conference
Ahead Yet Still Far Behind
Lean Management Seen as Corruption
The Awesomeness of Lean
Lean’s Tragic Path Dependence
Critique of “5 GUIDING PRINCIPLES TO TRANSFORM HEALTHCARE”
How Lean Induces Debilitating Cognitive Dissonance
The Enemy of Lean is Classical Management
What Comes After Lean?
In Praise of Experts
Love for Ohno, Hate for Taylor?
Boeing 737 Max and Lean Transformation
A Consistent Message
Energizing the Lean Movement
Petition to End Classical Management
Lean Must Learn From Black Lives Matter
What If….?
Dr. Emiliani’s No’s for Lean
The Lean Whiners
The Case Against Lean
Comfort in Knowing
Means and Ends in Management Systems
Classical Management Cycle
The Transformation of Lean
Appearance vs. Reality
Lean Anguish
Lean’s Crumbling Foundation
What is Lean’s Future?
The Backstory – Management Mysterium
Is Lean Toast?
Lean and COVID-19
Lean Got a Bad Start
Management IQ
Narrow Thinking, Narrow Results
Wanting to Know, Preferring to Ignore
The Backstory – Irrational Institutions
The Yin and Yang of Management
Criticism of Triumph of Classical Management
The Backstory – Eliminating Waste in Teaching
How Many Genbas are There?
Creating a Lean Culture
Winning With Lean
Psychological Safety and Lean
Documenting Modern Progressive Management
Management Darwinism
Data-Driven Delays
Are You a Lean Expert?
We Succeed When We All Agree?
Toyota’s Free Riders
Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma
Four Types of Lean People
Understanding the Institution of Leadership
Radicals Among Conservators
Lean Fighting Blind
Waste is a Feature, Not a Bug
Lean Leaders Impede the Advancement of Lean
Modernizing the Practice of Management
Dr. Deming’s SoPK and Dr. Emiliani’s SoPP
Lean Can’t Fail!
Lean Graft Incompatibility
Static vs. Dynamic Lean
In Search of Lean CEOs
System T and Lean
Bookmarks for Your Favorite Lean Books
The Worst Lean Advice
Business as a State of Confusion
How Soft Skills Impair Problem-Solving
The Bad Boy of Lean
Promotion of Lean Must Evolve
The Shingo Experiment
Fulfillment by Status Quo, Inc.
What About the Past State?
Where Scientific Thinking Lives and Dies
Passing the Lean Baton
The Elephant in the Room
Sharing the Knowledge
Profoundly Antagonistic Systems
Dismantling Classical Management
Escape the Ideological Bubble
Lean Football
That’s Not My Job
Lean is an Intangible Asset
Business as Experimental Science
Truth Has Consequences
Selling Lean to Business Leaders
The Outcome of Serious Research
The Leader’s Prerogative
How to Never Run Out of Ideas
Why Do CEOs Hate Operations?
One Strategy, Two Paths
Management as an Engineering Problem
Lean and the Burning Platform
Lean Retrospective
Why Business Leaders Vote “No” for Lean
Reimagining Lean
Lean People Never Understood CEOs
How Leaders Sabotage Lean
Money vs. Process View of Cost
Business Leaders’ Case for Ignoring Lean
The Problem Lean May Never Overcome
Is Lean Too Arrogant to Save Itself?
What’s Holding Lean Back?
Lean Transformation is Not Difficult
Lean and The Corporation
Lean Warning Label
The Seven Laws of Lean Disillusionment
The Business Philosophy Triangle
My Contributions to Lean
The Backstory – The Triumph of Classical Management
Solving the Lean Transformation Problem
The Role of a Professor in the Lean Movement
Lean Fatigue
Lean Parody Advertisements
Freeish Trade, Economic Nationalism, and Lean
What Gets Measured Gets Managed?
Book Review: THE LEAN STRATEGY
The Backstory – Conversations with Taiichi Ohno
Learning to See
How Would You Answer These Questions?
Wacky Lean House
Why Aren’t You Solving Ohno’s Problem?
The Backstory – Critique of Lean
Comparing TPS and Lean
Producing Business Results With Lean
Why Lean Keeps Thriving
Reusable Processes
Shingijutsu Super Kaizen Workshop
Coaching Lean Without Knowing
The One Difficult Thing Hypothesis
History Matters
Critic and Conscience of the Lean Movement
Teachers, Trainers, Coaches, or Faculty?
Lean: Past, Present, and Future
Critique of “Let’s Ban the Eighth Waste”
Digital Transformation & Lean Transformation
Digital Transformation vs. Lean Transformation
Leadership Development for Business Impact
Mother Kaizen
The Greatest Business Problem Ever
Introducing Lean in Your Organization
Hopes and Dreams
Economists, Economic Growth, and Lean
Is Lean Now “Baked In?”
Lean Without Drama
Spooky Historical Parallels
Lean Strategy
Generic Brand or Name Brand?
A Little Bit of Knowledge Can Be…
Lean Thinking vs. Kaizen Thinking
Interview in Production Manager Magazine
Toyota’s One Best Way
Eight Questions I Get From My Students
Kaizen Evolution
Kaizen: A Comprehensive Business Strategy
Kaizen: A Simple Leadership Development Strategy
Kaizen: A Simple Innovation Strategy
Kaizen: A Simple Employee Wellness Strategy
Kaizen: A Simple Tax Abatement Strategy
Critique of “Dealing with Lean’s Crazy Relatives”
Thoughts on “Lean Thinking at 20”
Lean Leadership Training: From Batch to Flow
Thoughts On “Lean Thinking – The Making of a Book”
Fear of a Lean Planet
20th Anniversary of Lean Thinking
The Yen, the Dollar, and TPS
What is Lean Without Respect for People?
The Great Lean Mystery
The Start of Lean Leadership
Copying Toyota
The Improvement Mindset Is Rare
3P for Lean Transformation
What Leaders Won’t Do
Lean is Illegitimate. Or is it?
Fealty to the Lords of Lean
Time to Refocus on Kaizen
The Humanity of Shingijutsu-Kaizen
Shingijutsu-WOW
Lean’s Next 25 Years
Lean Transformation Variation
Employees Goofing Off
Lean Success and Lean Failure
An Engineering Approach to Leadership
Is Lean the Same as TPS?
Lean’s Holy Grail
Toyota-Style Kaizen
Improving Leadership Processes
Motivations and Aspirations
Criticizing Lean
Teaching Lean Leadership
Evolving Out of Need
Lean Transformation Failure Analysis
How Economics Disrespects People
How Kaizen Restores Craftsmanship to Work
Lean Can Learn from History
Lean’s Bad Timing
What is Lean Management?
Lean’s Promise Broken
What’s Your Lean Provenance?
Lean and State Government Agency Leaders
Lean Management and the Public Good
Why Business Schools Should Teach Lean Management
Existential Threats to Lean
A Critique of LeanCT
Lean Hypocrisy
What Went Wrong?
The Power of Kaizen
Lean Management (1988-2026)
Lean’s Midlife Crisis
The Backstory – Evolution of Lean Leadership Training
The Illusion of Understanding
Something Revolutionary Seen as Ordinary
The Lean Movement’s Strategic Errors
A Marker of Lean Success
Books for Teaching Lean Management
Shingijutsu Super-Genba-Kaizen Workshop
Inept vs. Immoral Leadership
The Backstory – Lean Leadership Research
Reefer Sanity
Additive Leadership
Treating Management Psychosis
Back to Basics
The Backstory – Shingijutsu-Kaizen
New Book: Shingijutsu-Kaizen
The Lean-Industrial Complex
Growing Tomatoes
Searching For Lean Sustainability
Observe and Ask “Why?”
The Backstory – Speed Leadership
Methodological Errors In Lean Government
Abnormal Conditions and Lean Oddities
The Backstory – Kaizen Forever
Terrific Blog Posts!
Winning Over Business Traditionalists
Seddon’s Amazing Discovery
Shared Values for REAL Lean
Toyota’s Supermarket Method
What’s Not To Like About Lean?
New Book: Kaizen Forever
The Most Important Thing
Kaizen Your Political Skills
Removing Confirmation Bias Against Lean
Lean’s Kiss Of Death
Flaws In Lean
Lean Intellectualism
Lean Overproduction
Exploring Leadership
The Five-Day Kaizen
Coaching Leaders
Good For You To Know
Abnormal Condition Alert!
Big Data, Leaders, and Lean
LEI/LEA Lean Transformation Model
Reverse Toyota Way
Origin Of The Phrase “Kaizen Event”
Defining “Respect for People”
The Economic Benefits of Lean
Just-Too-Late
Political Correctness Comes To Lean
Who Is Your Leader?
The Lean Refinery
The Backstory – Lean Behaviors
Evolution and Future of Lean
Toyota’s Secret
Much Study, Little Understanding
Chihiro Nakao: An Amazing Teacher
Ohno’s Problem-Solving Methods
Perfect Misunderstanding
Leading With Respect Is The Old Standard
64th Japan Genba Kaizen Seminar
The Human Case For Lean
Yasuhiro Monden
The Backstory – First Lean Leadership Course
Shifting Definitions of “Lean Thinking”
Leading Without Respect
The Squeaky Wheel
Restoring Symmetry
Breaking Symmetry
Despoiling The “Respect For People” Principle
Lead With Respect
How I Teach Lean Leadership
The Backstory – Writing In A Tough Tone
Two Paths To Lean Leadership
Focus On Flow
Reflecting On Shingijutsu-Kaizen
Nakao-san and Shingijutsu-Kaizen
Lean In Higher Education
Opportunity To Do Good
No Call, No Response
Fat Behaviors Forever
Lean Curiosities
Motivating Leaders to Embrace Lean
Worrying About Worries
Secrets Of Lean Leadership
Lean Training Lineage Matters
Lessons Well Learned
Settings For Lean Success
The Clear Solution: Leadership Processes
More Than Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors: The Path To Lean Culture
The Implied Threat
Don’t Wait For Your Leaders
Human Superstorms
The Musician And The Manager
When Leaders Improve, Everyone Improves
Metrics Madness
My Students’ Visual Controls
Is History Repeating Itself?
Why No “Respect for People?”
Evolution Of The RFP Principle
Lean Capital
Shingijutsu-Kaizen Conference: Day 1
Shingijutsu-Kaizen Conference: Day 2
A Tribute to Loretta
Lean Leader’s Visual Control
Influential Research Papers
Sustaining Lean
Peak Lean
Boss, Know Your CI People
Ignore Change Management
Labor Unions and Lean
Quality of Lean
Theories Have Consequences
Know Who You Are Talking To
The Backstory – Lean Teaching
More Learning From Mistakes
The Backstory – Lean Leadership
Read To Succeed
Learning From Mistakes
“Sales Over Safety, Profit Over Principle”
Problem-Solving Behind the Front Line
Learning To Think
Observing Lean Evolve
Eliminating the Six Criticisms of Lean
The Backstory – Lean University
Lean For the Next Generation
Job Security
McKinsey&Lean
McKinsey Finally On Board!
Lean Leadership Research: What Next?
No Lean Without Kaizen
Fast or Slow: It’s Your Choice
Winners and Losers
One Model for Lean Transformation
Golf and Lean
Better Interview Questions
Management Innovation
The First VSM of a VSM Event!
The Backstory – Lean Is Not Mean
Great Lean Leaders
The Language of Lean
Still Beating Up Suppliers?
Why Is Lean Important?
Lean Heresy
Confounded by Reality
The Backstory – Moving Forward Faster
What It Takes To Succeed
Kudos to John Seddon
Frequently Asked Questions
Lean as Decoration
The Backstory – Real Lean
The Spirit of Lean
Why I Self-Publish
The Future of Lean
EH&S and Lean
The Backstory – Practical Lean Leadership
Leadership, Time, and Information Flow
Help Myself, Then Help Others
Celebrate, But Remember
Early TPS Training
Machines Must Serve People
The Toyota Way for Outsiders
Make the Connection
The Backstory – Better Thinking, Better Results
Henry Gantt and Lean Accounting
Henry Gantt and Lean HR
The Backstory – Real vs. Fake Lean
Eyes on Lean
New Name for Lean!
The Profits Generator
The Backstory – Finding a Lost Classic
Respect for Labor
Toyota’s Amazing Accomplishment
Just-In-Time For America
My Favorite Quote
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