The Edges of Lean

Episode 5: Continuous Improvement and Artificial Intelligence

Teachers of lean practice emphasize the importance of human interaction and some even eschew the idea of automating processes.  Lauren Hisey has a very different perspective when it comes to our relationship with the machines that are everywhere – especially those that use artificial intelligence.  She's not afraid, and she works actively to help companies use human intelligence together with artificial intelligence. In a world where the next person you speak with might be a bot, how do we use our lean principles, especially respect for people?

Lauren is a consultant and coach who guides business owners to create effective change, bringing together her technical expertise and continuous improvement skills gained working for major technology based companies. You can find Lauren at laurenhiseyconsulting.com.

Learning Leadership in the Cockpit of an F15

At the edges of lean are the practices that look just like lean - but the people who practice them don't think of themselves as lean practitioners. My guest is Brandon Williams of LeadTAC. Brandon was an F-15 pilot for the US Air Force, and in this podcast we talk about what leadership lessons can be learned from the people who fly planes at 1,800 miles per hour, and how human factors and situational awareness can improve work for everyone. And we talk about how lean leadership is like the leadership Brandon learned in military, and focus on overlaps in the thinking patterns - and what's different.

Continuous Improvement and Mental Health

In lean thinking, we talk a lot about respect for people.  And that means we need to understand the physical and mental conditions affecting the people we work with.  I know that my training as a lean thinking, continuous improvement professional included very little about how our brains work – and even less about the effects of mental health and mental illness on how our organizations work.  Yet many of the people we work with, and even we ourselves, struggle with aspects of mental illness and seek better mental health.

In this episode of "The Edges of Lean" Michelle Dickinson and Gemma Jones share their learnings about mental health and mental illness - and we talk about what it means for anyone working in continuous improvement. 

September is Suicide Awareness Month, an important time to pay attention to everyone's mental health.

If you or someone you know are having suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24-hours a day at 1-800-273-8255

In the UK, you can ring the Samaritans (also 24 hours a day) on 116 123.

 

 

 

Continuous Improvement - For Kids!

How can you use lean thinking with your children?  Karidja Sakanogo, and Sam Morgan, two deeply engaged continuous improvement thinkers, share how they have taken lean thinking home to the family. We also talk about the challenges of raising Black and biracial children and what it means to teach kids "respect for people." 

The Edges of Lean: Episode 1 "Meet the Founding Mothers"

Every weekday morning at 10 AM Eastern, women from all over the world meet on Zoom for 30 minutes.  All these women are practitioners of continuous improvement, lean or six sigma. Who are they? Why are they meeting? And who got this started?

In this inaugural episode of "The Edges of Lean," meet three women who got tired of women's voices not being heard in the lean community, what they did about it, and what it has become.   Crystal Y. Davis, Karyn Ross, and Dorsey Sherman founded a unique co-creative group of lean thinkers that is growing every day. 

 

I'm Bella Englebach, and this is our first adventure at the "The Edges of Lean."