Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement

Hosts John Dyer and Dr. Mohammed Saleh discuss Dr. Deming's 14th point for management: Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job. The hosts also outline the potential misuse of lean specialists. 

Understand the essential requirements to building an organization of thinkers rather than button-pushers, and delve into how AI should contribute to building a learning organization. 

Explore why pride of workmanship is important as well as common barriers that destroy it within an organization. 

Explore what the podcast hosts describe as Dr. W. Edwards Deming's "most controversial" point for management, one that many executives have a problem with. 

Learn why Dr. Deming called Point 10 his "biggest pet peeve" among the 14 points for transformation. One hint: It blames the workers. 

Learn how silos encourage local optimization at the expense of the whole, and gather tools to break down those barriers. 

Understand fear's invisible impact on KPIs and its destructive effects on innovation. 

The aim of leadership is to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job— not to put out fires or be the hero.  

Understand why lack of proper training rather than a lack of employee effort creates bad operational outcomes, and gain insights on training measures that work. 

Gain insights into the importance of continuous improvement as a daily habit, with reduced costs as a result, not a goal. Understand why this approach extends to all disciplines and departments, not just manufacturing production. 

Delve into why Dr. Deming promotes the idea of selecting suppliers based on total cost and moving toward a single supplier for any one item. 

Explore the meaning behind Dr. W. Edwards Deming's third point for management: Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

Delve into the meaning behind Dr. Deming's second of 14 points for management transformation. Learn why it is meant as a wake-up call for management unwilling to change their culture, systems and how they treat their people. 

Explore the meaning behind "constancy of purpose," the first of Dr. Deming's 14 points for management transformation and learn why it is important to team-based continuous improvement. 

Delve into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, statistician, management consultant and often referred to as the father of the quality movement. 

Podcast hosts John Dyer and Dr. Mohamed Saleh reflect on their favorite discussion topics from past episodes and highlight the No. 1 driver of organizational change. 

Delve into three types of workplace structures—non-union, cooperative union and non-cooperative (or blocking) union—and learn the benefits or early engagement and collaboration. 

Organizations don’t just age chronologically—they build layers of belief systems, rituals, unspoken norms, and hardened habits. And as the years pass, change becomes more of a cultural excavation than a simple upgrade. Tune in and discover how to transform age into wisdom—not weight.

From family-run operations to enterprises the size of the Titanic, delve into how size can either accelerate progress or stall it completely. Part 2 of a two-part series.