Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Manufacturing | Lean Office | Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership

Most resistance to lean is blamed on the wrong thing. Ben Morley, an Air Force pilot turned Lean Six Sigma consultant, argues the tools are never really the problem. The breakdown almost always lives somewhere between leadership buy-in and an assumption nobody thought to question. His conversation with Ron Pereira covers cockpit emergencies, a $5 million backlog that dissolved from a single customer phone call, and what a caterpillar turning to soup has to do with organizational transformation. In this episode you’ll learn: How a single quote reframes what transformation actually looks like (1:59) What flying C-17s across seven continents taught Ben about process discipline (3:26) How DMAIC and pilot training turn out to be the same methodology (7:44) Why skipping rigor in the define phase creates variation in the cockpit and the conference room (9:41) How preparation before an in-flight emergency keeps your hands moving while your mind stays clear (15:39) What to do when crossed arms and skepticism g

Most continuous improvement practitioners are using AI the same way they use Google, and getting roughly the same quality of results. David Osagie-Igiehon has taken a different approach. He builds custom agents trained on lean principles, CI methodology, and the specific knowledge domains his work demands, and the gap in output quality is significant. What he describes is less about automation and more about compressing the time it takes to do rigorous work. In this episode you’ll learn: How an accountant became a lead lean consultant and Master Black Belt candidate (2:41) What it means to use AI as a collaborative tool rather than a driving system (4:19) How building a custom AI agent named Dominique changed the pace of research (5:27) Why the quality of your prompt determines the quality of your output (7:27) How a properly structured prompt produced a 125-page governance document (11:23) Whether critical thinking can survive in a world built around AI tools (17:34) How to create a specialized AI ag

Most organizations have a strategy. Far fewer can actually execute one. Michael Caito built and sold a food delivery business decades before DoorDash existed, then spent years helping other companies close the gap between where leaders want to go and where they actually end up. His diagnosis is consistent: the gap is almost always an accountability problem, and accountability is almost always the leader’s problem first. The conversation with Ron covers what CEOs truly own, how to know whether you have a strategy issue or an execution issue, and why the cadence of your team meetings matters more than most leaders want to admit. In this episode you’ll learn: How focusing on what is vital applies the Pareto principle to business (2:24) Why the strategy-execution gap exists in most organizations (9:29) What five things a CEO truly owns in any business (10:55) When to make a people change and how to know you have waited too long (13:34) How an operating rhythm makes performance visible across the org

Most lean practitioners spend their careers trying to change the minds of adults who have been doing things the same way for decades. Ted Pendergrass decided to start earlier. Over 20 years coordinating a career technical education program at a California high school, he brought 5S, practical problem-solving, and Yellow Belt certification to students who had never heard of lean. The conversation covers what actually stuck, what surprised him, and what the rest of the lean community could do to help. In this episode you’ll learn: How a cabinet maker’s instinct for efficiency led to lean teaching (4:57) What happens when high schoolers 5S their Google Drives (6:57) Why practical problem solving opens students’ eyes more than any other unit (9:06) How student tours reveal whether lean is actually taking root (12:22) Why education is not the most lean process and what chunking has to do with it (13:34) How to teach students to use AI as a tool rather than a crutch (15:53) Why CTE programs are

Most organizations measure productivity, absenteeism, and safety incidents without ever asking what all three have in common. Tim Thomas, a former Australian Special Forces soldier turned sleep specialist, argues the answer is sitting in plain sight at the bottom of every performance pyramid. The conversation moves from combat deployments in Afghanistan to corporate boardrooms, and the through line is the same: fatigue is an enemy that most leaders never name. In this episode you’ll learn: How the opposite of fear works and what that means for taking action (3:22) What Special Forces, veteran recovery, and corporate leadership have in common under pressure (9:36) Why leaders in a state of fatigue lose the bandwidth to lead well (10:29) How to build practical sleep habits that improve everything else (13:59) Why breathwork is not meditation and why that distinction matters (16:29) How the first five minutes of your morning shape the rest of your day (21:42) Why resilience lives in recovery rather than

Culture shapes how people receive change, and nowhere is that clearer than on a shop floor where history, language, and moral authority all sit alongside the 5S board. Royden Johnson and Luc van Merrienboer bring two distinct lenses to that tension: Royden from years of leading continuous improvement in South Africa, and Luc from rolling out digital transformation across Asia and now the African continent. Their conversation with Ron covers resistance, influence, and what it actually takes to bring people along rather than drag them forward. In this episode you’ll learn: The cultural context of 5S in Asia and Africa (5:01) How 5S connects to every performance pillar in a manufacturing operation (9:43) What digital transformation actually looks like on a shop floor (13:04) Where their passion for continuous improvement comes from (15:42) How to use personal, social, and structural influencing strategies together (17:18) How to handle CAVE people without losing the rest of the team (19:29) Why unemployme

Trust in leadership has been declining for decades, and Keith Wyche has the research to prove it. A 40-year veteran of AT&T, IBM, and Walmart, Keith opened up to us about a few mistakes he’s made in his career. The real conversation here is what changed him, and what he thinks it will take to reverse the broader collapse. In this episode you’ll learn: How a career spanning AT&T, IBM, and Walmart shapes a leadership philosophy (2:26) Why a 15-year-old’s question became the catalyst for serious research (4:05) How the thirst for power quietly replaced the calling to serve (6:08) What happens when results become the only measure that matters (7:27) Why vulnerability is harder for leaders than it looks (10:42) How admitting a mistake in front of 30,000 employees built more trust than any win (11:08) How to rebuild trust one promise at a time (16:48) The difference between listening to defend and listening to understand (18:53) Why people never forget how a leader made them feel (20:42)

Most leaders assume that the right argument, delivered clearly, will change minds. Owen Fitzpatrick has spent 30 years studying why that assumption is wrong. A psychologist who has worked inside some of the world’s most extreme propaganda environments, from North Korea to Rwanda to his own teenage years, Owen brings a framework to this conversation that reframes how belief actually changes. The implications for anyone trying to lead a continuous improvement effort are hard to ignore. In this episode you’ll learn: What the purpose of life being “defeated by greater things” reveals about continuous improvement (3:37) How a single question changed the trajectory of Owen’s life and work (5:00) Why the inner critic is the wrong label for what actually holds people back (9:18) How propaganda works in three parts and why it mirrors what happens inside our own minds (14:35) Why naive realism is the single biggest obstacle to influencing anyone (22:43) How recognizing inner propaganda a

Most organizations say they want high performers, yet quietly punish them for being too valuable to lose. Kabrina Ashley, a coach and behavioral science practitioner based in Nashville, makes the case that the real barriers to change, growth, and improvement are not strategic, they’re neurological. The conversation covers why good intentions still produce bad outcomes, and what leaders can do differently once they understand what is actually happening inside their employees’ heads. In this episode you’ll learn: How inertia shapes the way people respond to change (8:57) What the high performers paradox costs organizations over time (10:57) Why personality frameworks can mislead leaders who rely on them too heavily (14:51) How asking better questions changes what people believe is possible (18:47) Why most corporate training fails to produce lasting retention (22:57) What running old code means and where it comes from (26:49) How the habit loop connects to the rewards we give ourselves at wo

Something fundamental has shifted in how people relate to work, and most leaders are still operating from a story that the workforce has already left behind. Jonathan David Lewis, president of brand strategy firm McKee Wallwork and author of The Rebuilders, makes the case that the old shared narrative of careers, retirement, and institutional trust has fractured. What comes next depends entirely on whether leaders choose to rebuild it. In this episode you’ll learn: What forgetting obvious things costs a leader over time (2:34) Why Jonathan wrote a daily reader instead of a conventional leadership book (5:05) How the shared story of work collapsed and what replaced it (8:14) What TFS reveals about the current workforce’s relationship to the future (11:41) Why counter-trends in the trades and faith communities signal a rebuilding moment (16:29) How the shift from print-first to digital-first thinking is reshaping the workforce (19:30) What inside-out leadership means when the burden gets heavy (24

Most organizations spend enormous energy developing leaders and almost none developing teammates. Stanford Associate Head Men’s Basketball Coach Eric Reveno has spent 30 years watching what actually determines whether a team wins or collapses, and his answer is not the coach. The conversation moves from college basketball to NIL compensation to Michael Jordan to what you should do first when you walk into a struggling team. The thread running through all of it is the same uncomfortable idea: the people in the room are more responsible for the culture than anyone standing at the front of it. In this episode you’ll learn: The quote that reframes what culture actually is (3:19) Why leadership is overtaught and teammate behavior is undertaught (6:07) What NIL is and why it changed the dynamics of building a team (13:52) What showing up as a great teammate actually looks like day to day (18:35) Whether a player like Michael Jordan was truly a good teammate (21:55) Why talent alone does not produce co

Most leaders think their biggest risk is making the wrong call. Cornelia Choe argues the real danger comes earlier, when a leader stops questioning the mental map they’re using to make calls in the first place. In her book The Panoramic Leader, co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith, Cornelia builds a case that continuous change has made the old leadership playbook obsolete. The world stopped being a predictable highway, and too many leaders are still staring at the rearview mirror. In this episode you’ll learn: What the quote “Achievement is all about me, but leadership is all about them” really means (3:33) Why continuous change broke the old model of leadership (6:49) How the GEM method helps leaders navigate constant change (9:52) Why G must come before E in the GEM sequence (11:31) How panoramic leadership builds on go-and-see (13:15) What mapping your evolving perspective actually looks like in practice (17:44) Why success is the most dangerous place to stop learning (23:25) What

A suppressor manufacturer in Utah started its lean transformation about a year ago. Twelve months later, inventory turns had doubled, changeover time dropped from 3.5 hours to 9 minutes, and a rollout planned for a year got compressed to three months. Slaytor Baldwin, Director of Operations at SilencerCo, joined Ron Pereira to walk through exactly how that happened, including the five years of failed starts that preceded it and what finally changed. In this episode you’ll learn: How a single cell pilot compressed a year-long rollout into three months (0:00) What starting a career inside a lean company teaches you without knowing it (3:17) Why measuring resource utilization instead of customer demand creates invisible dysfunction (6:04) How one leadership change unlocked five years of stalled momentum (10:08) What the first two moves of a real lean commitment look like in practice (12:46) Why starting with your hardest product family creates conviction no training can replicate (14:51) What happened to

  Confidence and arrogance can look identical from the outside. George Barrios has spent a career in rooms where the difference mattered, from running a semiconductor division at 29 to co-leading a $20 billion merger between WWE and UFC. His book, Sometimes Wrong, But Never in Doubt, started as a phrase buried in a performance review and grew into a full operating philosophy about where real conviction comes from. The answer is less inspiring than most people want to hear, and more actionable than most people expect. In this episode you’ll learn: What “chip on shoulder equals chips in pocket” means to founders (2:29) How early circumstances shape a lifelong drive to prove something (3:38) How a career spanning Praxair, WWE, and global sports investment came together (5:45) Where the title “Sometimes Wrong, But Never in Doubt” actually came from (8:47) The difference between confidence earned through deep work and false bravado (13:18) What conviction looks like in practice

Most organizations have the systems. They have the processes, the KPIs, the structured meetings, the strategic plans. And they are still stuck. Norman Wolfe has spent decades helping leadership teams understand why, and the answer keeps coming back to something the org chart cannot capture. The beliefs, priorities, and unspoken assumptions that shape how departments actually behave are running the show, often invisibly. In this episode you’ll learn: Why a quote about paradigms became the lens for Norman’s entire career (3:03) Why strong systems alone are not enough to fix execution problems (11:39) How departments behave like people and why that changes everything (15:00) What it actually looks like to surface and resolve a context conflict between departments (19:21) Three lenses leaders can use to see what is really blocking performance (24:50) What Norman would tell his younger self about building a lasting career (28:19) Why developing organizational maturity matters as much as optimizing pr

Most people trying to improve their lives are doing it without a clear picture of what they are building toward. For Joel Steele, a near-miss with prison forced him to start making different choices. His book “Life Switch” grows out of that turning point, and the framework he describes maps surprisingly well onto the tools that continuous improvement professionals use every day. In this episode you’ll learn: Why progress builds momentum faster than motivation alone (0:02) The quote Joel likes (3:19) How focus shapes the direction of everything you do (4:09) What a near-death experience reveals about wasted potential (6:06) How the puzzle analogy reframes goal-setting for real life (8:58) Why believing in the process separates progress from stagnation (13:22) How failure functions as fuel rather than a stop sign (14:47) The difference between living on and merely surviving each day (18:46) How understanding your wiring unlocks the right role for you (21:27) Why fulfillment is the only score

Most continuous improvement practitioners are trained to prize logic and treat emotion as noise in the system. D. Earl Johnston spent nine years and thousands of research hours across twelve disciplines discovering that framing is backward. His book, “Choosing Emotions,” grew out of a father-daughter moment involving depression, post-it notes, and a single powerful text message. What came out of that work challenges something most leaders have never stopped to question. In this episode you’ll learn: What Winston Churchill’s 8 words reveal about how emotions work (3:14) How a father-daughter dinner became a 9-year research project on emotions (3:57) The three most common misunderstandings people have about emotions (11:40) Why doom scrolling is an emotionally driven navigation, not a bad habit (16:56) What ego actually is and why most high-performers misunderstand it (19:12) Why trauma persists until you find the words to describe it (22:00) How naming an emotion releases its grip on

This week’s guest is Ben Hansen. Ron and Ben discussed how Ben helps companies improve their profit margins, dealing with “profititis,” shifting your focus from revenue to profitability, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you’ll learn: Ben’s quote (2:23) His background (3:59) How Ben helps companies double their profits (6:57) The most common “profit leaks” (9:28) An example using a manufacturing facility (20:17) About “profititis” (23:29) How you address it (26:05) Shifting the focus from revenue to profitability (27:38) Ben’s thoughts on accounting (32:05) Separating the signal from the noise (36:09) Ben’s parting thoughts (37:24) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 Ben on LinkedIn Get All the Latest News from Gemba Academy Our newsletter is a great way to receive updates on new courses, blog posts, and more. Sign up here. What Do You Think? Has you

This week’s guest is Andy Olrich. Ron and Andy discussed the roles of people and tools in continuous improvement, what NOT to do when building a lean culture, teaching younger generations, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you’ll learn: The quote Andy likes (3:40) His background (4:25) Andy’s “Aha” moment when it comes to lean (13:33) How his perspective has changed (16:58) What not to do when building a culture of lean (22:47) Andy’s work with younger generations (29:28) His advice for those just getting started (39:08) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 Andy on LinkedIn The Lean Solutions Podcast Get All the Latest News from Gemba Academy Our newsletter is a great way to receive updates on new courses, blog posts, and more. Sign up here. What Do You Think? What was your lean “Aha” moment?

This week’s guest is Chris Libutti. Ron and Chris discussed Chris and his wife Yamila’s book, “Performance Unleashed,” his time in the military, the importance of self-discipline, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you’ll learn:  The quote Chris likes (2:29) His background (4:08) About his time in the military (8:46) What Chris is most proud of (12:42) His transition to college (14:01) About Chris’s book (18:42) The importance of self-discipline (26:39) Chris’s final words of wisdom (32:43) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 Performance Unleashed Get All the Latest News from Gemba Academy Our newsletter is a great way to receive updates on new courses, blog posts, and more. Sign up here. What Do You Think? How do you practice self-discipline?