Lean 911

About Lean 911

The Lean 911 Podcast is where you'll have a voice directly from the gemba. Host, Mark DeLuzio, President and CEO of Lean Horizons Consulting and the principal architect of the Danaher Business System, relies on his three decades of lean successes as well as his failures to answer your most challenging questions regarding your lean transformation.

Publisher

Mark DeLuzio

Category

business · business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Jan 2023

Latest episode

1 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 92 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   1 Oct 2026

   Genba Ikigai – The 16 Habits of Lean Leadership with Mark Forkun

   Why do Lean transformations fail—and what separates genuine transformation from “Lean theatre”? In this episode of Lean 911, Mark DeLuzio is joined by Mark Forkun, author of Genba Ikigai – Leading to Serve, for a practical discussion about Lean leadership, leadership habits, problem-solving, culture change, and sustainable business performance. The conversation explores the 16 leadership habits of Genba Ikigai across four areas: • Leading Self — understanding and managing your own behavior • Leading the Tribe — creating trust, clarity, capability, and belonging • Leading through Problem-Solving — developing people to confront facts and solve problems themselves • Leading Culture Change — connecting leadership behavior with engagement, strategy deployment, learning, and continuous improvement Mark and Mark explore practical leadership concepts including Hansei (reflection), Mendoumi (caring for and developing others), problem-solving coaching, and Yokoten (sharing best practices). They also discuss how the ideas in Genba Ikigai can move from theory into everyday leadership practice through case studies, self-assessment, personal PDCA, AI-enabled Sensei coaching, workshops, and Genba coaching. If you are a CEO, plant leader, operations leader, Lean practitioner, continuous-improvement professional, or transformation leader, this episode explores an important question: Are you implementing Lean tools—or developing the leadership habits necessary to make Lean sustainable? Topics include: Lean leadership | Genba Ikigai | Lean transformation | Toyota leadership | continuous improvement | leadership development | problem-solving | PDCA | Hansei | Mendoumi | Yokoten | Genba coaching | culture change | business transformation

2. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Stop Copying Toyota’s Tools – Start Copying How Toyota Thinks

   Why have so many organizations copied Toyota's tools, yet so few have replicated Toyota's success? In this episode of Lean911, we revisit Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen's landmark article, Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System, and explore a fundamental lesson: TPS isn't primarily a collection of tools - it's a system for developing scientific problem-solvers. We examine the four rules underlying TPS, how Toyota turns everyday problems into experiments, and why problem-solving should occur at the lowest possible level of the organization, with leaders acting as teachers and coaches. The question isn't, "What Lean tools have we implemented?" It's "Who solves problems in our organization - and how do they solve them?" Stop copying Toyota's tools. Start copying how Toyota thinks.

3. 

   1 Sept 2026

   Lean at 8 Seconds – What NASCAR Pit Crews Can Teach Us About Lean

   What can Lean leaders learn from a NASCAR pit crew, where three-tenths of a second can mean five car lengths and elite performance depends on five people executing as one? In this episode, we take the lessons from NASCAR’s pit road and translate them directly into Lean Operational Excellence. The surprising lesson is that world-class speed doesn’t come from telling people to work faster. Speed is the result of efficiency. As the pit-crew principle says, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” We explore how NASCAR demonstrates many of the same principles that drive a high-performing Lean organization: standard work, 5S and workplace organization, visual measurement, deliberate practice, teamwork, communication, attention to detail, and relentless continuous improvement. A modern five-person pit crew accomplishing in roughly eight seconds what once took about a minute illustrates what becomes possible when organizations improve the system and method of work, rather than simply adding people or demanding more effort. We also examine the critical balance of Safety, Quality, Delivery, and Cost (SQDC). Innovations such as the single lug nut may create speed, but NASCAR reminds us that performance cannot be optimized in isolation. Every improvement involves understanding the system, the trade-offs, and the non-negotiables. From checklists and contingency drills to benchmarking competitors and learning outside the industry, NASCAR pit crews provide a powerful model of Kaizen in action. Competitive advantages disappear quickly when others copy your improvements, so improvement can never be a one-time initiative—it must become part of the operating system. The ultimate Lean lesson from pit road is simple: elite performance is not about making people move faster. It is about designing better systems that allow people to perform better together. If you want to build an organization that is safer, faster, more precise, and continuously improving, there may be no better place to look for inspiration than the few seconds when a NASCAR race is won—or lost—in the pits.

Inside a recent episode

Why the Danaher Business System Was Successful – The Answer May Surprise You!

Published 1 Jul 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Uh, I think we got pretty good at transactional process, uh, improvement strategy deployment. We didn't invent that except for we did find a way that worked for us because of what we wanted to do strategically. But, uh, None of this was invented by anybody at Danaher, including me, who was the architect over the whole thing. It was how we put this together and used it to drive value for our key stakeholders. And those key stakeholders were our employees, our customers, and our shareholders. Okay. And am I sitting here saying that we're stellar in all those departments? Absolutely not. There's a lot to be desired. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.1 / 5

14 ratings

Spotify

4.7 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 59 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

87

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

75

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