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Making Lean Stick: It Starts with Leadership
Season 5 · Episode 8

Making Lean Stick: It Starts with Leadership

The Lean Solutions Podcast · Lean Solutions Podcast

March 3, 202625m 23s

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Show Notes


What You’ll Learn in This Episode
:


In this episode of the Lean Solutions Podcast, hosts Patrick Adams, Andy Olrich, and guest Steve Riley discuss the importance of leadership behaviors in maintaining Lean initiatives. They highlight how unintentional actions, such as not picking up trash or not following standard work, can undermine Lean efforts. Steve Riley, a manufacturing operations leader with over 30 years of experience, emphasizes the need for consistent leadership presence, protecting standards under pressure, and fostering team-led improvements. They also explore the significance of measuring both leading and lagging indicators to ensure continuous improvement. Additionally, Riley introduces his company's digital shadow board service, which simplifies the creation of tool organization systems.


Key Takeaways:

  1. Leadership behavior matters more than Lean tools
  2. What leaders do in the moment defines credibility
  3. Lean breaks when standards are optional
  4. Improvement must be part of daily work


Links:

Lean Solutions 2026 Summit

Lean Solutions Website

Click Here for Steve Riley's LinkedIn

[email protected]

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Topics

Lean leadershipleadership behaviorsbreaking Lean unintentionallystandard work5S disciplineLeader Standard Workgemba walksproblem surfacingroot cause correctionfirefighting culturecontinuous improvementleading indicatorslagging indicatorsbehavior-based metricsmaintenance metricspreventive maintenancevisual managementshadow boardsdigital 5Soperational disciplinemanufacturing operationsorganizational culture