Improvement Insights Blog

Stop Admiring the Problem

Are you admiring the problems in your company’s performance? Stop Admiring the Problem. Here’s how:



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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and “Agile Process Innovation.”

“I worked with a beverage company, and one of their teams had a room and they were all set up and they were all excited about what they were doing. When I got down to it, all they were doing each week was special cause intervention / correction. Right? It was just firefighting, right? Firefighting is not quality improvement, right?

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Nobody Wants to Look Bad

Nobody wants to look bad, which can make it impossible to make improvements. Here’s why:

“One of the things I’ve learned in all these years working in Quality Improvement is nobody, but nobody, wants to look bad. With the recent coronavirus [outbreak], the doctor who found that and [leaked news] out to the world, the Chinese government tried to shut him down, tried to keep that bit of information inside because they didn’t want to look bad.

“Well, this isn’t just a Chinese or Asian thing – saving face. In any business you walk into, somebody is in charge of how things are working and they’re in charge of trying to make it better, faster, cheaper.

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Climbing Mount Quality

Some people think they have to climb Mount Everest or do a fire walk to overcome their fears. Maybe it’s just as easy to do the thing you are afraid to do in your normal life. Maybe it’s time to climb Mount Quality. Maybe it’s time to create a hassle-free experience for your company’s customers.

  “My wife’s been watching these shows about people climbing Mount Everest. You see people, they’re waiting for the final the final [ascent] and there’s a huge queue of people waiting to go up to the top of Mount Everest… (It’s like [maybe] they should put in an express lane or something!)

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Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.