Sarah Milstein shares practical guidance for engineering and product leaders on building respectful cultures, streamlining roles, and sustaining lean product and process development.

In this episode of The Design Brief, Julia Austin—executive fellow at Harvard Business School and former tech leader at companies like Akamai and VMware—discusses how putting people first in product development drives better outcomes and high-performance teams. She shares insights on creating effective collaboration, navigating common 2025 product development challenges, and leveraging AI while keeping human beings at the center of work design.

In this week’s Management Brief, Nelson Repenning of MIT Sloan discusses the theories shaping organizational transformation. He highlights his “dynamic work design” — an “anti-initiative” approach to redesign work so organizations solve the right problems, boosting productivity, profits, and engagement.

This week, The Management Brief features Dr. Steven Spear, MIT senior lecturer and co-author of Wiring the Winning Organization, in conversation with LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich. Spear shares insights from his early experiences with the Toyota Production System and explains how organizations win by enabling people to see and solve problems faster and more deeply.

What happens when a leader learns TPS directly from Hajime Oba? Jon Armstrong, CEO of Do It American MFG, shares how lessons from the Toyota Production System continue to shape his approach to leadership, culture, and U.S. manufacturing.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Carl Klemm reflects on his journey from GM to Toyota, sharing lessons on leadership maturity, long-term management thinking, and creating cultures of trust, respect, and continuous improvement.

In this special dual-release of The Design Brief and The Management Brief, Josh Howell is joined by LEI veterans Jim Morgan and Mark Reich to explore two powerful lean processes: lean product and process development (LPPD) and hoshin kanri. Drawing on decades of experience at Toyota, Ford, Rivian, and beyond, they reveal how these methods align strategy, accelerate innovation, and transform enterprises from the C-suite to the frontline.

In this edition of The Design Brief, Eric Ethington and Matt Zayko share how skilled chief engineers build strong teams and robust product and process development systems. They discuss essential chief engineer skills, the role of conflict in innovation, system integration, and real stories of lean product and process development in action.

In this edition of the Management Brief, Cleveland Clinic leaders Dr. Lisa Yerian and Chad Cummings share how they are reinvigorating lean practices post-COVID, tackling workforce and fiscal pressures, and developing people to sustain excellence in care and culture.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Josh Howell and Mark Reich talk with Rich Calvaruso, Senior Director of the Lean Management Office at GE Appliances. Rich shares how GE reshored manufacturing, built lean systems beyond kaizen events, and developed leaders through hands-on immersion. His core message: develop people and improve process at the same time.

In this edition of the Management Brief, Simon Rowley and Julian Ball from Toyota’s Lean Management Centre (TLMC) join LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich to discuss the role of continuous improvement (CI) groups in lean management. They share how TLMC was founded in 2009 to support companies adopting the Toyota Production System (TPS) while developing Toyota staff through hands-on coaching. The conversation covers training programs, applying TPS beyond manufacturing, starting small with lean, developing people, and the critical role of standardized work in driving safety, quality, and lasting improvement.

In this edition of The Management Brief, LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich talk with Jamie Bonini, President of Toyota’s TSSC, about how Toyota develops people and spreads TPS. They explore the role of CI groups, differences between Toyota’s internal and external approaches, and why building leaders’ problem-solving capability—not just installing tools—is key to lasting performance.

In this edition of The Design Brief, Sebastian Fixson, PhD, of Babson College, joins Jim Morgan of LEI to discuss how today’s product leaders can build stronger teams, better businesses, and innovative solutions. They explore leveraging LPPD to develop future-ready leaders, balance physical and digital innovation, and create process thinkers who drive sustainable growth. Listen now and discover how LPPD is transforming the way we develop products, teams, and leaders.

In this edition of The Management Brief, Jim Lancaster, Owner and CEO of Lantech and author of The Work of Management, joins LEI’s Josh Howell and Mark Reich to reflect on Lantech’s decades-long lean journey. From early Shingijutsu-led workshops to building a resilient management system, Jim shares lessons on leadership, sustaining improvement, and how Lantech grew 75% since 2020 by staying true to lean principles—even through the pandemic.

Filament Co-Founder Mari Zumbro joins WLEI to explore how AI is reshaping product development—and why people must stay at the center. She shares how to build creative, high-performing teams, lead with purpose, and design work that keeps humans, not tech, in control.

In this episode of The Management Brief, Josh Howell and Mark Reich speak with Scott Heydon, former Starbucks VP of Global Strategy and current Senior Lean Coach, about his journey from top-down problem-solver to hands-on lean leader. Scott shares lessons from Starbucks’ lean transformation, the power of learning from the frontlines, and advice for leaders looking to support real improvement: go to the gemba and ask better questions.

In this episode of The Design Brief, Fabrice Bernhard—cofounder of Theodo and coauthor of The Lean Tech Manifesto—shares how lean product and process development (LPPD) thinking strengthens digital transformation and AI adoption. He explores how teams can use generative AI with intention, build in learning and reuse, and modernize legacy systems—while keeping people at the center.

Josh Howell, LEI President, and Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, join Olivier Larue, President of Ydatum, and discuss the Toyota Production System (TPS), the three elements embedded within TPS that make it more than just a production system, and the ability of TPS to foster problem-solving and creativity. Olivier worked with Mark at the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in the late 1990s and has led Ydatum since 2000, assisting companies in implementing its version of TPS. Olivier recently authored the first of three volumes of The Toyota Economic System, which will present the three elements of the “Toyota triangle” — philosophical, technical, and managerial — and their necessity in making TPS an economic system for growth.  TPS has enabled mass production to accommodate customization, which had been minimized in the pursuit of lower costs for large quantities of standardized goods, says Olivier. TPS allows companies to “build a product affordably and very much customized to the desires of the customer, one without compromising the other.” Yet when attempting to apply TPS it remains difficult for many organizations to simultaneously achieve the primary goals of TPS — highest quality, lowest cost, and shortest lead time.   Josh and Mark explore with Olivier the importance of the Toyota triangle in achieving TPS goals, especially longer-term goals, and examine the relationship of the triangle to the better known TPS “house” (the roof of three goals, supported by jidoka and just-in-time columns, etc.). The house embodies philosophical, technical, and managerial elements throughout, notes Olivier, but they are not specifically called out in the house. Human development, also not shown in the house, is at the center of the Toyota triangle. Olivier says human development is critical because despite advances in artificial intelligence, currently only people can solve complex problems, human problems. “TPS at the end of the day is trying to solve a human problem using people through the human creativity and the human intelligence.”  Olivier also discusses the organizational problems he encounters with problem-solving. For example, he often sees people gravitating toward problems they know how to solve instead of solving the right problem. This occurs because it’s not always safe to solve the right problem and individuals don’t have the courage to take them on. “It’s very important for companies to realize that if they don’t provide an environment where it’s safe to solve problems, two things are going to happen: problems are not going to get solved, or if some problem gets solved it will be the wrong one... As management and leaders, you have to be able to encourage the people to solve difficult problems without fear of having negative consequences if they fail.” Learn more about TPS and lean leadership at lean.org

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, talk with Sal Sanchez, a Toyota veteran and TPS coach with LEI. Sal’s Toyota career began at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), the GM/Toyota joint venture and Toyota’s first automotive footprint in the United States, and continued with roles at Toyota North American headquarters and TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center, where he worked with Mark in the late-1990s) as well as Dana Corp. Across his career he’s learned from Toyota leaders and other notable lean mentors, including Gary Convis, which has, in turn, enabled him to help many organizations apply the Toyota Production System (TPS) and TPS fundamentals such as problem-solving and daily management.  Sal describes his pursuit of all things problem-solving while rising up through Toyota, including his role as a team leader supporting others with problem-solving issues that surfaced throughout the day, especially when an andon cord was pulled and solutions needed to be developed and applied quickly. Sal counters some misconceptions regarding andon pulls, noting that it does not necessarily stop a line; it does, however, create urgency for team leaders to quickly assist and, in many instances, gives team members a brief window of opportunity to solve the problem on their own. Sal says the andon was frequently pulled where he worked, which was a good thing, and reminds Mark that most companies don’t focus on problems until they get big while at Toyota many little problems are being addressed “minute to minute and day to day so that they don’t become big problems.”  While a team leader, Sal also sought to more deeply understand the problems team members were going through and learned this by doing the jobs they did and experiencing what they went through, earning respect of team members along the way. He carried that approach beyond Toyota and has supplemented it with additional ideas to engage and empower team members, including basic problem-solving skills for frontline associates and giving team members trend charts and templates to support their problem-solving. As Sal works today with companies trying to apply TPS, he continues to encourage a focus on culture and developing people and frontline leaders — “invest in your people.”  Learn more about lean thinking and practice and lean.org.

Josh Howell, LEI President, talks about the relationship of problem-solving and daily management with Jill Miller, Manager for Global Learning and Development at MillerKnoll, a maker of office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Jill supports the development, use, and expansion of the MillerKnoll Performance System (MKPS), which she says is designed to meet customers’ needs by engaging and developing people to daily surface and solve problems. “At its heart, it’s really about building capability across the organization.”   Josh and Jill describe their experiences with how an effective daily management system makes it easy and straightforward for organizations to know what problems they should be solving. “One of the most powerful things about MKPS is that it helps make problems visible every day, right where the work is happening,” says Jill. “So when people ask, ‘What problem do we need to solve?’ the system actually helps answer that by revealing the problems that might otherwise go unnoticed. I think at that point, the problems are plentiful. There’s no shortage of problems.”  MKPS intentionally sets up both the system and culture to support daily problem-solving by:  Designing work to clearly show abnormalities and make them visible in real time,   Making it easy and safe for individuals to quickly highlight problems (people are not blamed or ignored),   Providing a prompt, supportive reaction to an associate’s call for help (an “andon call”), and  Ensuring the problems that are surfaced actually get solved; team leaders (called “facilitators” at MillerKnoll) are developed to be skilled in practical problem-solving, identifying root causes, and eliminating problems in ways that keep them from recurring.   The two also discuss the development of ongoing MKPS expertise within MillerKnoll: building capability in a way that is standardized so that MKPS is effectively executed in a consistent manner. This involves a partnership between the MKPS leadership team, operations leaders, and the human resources group that supports operations for selecting individuals to train (“students”), creating alignment based on behaviors and characteristics, and reflecting on the learning process and its effectiveness. Jill says students have called the development program “life changing” — who they are as a person, how they think, how they see their roles, how they interact with people, and how they approach their careers within the company.