
Thanks for Stopping By,
Larry Miller
Welcome to Management Meditations
on Lean Management and Culture
This website provides resources for those implementing lean management, lean leadership, and lean culture. The courses and information you will find here are based on forty-five years of field work implementing lean management and lean culture in dozens of major corporations.
For the past forty-five years, beginning with the redesign of a prison to create a learning environment that reinforced desired habits, I have been working to create healthy organization cultures. I reject rigid adherence to any one theory or methodology, but choose to learn from all and to integrate all into a holistic understanding of behavior and the systems of organization.
- I do two things to help my clients: First, I help to redesign the organization to create the culture and capabilities that enable the successful execution of strategy and the culture of lean management. This normally involves designing the organization into a system of self-managing teams at every level. This design process considers the “whole-system” – social, technical, and economic systems.
- Second, I help to develop the skills of team leadership, facilitation and problem-solving that are at the core of lean management and culture. In recent years I have developed sixteen online courses to deliver lean and leadership training in the most efficient way. Several of my courses, particularly my course on Team Leadership was developed for clients implement a team system in their organization to train all team leaders. When online training is paired with on-site coaching and action-learning, the habits will change in a sustainable way. Please look around at the courses, articles, books and posts on leadership and culture.
Featured Courses
on Lean Leadership, Lean Culture and Lean Management
Recent Blog Posts
For the New Year – Adopt A System of Lean Learning
Lean Leadership requires a deliberate system of continuous learning.
Selling in the Spirit of Service
My bet is that you do not identify yourself as a “sales person.” You are probably a change agent, a manager, or leader. My second bet is that you must be able to sell your ideas, yourself, and your products or services to others to succeed. Selling is an essential...
At the Heart of Truly Powerful Organizations
(A guest post by Natasha Miller Naderi, and yes, she is my daughter, I am proud say and building her consulting business in Beijing.) Once a child asked a wise man, “why do all the rivers flow into the powerful ocean?” The wise man replied, “because it sets itself...
A Meditation on the New Year
Dear Friends, I first want to wish all who have taken any of my courses, read my books or blogs, a truly happy and peaceful Christmas (Chanukah, or any Holiday) and best wishes for the coming year. I am truly grateful that I have had the opportunity to be of some...
You’re Fired!
These may be the most feared words in any corporation. Unfortunately, it has become a too often used phrase in American politics, intended to impart the image of a strong and decisive leader. But, if you are a competent manager you know that these words are the...
The One Leadership Principle… We Need Now!
I am going to write a series of posts on leadership issues I consider extremely important. I would like to have your undivided attention for just a few moments. There is a dominant theme that runs through all of my online courses and writing and it is the primary task...
Tesla and the Social Side of Success
Elon Musk at his Tesla factory is striving to create the world’s most automated manufacturing plant. But, the people side, the social system, is the weak link that is causing Tesla to stumble.
Lean Leadership – The Dance to the Rhythm of Challenge and Response
It would be wonderful to believe that simply sharing knowledge of a better way would result in the adoption of that better way. If only we were rational beings. But after assisting dozens of companies with their efforts to institute a lean culture, it is very obvious that the success of those efforts is directly linked to the quality and constancy of lean leadership. Lean Leadership and Lean Culture require very specific actions on the part of leaders and I do not think those actions of been well articulated in previous books and articles. I have attempted to define these actions in my new course on Lean Leadership and Lean Culture and I want to summarize them here.
Lean Culture, Lean Leadership and Change Management
Lean Leadership and managing change to create lean culture are critical skills for all managers today. I have just published a thorough, six and a half hour course on lean leadership and culture that is now available on Udemy.
Leading Virtual Teams
One of the critical skills for leaders in our global age is facilitating virtual teams. Here is a report on a recent survey on the problems and best practices of virtual teams.