Again this week, I've been facilitating Lean Basics classes. The audience for each of these recent classes has been principally composed of nurses.  More than any other group for whom I've facilitated Lean Basic classes, I must say that nurses quickly pick up Lean Thinking and the methodical ways of solving problems we teach in Lean Basics.  Anyone have ideas on why this might be true?

During the class, we sought to differentiate between Lean Thinking and the tools that support Lean improvements.  We stress that a successful deployment of Lean requires changing your way of thinking - your frame of reference - your worldview - your mindset. To amplify upon that point, we spoke about a powerful Ted Talk by Simon Sinek in which he discusses the "Golden Circle" model of leadership.  A link to the video is below but the key point is that you have to believe before you act". In the context of Lean Thinking, you have to adopt the mindset "everything we do can be improved" before you begin using the tools

http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

One topic we covered at the end of class was where to find communities of people that are truly passionate about applying the art and science of process improvement, including Lean Thinking to healthcare delivery problems. I told the class about the Society for Health Systems, a global community of people, including nurses, engineers, physicians, scientists, and many others that all have a common passion in the improvement of healthcare delivery processes.  People interested in finding out more about this great organization can visit:

http://www.iise.org/shs/

I hope you are able to take advantage of the many networking and knowledge transfer activities the Society for Health Systems offers.