Body of Knowledge

  • One Way to Build More Resilient Medical Supply Chains in the U.S

    Summary.   When shortages of PPE and other medical supplies hit in the early months of the pandemic, tens of thousands of domestic producers — from individual to large companies in other industries — sprang into action and made a huge difference. They should not be forgotten after the pandemic is over. Health care organizations should factor them…

  • Even with Lean, Complexity Kills

    Lean is being made too confusing for its own good, it’s time to cut the jargon, keep it simple and enjoy the benefits of an engaged and motivated workforce! Having spent three decades at Toyota, we spent little, if any time reading about ‘Lean’. In fact, we never referred to it as Lean, rather the…

  • The Anti-CEO Playbook

    Profit, money, shareholders: these are the priorities of most companies today. But at what cost? In an appeal to corporate leaders worldwide, Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya calls for an end to the business playbook of the past — and shares his vision for a new, “anti-CEO playbook” that prioritizes people over profits. “This is the…

  • What Is Disruptive Innovation?

    Summary.   For the past 20 years, the theory of disruptive innovation has been enormously influential in business circles and a powerful tool for predicting which industry entrants will succeed. Unfortunately, the theory has also been widely misunderstood, and the “disruptive” label has been applied too carelessly anytime a market newcomer shakes up well-established incumbents. In this…

  • Human Communication in the Digital Workspace

    The effects of the global pandemic have been transformative on a scale and in a way not seen in most people’s lifetimes.  Perhaps the most dramatic transformation is how quickly society, as a whole, has moved from engaging in close proximity to one another to being more distant; heavily relying on telephony and digitalization in…