The Best of Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape 2024

Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email.

From Ryan: Thank you for your continued readership and support. 2024 marked another year of continuous improvement, improving organizational culture, and driving excellence in the workplace.

Readers agree that healthcare reform is still needed. Watch the Keynotes from the International Forum on Quality & Safety in Healthcare in London, particularly Keynote 3 – Learning to Fail with Amy Edmondson and Donald Berwick.
The bar is pretty low for customer service in passenger air travel. Air Canada was in the news for the wrong reasons in February after it was found liable for the bad advice its chatbot provides, despite blaming the chatbot for its own actions.
Readers sought wisdom from the incomparable Maria Popova in 18 Life Lessons from 18 Years of the Marginalian
Continuous Improvement or Operational Excellence? People wanted to know the difference and JJ Puentes explains in this blog post from KaiNexus.
How will organizations manage business processes in an increasingly changing digital world? The PEX Network shared the Future of BPM, including adaptive BPM and learning from failure.
Following up on recommendations from consulting firms, many were curious about what McKinsey prescribes for breaking barriers to productivity
Mapping systems can help create understanding. Here’s a guide to System Inquiry – how to map out complex systems.
A very interesting case about one of the few great lean success stories – Danaher: Masterful Capital Allocation and Lean Manufacturing, Combined.
Christoph Roser breaks down the PDCA cycle very simply with Toyota Practical Problem Solving (PPS) – Introduction.
I hope all readers managed to apply the lessons from Three “Bad Boss” Habits to Avoid in 2024

Here are my top 5 book recommendations from 2024:

Same As Ever by Morgan Housel. In a world of change, some things don’t. Make better decisions accordingly.
Productivity Reimagined by Jacob Stoller. Unfortunately, still needed. A guide to the applying the principles of the Shingo model to get better results – the right way.
Radical Humility: Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human by Urs Koenig. Humility is real strength.
Oops! Why Things Go Wrong: Understanding and Controlling Error by Niall Downey. Thoracic surgeon turned commercial airline pilot explores the cultural barriers to drastically improving reliability and safety in healthcare.
The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao. The subtitle says it all

Here are my 5 favourite podcast episodes of 2024:

Jim Womack reflects on the Evolution of Lean in an expansive reflection on LeanBlog Interviews #499. Womack is candid on mistakes and insights from 3 decades of lean consulting.
Hockey AND organizational design? Adam Grant interviews members of the Miracle on Ice hockey team and professor Anita Wooley to discuss How to design teams that don’t suck
Asking questions is a leadership and innovation superpower. There are better and worse kinds of questions, based on the intent and context. Arnaud Chevallier provides a practical approach to asking better questions in HBR Ideacast 962: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
Probably the best advice on feedback I’ve ever heard. Coaching for Leaders episode 713: How to Grow From Feedback, with Jennifer Garvey Berger
Stories are much more powerful than your PowerPoint charts. If you’re looking to up your influence in 2025, listen to Knowledge Project #202 Matthew Dicks: The Storytelling Expert