On this episode of Quality Time with MoreSteam, host Dan Swartwout welcomes Josh Howell, President of the Lean Enterprise Institute. Josh went from Starbucks barista to leading lean transformations at thousands of locations worldwide. Now he's working alongside lean legends Jim Womack, John Shook, and Peter Ward.
Josh shares how his store was randomly selected for Starbucks' "model cafe" experiment with lean. That background led to his promotion from store manager to corporate headquarters when Starbucks expanded lean throughout the company. During the conversation, Josh explains why standardization and innovation are friends, not enemies, and discusses his framework for helping leaders develop humble inquiry skills. The conversation also covers how AI serves as a thinking companion and why Josh still feels as challenged today as when he first began putting these ideas into practice. Plus, there's some good-natured ribbing about college football when this Notre Dame alum cleverly fires back at Dan's historical trivia.
Listen and find out why this 'luckiest lean learner in the world' believes most organizations are missing the boat on actual work improvement and focusing too much on management activities instead of where the real value creation happens.
In this episode, you will hear about:
1:40 - Josh's background
3:28 - Josh responds to Eric Olsen (cliffhanger!)
10:18 - The journey from Starbucks to LEI
15:51 - Interacting with the legends of Lean
19:20 - The definition of Lean
21:14 - Lean thinking and meaningful work
24:50 - Standardization and innovation
27:45 - The coach as learner
29:39 - The Lean Transformation Framework
34:51 - Josh reflects on his career trajectory
37:06 - Sustaining Lean practices
40:40 - It's 2025, so we gotta talk about AI
45:34 - Being successful at Lean is challenging
49:18 - Football talk to close out the show
Additional Resources:
Josh Howell at the Lean Enterprise Institute
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