If you’re new here, you may not know that I also host a podcast called UNprofessional.
It’s where I go deeper into the conversations I’m having every day about operations, leadership, growth, and what it actually takes to build a business that doesn’t depend on constant firefighting.
Some episodes are conversations with other leaders. Others are just me sharing what I’m seeing, learning, and thinking about.
So whether you’ve been listening for a while or have never heard an episode, I pulled together five I think are especially worth your time.
Here’s where I’d start:
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From Japan to Toyota: The Childhood Story That Led Me to Kaizen
Before Toyota, before operations, and before I knew what Kaizen was, there was Japan.
In this episode, I share more of the personal story behind how I ended up at Toyota and how that experience shaped the way I think about work, improvement, and leadership today.
Listen if: You want to understand the story behind my approach to operations.
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Why Your Company Only Improves When Things Break
A customer complains. A deadline gets missed. A key employee leaves.
Suddenly, everyone is ready to fix the process.
But why do we wait for something to break before we improve it?
This episode is about moving from reactive problem-solving to a real discipline of continuous improvement.
Listen if: Your team spends too much time firefighting the same problems.
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Why Your Business Feels Chaotic (Even Though You Have Smart People)
You can have talented people and still have a business that feels unnecessarily hard to run.
That’s because smart people can compensate for broken systems for a surprisingly long time.
In this episode, I unpack what operational chaos actually looks like and why adding more talented people rarely solves it.
Listen if: Growth has created more complexity instead of more freedom.
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Continuous Improvement Has Become Corporate Theater
Continuous improvement sounds great.
But in many organizations, it has become something people talk about more than something they actually practice.
I break down what continuous improvement requires beyond workshops, initiatives, and slogans, and why the real work happens in everyday behavior.
Listen if: You want improvement to become part of how your company operates, not another initiative.
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Back From Vacation: 5 Operational Trends I’m Watching as We Head Into Q4
I came back from vacation noticing a few patterns in the conversations I was having with leaders.
From AI being layered onto broken processes to companies growing faster than their systems can support, these are five operational trends I think are worth paying attention to as we head toward the end of the year.
Listen if: You’re thinking about what needs to change before 2027.
You don’t need to listen to all five.
Pick the problem that sounds most familiar and start there.
And if one of these episodes makes you think differently about something happening inside your company, hit reply and tell me.
I read and answer my own emails.
