Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership

Most lean practitioners spend their careers trying to change the minds of adults who have been doing things the same way for decades. Ted Pendergrass decided to start earlier. Over 20 years coordinating a career technical education program at a California high school, he brought 5S, practical problem-solving, and Yellow Belt certification to students who had never heard of lean. The conversation covers what actually stuck, what surprised him, and what the rest of the lean community could do to help.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How a cabinet maker’s instinct for efficiency led to lean teaching (4:57)

What happens when high schoolers 5S their Google Drives (6:57)

Why practical problem solving opens students’ eyes more than any other unit (9:06)

How student tours reveal whether lean is actually taking root (12:22)

Why education is not the most lean process and what chunking has to do with it (13:34)

How to teach students to use AI as a tool rather than a crutch (15:53)

Why CTE programs are the right entry point for spreading lean (19:46)

What a Yellow Belt certification does for a student in a job interview (21:51)

How the California Partnership Academy model keeps students engaged and career-ready (24:18)

Why getting companies inside schools changes what students believe is possible (29:00)

What practitioners outside education can do to plant lean seeds in their communities (30:49)

“If you have to ask if it’s good enough, it probably isn’t.” – Ted Pendergrass

Keep Learning

Ted’s seniors earned Yellow Belt certification as a capstone to a three-year lean program. If that kind of structured progression interests you for your own team or organization, the certification path is worth a close look.

Learn More About Certifications at https://www.gembaacademy.com/solutions/certifications

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What Do You Think?

If you had two hours with a classroom of high school students, which lean concept would you start with and why?

Most organizations measure productivity, absenteeism, and safety incidents without ever asking what all three have in common. Tim Thomas, a former Australian Special Forces soldier turned sleep specialist, argues the answer is sitting in plain sight at the bottom of every performance pyramid. The conversation moves from combat deployments in Afghanistan to corporate boardrooms, and the through line is the same: fatigue is an enemy that most leaders never name.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How the opposite of fear works and what that means for taking action (3:22)

What Special Forces, veteran recovery, and corporate leadership have in common under pressure (9:36)

Why leaders in a state of fatigue lose the bandwidth to lead well (10:29)

How to build practical sleep habits that improve everything else (13:59)

Why breathwork is not meditation and why that distinction matters (16:29)

How the first five minutes of your morning shape the rest of your day (21:42)

Why resilience lives in recovery rather than in relentless output (22:45)

How measuring sleep quality could change the way companies define success (28:14)

What a near-fatal ambush revealed about connection, intelligence, and not dying with a full magazine (31:23)

“If you want to cut the amount of sick days you have in half, improve the quality sleep of the people that work there.” – Tim Thomas

Keep Learning

Tim’s performance pyramid puts rest and recovery at the foundation of everything else, and that same principle applies to the people leading improvement work on your floor or in your office.

Learn More About School of Leadership at https://www.gembaacademy.com/leadership

Podcast Resources

Tim on LinkedIn

Breathwork in Bed

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What Do You Think?

If sleep quality were a visible metric in your organization, what would it reveal about how your team is actually performing?

Culture shapes how people receive change, and nowhere is that clearer than on a shop floor where history, language, and moral authority all sit alongside the 5S board. Royden Johnson and Luc van Merrienboer bring two distinct lenses to that tension: Royden from years of leading continuous improvement in South Africa, and Luc from rolling out digital transformation across Asia and now the African continent. Their conversation with Ron covers resistance, influence, and what it actually takes to bring people along rather than drag them forward.

In this episode you’ll learn:

The cultural context of 5S in Asia and Africa (5:01)

How 5S connects to every performance pillar in a manufacturing operation (9:43)

What digital transformation actually looks like on a shop floor (13:04)

Where their passion for continuous improvement comes from (15:42)

How to use personal, social, and structural influencing strategies together (17:18)

How to handle CAVE people without losing the rest of the team (19:29)

Why unemployment history in South Africa shaped resistance to continuous improvement (25:32)

What happened when a leader stopped pushing and started listening (27:28)

How to speak, listen, and lead while keeping everyone’s dignity intact (31:50)

Keep Learning

If the discussion about moral authority, influencing strategies, and leading change on a diverse shop floor resonated with you, the School of Leadership offers structured ways to develop those same skills in your own context.

Learn More About School of Leadership at gembaacademy.com/leadership

Podcast Resources

Royden on LinkedIn

Luc on LinkedIn

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What Do You Think?

When you have encountered a CAVE person in your organization, what shifted the dynamic?

Trust in leadership has been declining for decades, and Keith Wyche has the research to prove it. A 40-year veteran of AT&T, IBM, and Walmart, Keith opened up to us about a few mistakes he’s made in his career. The real conversation here is what changed him, and what he thinks it will take to reverse the broader collapse.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How a career spanning AT&T, IBM, and Walmart shapes a leadership philosophy (2:26)

Why a 15-year-old’s question became the catalyst for serious research (4:05)

How the thirst for power quietly replaced the calling to serve (6:08)

What happens when results become the only measure that matters (7:27)

Why vulnerability is harder for leaders than it looks (10:42)

How admitting a mistake in front of 30,000 employees built more trust than any win (11:08)

How to rebuild trust one promise at a time (16:48)

The difference between listening to defend and listening to understand (18:53)

Why people never forget how a leader made them feel (20:42)

“My successes may have inspired me, but my failures taught me.” – Keith Wyche

Keep Learning

If Keith’s point about creating followership through trust, listening, and character resonated with you, the School of Leadership is a practical place to build those same skills in yourself and your team.

Learn More About School of Leadership at https://www.gembaacademy.com/leadership

Podcast Resources

Keith on LinkedIn

Uncommon Leadership

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What Do You Think?

When you listen in a conversation, are you listening to understand the other person, or are you already forming your response?

Most leaders assume that the right argument, delivered clearly, will change minds. Owen Fitzpatrick has spent 30 years studying why that assumption is wrong. A psychologist who has worked inside some of the world’s most extreme propaganda environments, from North Korea to Rwanda to his own teenage years, Owen brings a framework to this conversation that reframes how belief actually changes. The implications for anyone trying to lead a continuous improvement effort are hard to ignore.

In this episode you’ll learn:

What the purpose of life being “defeated by greater things” reveals about continuous improvement (3:37)

How a single question changed the trajectory of Owen’s life and work (5:00)

Why the inner critic is the wrong label for what actually holds people back (9:18)

How propaganda works in three parts and why it mirrors what happens inside our own minds (14:35)

Why naive realism is the single biggest obstacle to influencing anyone (22:43)

How recognizing inner propaganda as propaganda changes the way your brain processes it (28:55)

Why logic comes last when beliefs actually change (33:40)

How the three conditions of belief change explain why great arguments still fail (35:12)

“Being right is not enough. Having the facts, having the data, having the information, table stakes, you need to have that. But it’s not enough to be persuasive.” – Owen Fitzpatrick

Keep Learning

If Owen’s point that buy-in requires more than logic resonates with how you lead change, the School of Leadership builds the skills that close that gap.

Learn More About School of Leadership at https://www.gembaacademy.com/leadership

Podcast Resources

Owen on LinkedIn

Owen’s Website

Owen’s Newsletter

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What Do You Think?

How do you define propaganda?