ABSTRACT
In some scenarios, slight modifications to the actual events were made to illustrate the intervention impact.
SCENARIO #1 A physician has reluctantly agreed to become a lead physician at a clinic where there hasn’t been a lead physician for nearly a year. During the prior year, none of the physicians were willing to be a lead. The acceptance of the position is coincident with the beginning of a Lean implementation. The lead physician’s participation and adoption of Lean principles is critical for successful implementation. In the past, the physician has chronically and openly complained about how bad the clinic is and that physicians have to do everything themselves in order to be sure things are done properly. The individual has openly indicated lack of trust in the staff. As the physician leader for Lean in your organization, you led an initial meeting to introduce Lean with the physicians and managers of this location. During the
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meeting, the lead physician became increasingly upset and angry. At one point, the lead declared “… [the] clinic is fundamentally broken and moving things closer to people, so they don’t have to walk as far was not about to fix the problems ....” You held private discussions with the physician following the meeting.
