KPI Fireside: A Continuous Improvement Podcast

KPI Fire
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

KPI Fireside is the podcast for business leaders, process improvement professionals, and anyone passionate about making things better. Through insightful interviews with industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers, we explore the stories behind successful Continuous Improvement journeys. Hosted by KPI Fire, this podcast dives deep into Lean Six Sigma, Strategy Execution, KPI Management, and Operational Excellence—helping you overcome obstacles and drive real impact in your organization.

  1. 5d ago

    Alan Lucien on Building a High Performance Team

    What does it actually take to build a business you love running for 25 years without burning out, selling out, or losing yourself in the process? In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Alan Lucien, co-founder of EZ Process Pro, the ERP platform purpose-built for furniture and mattress retailers. Twenty-five years ago, Alan and his wife Jill could not find software that understood their family furniture business, so they built their own. That software now powers over 1,000 stores across the country, processes billions of dollars in annual furniture sales, and helped one customer scale from four showrooms to over 200 before selling for a billion dollars. 🔻 Why the two most important jobs of any leader have nothing to do with being the smartest person in the room 🔻 How to hire for core values instead of just skills so you never have to manage a cancer in your culture 🔻 Why every question someone brings you is a sign you are the bottleneck and what to do about it 🔻 How to run a weekly meeting that people actually want to show up to, including the push-up rule 🔻 How to set quarterly rocks that are objective, measurable, and do not blow up when life gets in the way 🔻 Why Alan asks "is that true?" before every major decision and what Navy SEALs taught him about honesty 🔗 Connect with Alan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-lucien-9a633b9/ 🔗 Learn more about EZ Process Pro: https://www.ezprocesspro.com/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Alan Lucien on Building a High Performance Team

  2. Aug 24

    Dr. Alan Barnard on Finding Your AI Bottleneck

    If AI is so powerful, why are most companies not getting results from it? The answer has everything to do with whether you are solving the right problem. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Dr. Alan Barnard, CEO of Goldratt Research Labs, decision scientist, and one of the world's leading experts in theory of constraints. Alan co-founded Goldratt Research Labs with Dr. Eli Goldratt, the creator of theory of constraints, and has spent decades helping organizations apply systems thinking to everything from supply chains to healthcare to AI adoption. 🔻 Why AI applied to the wrong bottleneck produces zero improvement no matter how powerful it is 🔻 How to tell in one question whether you have a doing bottleneck or a waiting bottleneck 🔻 Why intentionally creating a bottleneck can actually increase the overall output of your system 🔻 How to go from assembler to architect in the way you use AI so you stop being the constraint 🔻 Why outcome prompting beats method prompting and what context and constraints you have to give AI to get useful answers 🔻 How our emotions evolved as a decision making hack and why AI may need to develop something similar 🔻 How theory of constraints applies to your own health, energy, and the way your mitochondria functions 🔗 Connect with Dr. Alan Barnard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dralanbarnard/ 🌐 Books, white papers, and resources: https://www.standontheirshoulders.com/ 🌐 Eternity Health: https://www.eternityhealth.ai/ 🌐 Goldratt Research Labs: https://www.goldrattresearchlabs.com/ 🌐 Harmony Apps: https://www.harmonyapps.com/ 🌐 Dr. Alan Barnard: https://www.dralanbarnard.com/ 🌐 Coaching with Dr. Alan: https://coaching.dralanbarnard.com/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Dr. Alan Barnard on Finding Your AI Bottleneck

  3. Aug 17

    David Norris on Building a Culture of Improvement

    Most organizations treat continuous improvement like a project. The ones that actually get results treat it like a culture. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with David Norris. David Norris is the founder of Elevated Strategic Solutions, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations unlock capacity, improve performance, and align strategy with execution through operational excellence, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision-making. 🔻 Why improvement that skips the people always reverts the moment something goes wrong 🔻 How to use new employee onboarding to plant a CI mindset before old habits take hold 🔻 Why "we don't have time for this" is the single best signal that improvement is overdue 🔻 How to turn a budget request into a CI conversation before a single dollar gets approved 🔻 Why tracking both direct and indirect costs is where the real savings are hiding 🔻 Why CI and finance need to be working together if you want leadership to actually buy in 🔗 Connect with David Norris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-norris-17016b146/ 🌐 Learn more at Elevated Strategic Solutions: http://elevatedmtnsolutions.com/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    David Norris on Building a Culture of Improvement

  4. Aug 10

    John Hetherington on Why a 2x Growth Target Breaks Most Operations

    Most companies chasing a big growth target are solving the wrong problem. And the real constraint is usually hiding in plain sight. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with John Hetherington, founder of We Deliver Your Vision and a process optimization consultant with more than 25 years of experience helping CFOs and COOs turn ambitious boardroom targets into measurable operational results. John started his career at Deloitte and Ernst and Young, leading large-scale finance transformation programs before building his own firm around one simple idea: find the single constraint holding your operation back, remove it, and prove the business result actually improved. 🔻 Why the first thing a company thinks is broken almost never is the real constraint 🔻 Why automating a bad process with AI just helps you fail faster at larger scale 🔻 How to use three metrics instead of ten to actually hit your growth target 🔻 How to apply the three R's to decide whether a process is actually ready for AI 🔻 Why asking "how are you feeling about this?" is one of the most powerful questions in operations 🔻 How to manage AI like a new hire instead of handing it the keys to everything at once 💬 Comment "flow" on this episode to receive John's free five-step production flow framework for assessing your constraint and growth targets. 🔗 Connect with John Hetherington on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhetherington1/ 🌐 Learn more at We Deliver Your Vision: https://www.wedeliveryourvision.com/ 🎥 Watch John on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnHetherington.channel 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    John Hetherington on Why a 2x Growth Target Breaks Most Operations

  5. Aug 3

    Marc Levinson on Shipping Containers & Lessons for AI

    What can a steel shipping container teach us about artificial intelligence? More than you would think. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Marc Levinson, historian, economist, and author of The Box, the definitive history of the shipping container. Marc formerly served as finance and economics editor at The Economist, an economist at JP Morgan Chase, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 🔻 Why standardization is the hardest problem in any major innovation and how the container finally solved it 🔻 How a single change in how goods move can hollow out entire cities and create entirely new industries in places nobody expected 🔻 What Malcolm McLean's biggest wins and biggest losses teach us about betting on new technology 🔻 How to think about the jobs AI will displace before assuming everyone will simply adjust 🔻 Why the countries that handled the shift best had one thing in common that the US largely did not 🔻 What individuals working in disrupted industries can do right now to stay ahead of the wave 🔗 Learn more about Marc Levinson and his books: https://www.marclevinson.net/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Marc Levinson on Shipping Containers & Lessons for AI

  6. Jul 27

    Jhana Li on Founder Chaos to Scalable Systems

    The fires showing up in your business every week are not bad luck. They are a signal that something in your operations is broken underneath the surface. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Jhana Li, founder of Spyglass Ops, a firm that has pioneered the operator placement model, embedding a fractional COO directly into a business while the search for a permanent hire is underway. Jhana has been a COO for two startups, an operations coach for hundreds of founders, and has built one of the most practical and no-nonsense frameworks for how growing companies should think about the operations function, from the first ops hire all the way through to a fully scaled team. 🔻 Why every recurring fire in your business is data, not a crisis, and what it is actually telling you 🔻 How to know whether an operations problem is a systems issue or a people issue 🔻 Why managing to outcomes instead of inputs is what unlocks real team autonomy and AI adoption 🔻 How to build a job scorecard that works for hiring, onboarding, and performance all at once 🔻 Why really good operations looks like nothing and how to advocate for it anyway 🔻 How to tell the difference between an ops manager, a director of ops, and a COO so you hire the right level 🔻 Why AI layered onto broken systems just helps you sprint faster in the wrong direction 🔻 How to democratize SOP ownership so documentation never falls behind again 🔗 Connect with Jhana Li on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhana-li/ 🎥 Follow Jhana on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theJhanaLi 📱 Follow Jhana on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejhanali/ 🔗 Learn more about Spyglass Ops: https://bit.ly/4ftmOFR 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Jhana Li on Founder Chaos to Scalable Systems

  7. Jul 20

    Matt Yearsley on Why Bad Systems Beat Good Employees

    Most leaders blame the person. The real problem is almost always the system. In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Matt Yearsley, founder of Operational Excellence Advisors and a manufacturing and operations leader with more than 25 years of experience. Matt helps growing companies move beyond firefighting by building the systems, standards, and people development practices that let good employees actually succeed. 🔻 Why "hold them accountable" is meaningless without a documented standard to point to 🔻 How to know in three questions whether a failure belongs to the employee or to you as a leader 🔻 How to use a one-on-one to keep standards alive instead of letting them collect dust on a shelf 🔻 How to turn a chronic complainer or a troublemaker into your best problem solver 🔻 Why busy is not the same as productive, and how to tell the difference 🔻 How to define what winning looks like for jobs where success is hard to measure 🔗 Connect with Matt Yearsley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-yearsley-0317b0/ 🔗 Learn more about Operational Excellence Advisors: https://www.opex-advisors.com/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Matt Yearsley on Why Bad Systems Beat Good Employees

  8. Jul 13

    Darril Wilburn on Courage, Humility, and Kaizen

    What does it actually look like inside Toyota, and why do so many companies get lean so wrong when they try to follow it? In this episode of KPI Fireside, host Keith Norris sits down with Darril Wilburn, senior partner at Honsha and a respected teacher, coach, and thought leader in lean leadership and the Toyota Way. He is co-author of the upcoming book Courage, Humility, Kaizen: The Leadership DNA of The Toyota Way. 🔻 Why 5S without connecting it to the work almost always fades within a year 🔻 What Western leaders get wrong when they try to adopt the Toyota Way 🔻 How Nemawashi is about preparing the soil, not just getting buy-in 🔻 How to tell the story of your CI function 🔻 Why great organizations put work to people instead of people to work 🔗 Connect with Darril Wilburn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrilwilburn/ 🔗 Learn more at Darril's website: https://www.darrilwilburn.com/ 🔗 Learn more about Honcha: https://honsha.org/ 🔗 Learn more about KPI Fire: https://www.kpifire.com/ 🎙 Hosted by Keith Norris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithnorris/

    Darril Wilburn on Courage, Humility, and Kaizen
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About

KPI Fireside is the podcast for business leaders, process improvement professionals, and anyone passionate about making things better. Through insightful interviews with industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers, we explore the stories behind successful Continuous Improvement journeys. Hosted by KPI Fire, this podcast dives deep into Lean Six Sigma, Strategy Execution, KPI Management, and Operational Excellence—helping you overcome obstacles and drive real impact in your organization.

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