For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey’s Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #4096 – Be Curious Before Being Critical

When something goes wrong, many leaders instinctively begin looking for who made the mistake. Lean leaders train themselves to do something different—they become curious before they become critical.

Curiosity changes the conversation. Instead of asking, “Who did this?” ask, “What happened?” Instead of assuming carelessness, ask, “What conditions allowed this to occur?” Those questions shift the focus from assigning blame to understanding the process.

Most employees come to work intending to do a good job. If errors occur repeatedly, the process deserves as much attention as the person performing it. By approaching problems with curiosity, leaders uncover hidden barriers, unclear expectations, inadequate training, or broken systems that would otherwise remain unnoticed.

The next time you’re faced with a problem, pause before offering criticism. A curious leader discovers opportunities to improve that a critical leader often overlooks.

Lean Tip #4097 – Great Leaders Spend More Time Listening

Leadership conversations are often dominated by the leader’s voice. They explain expectations, offer solutions, and provide direction. While those responsibilities are important, Lean leaders know that listening is often more valuable than speaking.

The people performing the work every day see frustrations, delays, and waste that reports rarely capture. They know which procedures are difficult to follow, where customers experience unnecessary delays, and which improvement ideas have never been explored. The challenge is creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing what they know.

Listening requires more than remaining silent while someone else talks. It means asking thoughtful questions, resisting the urge to interrupt, and seeking to understand before responding. Employees quickly recognize the difference between leaders who listen to reply and leaders who listen to learn.

One of the simplest ways to improve your leadership is to finish fewer sentences and ask more questions. Every conversation becomes an opportunity to learn something you didn’t know before.

Lean Tip #4098 – Removing Barriers Is Leadership

Employees often know exactly what prevents them from doing their jobs effectively. They deal with outdated procedures, missing information, unreliable equipment, conflicting priorities, and unnecessary approvals every day. Yet many leaders spend more time assigning work than removing the obstacles that make the work difficult.

One of the primary responsibilities of a Lean leader is improving the system so people can succeed. Sometimes that means securing resources or simplifying a process. Other times it means eliminating unnecessary reports, improving communication between departments, or resolving issues that employees have learned to work around.

When leaders consistently remove barriers, employees notice. They begin bringing forward more ideas because they believe someone will actually help solve the problems. Trust grows, engagement improves, and continuous improvement becomes part of the culture.

Ask yourself this week: “What obstacle can I remove that would make my team’s work easier?” Sometimes the greatest leadership contribution isn’t adding something new—it’s removing something that never should have been there in the first place.

Lean Tip #4099 – Leadership Happens at the Gemba

It’s tempting to believe leadership happens in conference rooms, planning sessions, or executive meetings. While those activities are important, Lean leadership comes to life where value is created—at the Gemba.

Walking the Gemba isn’t about checking on employees or looking for mistakes. It’s about understanding how work actually flows, seeing obstacles firsthand, and learning directly from the people closest to the process. Reports can summarize performance, but they rarely tell the whole story.

The best Gemba walks are conversations, not inspections. Leaders ask questions, observe carefully, and look for opportunities to support the team. They leave with a better understanding of both the process and the people performing it.

If you want better decisions in the conference room, spend more time in the workplace. The quality of leadership improves when it is grounded in firsthand observation rather than secondhand information.

Lean Tip #4100 – The Best Lean Leaders Never Stop Learning

One of the defining characteristics of exceptional Lean leaders is that they never believe they have all the answers. No matter how much experience they gain, they remain students of their organization, their people, and the improvement process itself.

Learning takes many forms. It may come from observing another facility, reading a new book, reflecting on a failed project, or simply asking an employee, “How would you improve this process?” Every experience offers an opportunity to become a better leader if we remain open to learning from it.

Continuous improvement begins with continuous learning. Leaders who stop learning often rely on yesterday’s solutions to solve tomorrow’s problems. Those who remain curious continue adapting as their organization and customers evolve.

The greatest investment a leader can make is not only in developing others, but in never stopping the development of themselves.

Lean Tip #4101 – Stop Giving Answers Too Quickly

One of the hardest habits for experienced leaders to break is providing answers too quickly. It feels efficient. After all, if you’ve seen the problem before, why not simply tell someone what to do?

The problem is that every answer you provide is a missed opportunity for someone else to think. While your solution may resolve today’s issue, it does little to prepare your team for the next one. Over time, employees learn that the fastest path is to ask the boss instead of working through the problem themselves.

Lean leaders resist the urge to become the organization’s answer machine. Instead, they ask questions that encourage observation, analysis, and critical thinking. “What do you think is happening?” or “What evidence supports that conclusion?” may take longer initially, but they build problem-solving capability.

The goal of coaching isn’t to solve more problems. It’s to develop more people who can solve problems without you.

Lean Tip #4102 – Coach the Thinking, Not the Solution

It’s easy to judge coaching by the outcome. Did the employee arrive at the correct answer? In Lean, however, the quality of the thinking process is often more important than the immediate result.

A leader who simply provides the right answer may fix today’s issue but misses the opportunity to strengthen the employee’s reasoning. Coaching should focus on how someone approached the problem, what facts they gathered, what assumptions they made, and how they reached their conclusion.

Even when the final answer isn’t perfect, good thinking deserves recognition. Employees who learn a structured approach to problem solving become more capable with every challenge they face.

Processes improve because people improve. That’s why Lean coaching develops thinkers, not just task performers.

Lean Tip #4103 – Confidence Is Built One Challenge at a Time

Confidence isn’t created by telling employees they’re capable. It grows through experience—especially when people successfully work through problems they initially believed were beyond their ability.

Lean leaders intentionally stretch people just beyond their comfort zone. They provide support, ask questions, and offer guidance without taking control. Sometimes employees struggle, and that’s okay. Productive struggle is often where the deepest learning occurs.

The temptation is to step in the moment progress slows. But rescuing people too quickly prevents them from developing the confidence that comes from solving difficult problems themselves.

Every challenge overcome becomes evidence that they can handle the next one. Great leaders don’t build confidence through compliments alone—they build it through opportunities.

Lean Tip #4104 – Turn Mistakes Into Learning Opportunities

Every organization makes mistakes. The difference between average organizations and great ones is what happens immediately afterward.

Some leaders focus on assigning blame and preventing embarrassment. Lean leaders focus on understanding what the mistake can teach the organization. They ask what conditions allowed the problem to occur, what warning signs were missed, and what changes will prevent it from happening again.

This doesn’t eliminate accountability. People should still take responsibility for their actions. But accountability should lead to learning, not fear. When employees know mistakes will be treated fairly, they become much more willing to report problems before they become larger issues.

A mistake only becomes wasted if nothing is learned from it.

Lean Tip #4105 – Coaching Is an Investment, Not an Interruption

When production is busy and deadlines are tight, coaching can feel like a luxury. It often seems faster to solve the problem yourself than to spend time developing someone else’s thinking.

In the short term, that’s usually true. In the long term, however, it creates dependency. Leaders become bottlenecks because every significant decision flows through them.

Coaching is an investment in future capacity. Every employee who becomes a stronger problem solver reduces the amount of direction, supervision, and firefighting required tomorrow. The time invested today is returned many times over through increased capability and better decision making.

The best Lean leaders understand that developing people isn’t something that competes with achieving results. Developing people is how lasting results are achieved.

Lean Tip #4106 – Asking Better Questions

The quality of a leader’s questions often determines the quality of the team’s thinking. When leaders ask questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” conversations end quickly. When they ask thoughtful, open-ended questions, conversations become opportunities for learning.

Lean leaders use questions to understand before they evaluate. Instead of asking, “Who made the mistake?” they ask, “What happened?” Rather than saying, “Why didn’t you follow the procedure?” they ask, “What made following the procedure difficult?” These questions encourage observation instead of defensiveness.

Good questions slow people down just enough to think more clearly. They encourage employees to examine facts, challenge assumptions, and discover solutions for themselves. That’s how organizations build problem solvers instead of problem reporters.

The next time you’re coaching someone, focus less on having the right answer and more on asking the right question.

Lean Tip #4107 – Coaching Happens During Daily Work

Many leaders think coaching requires scheduled meetings or formal development plans. While those certainly have value, the best coaching usually happens during everyday work.

A five-minute conversation at the Gemba, a discussion after a daily huddle, or a question asked while reviewing a visual board can have more impact than a one-hour meeting in a conference room. These moments are grounded in real work, making the lessons immediately relevant.

The key is being intentional. Don’t wait for annual reviews to develop people. Use today’s production issue, customer complaint, or improvement idea as an opportunity to teach someone how to think through the problem.

The best coaches don’t create learning opportunities—they recognize the ones that already exist.

Lean Tip #4108 – Feedback Should Build Capability

Most people associate feedback with evaluating performance. Lean leaders view feedback differently. Its purpose is to help people improve, not simply judge how they performed.

Effective feedback is specific, timely, and focused on behaviors that can be changed. Instead of saying, “You need to communicate better,” describe what was observed and discuss what could be done differently next time. Clear feedback gives people something they can act upon immediately.

Just as important, feedback should recognize good thinking, not just good outcomes. Employees need to know when they approached a problem effectively, even if the final result wasn’t perfect.

The goal isn’t to create employees who fear feedback. It’s to create people who actively seek it because they know it helps them grow.

Lean Tip #4109 – Let People Struggle…Productively

Watching someone struggle can be uncomfortable, especially when you already know the answer. The temptation is to step in quickly and solve the problem. Unfortunately, that’s often where learning stops.

Lean leaders understand the difference between productive struggle and unnecessary frustration. Productive struggle challenges people to think, experiment, and learn. Unnecessary frustration occurs when people lack the information, resources, or support needed to succeed.

Coaching means staying engaged without taking over. Ask questions, provide guidance, and help remove obstacles, but leave enough room for people to develop confidence through their own discoveries.

Growth rarely happens when everything comes easily. It happens when people overcome challenges they once believed were beyond their abilities.

Lean Tip #4110 – Celebrate Learning, Not Just Results

Organizations naturally celebrate successful projects, improved metrics, and major accomplishments. Those achievements deserve recognition, but Lean leaders also celebrate something equally important—the learning that made those results possible.

Not every improvement effort will produce the expected outcome. Sometimes an experiment reveals that an idea doesn’t work, yet that knowledge prevents the organization from making a much larger mistake later. Learning has value even when the result isn’t what was expected.

When leaders recognize curiosity, experimentation, thoughtful problem solving, and honest reflection, employees become more willing to innovate. They stop fearing failure and start focusing on continuous improvement.

Results are important because they improve the business. Learning is even more important because it improves the people who will produce tomorrow’s results.