#042: Origins of Lean Construction with Greg Howell

Welcome to episode #42 of The Construction Leading Edge Podcast from www.constructionleadingedge.com, which is a great interview with Greg Howell, a founding father of Lean Construction.

In this interview Greg shares some amazing insights and stories on the following topics:

• How the Lean Construction movement got started.
• Greg's experience as a Navy SeaBee, and how that influenced Lean.
• The impact of one commanding officer's leadership style, and how it changed Greg's approach to leadership.
• The books he recommends that you read
• A few paradigm shifts that construction leaders need to make.
• The difference between an order and a promise.
• One unexpected benefit of Lean principles that he can't quite explain yet.
• Why he only gave a few orders as a commanding officer in Vietnam...and one of them involved a monkey.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Power To The Edge - Command and Control In The Information Age

Team of Teams - McChrystal, Collins, Silverman and Chris Fussell. (Click here to listen to my interview with Chris Fussell)

Turn The Ship Around - David Marquet

Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies - Charles Perrow

41 Mistakes To Avoid When Dealing With Conflict At Work

Archisnapper - An app for creating good looking project reports and punchlists