Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement with Lisa Freeman

Michael Hein, MS, MD, MHCM, Associate Certified Coach (ACC), believes that when healthcare leaders don’t fully understand complexity, it leads to burnout, turnover, and poor patient care—issues he considers preventable forms of human suffering. Healthcare is more complex than ever, and traditional top-down methods often exacerbate these challenges. Success today requires leaders who adapt, absorb uncertainty, and react quickly. For many, this means embracing new leadership mindsets. With over thirty years of experience in healthcare, Michael is Senior Vice President and an executive coach at MEDI Leadership, the top healthcare coaching firm in the US. Drawing from clinical and executive roles, he helps leaders make the mindset shifts needed for success in complexity.Previously, Michael was CEO of a nonmerger hospital network and Chief Medical Officer at Catholic Health Initiatives. He led transformations at the Veterans Health Administration and cofounded KPI Ninja, a healthcare data company.Michael holds degrees from the University of South Dakota, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and St. Cloud State University. He is a certified executive coach through the International Coaching Federation, trained at the Hudson Institute of Coaching. His experience bridges frontline care and strategic leadership, coaching leaders to drive sustainable change in complex organizations.His book, Shifting Toward Unorthodoxy: Ten Unconventional Mindsets that HelpHealthcare Leaders Succeed in a Complex World, encourages a shift from outdated leadership mindsets to adaptive ones. A lifelong athlete, Michael enjoys cycling and swimming.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Nigel Thurlow previously served as the first-ever Chief of Agile at Toyota, where he created the World Agility Forum award-winning “Scrum the Toyota Way” and co-created The Flow System™, a holistic FLOW-based approach to delivering customer-first value built on a foundation of The Toyota Production System.Throughout his career, Thurlow has gained an enviable recognition as a leading expert in Lean and Agile methods, tools, techniques, and approaches. He specializes in developing effective organizational designs and operating models for organizations to embrace both Lean and Agile concepts. By leveraging knowledge from various sources, Thurlow helps optimize organizations to enact successful, long-lasting transformational strategies in applying Lean thinking, Agile techniques, and Scrum – while combining complexity thinking, distributive leadership, and team science, represented by a triple helix structure known as the DNA of Organizations™.As of 2024, he has trained over 8,500 people worldwide in Scrum, Agile, Lean, Flow, Complexity, and organizational design. Thurlow is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST).An instinctive problem solver, Nigel Thurlow takes a method-agnostic, cross-industry approach in helping organizations find the right tools, methods, and approaches to overcome challenges within their contextual situation. He advocates for the fact that there is not a one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach to agility; all tools have utility, but they also have contextual limitations. From this vantage point, Thurlow equips an organization’s people to become an army of problem solvers, expanding their perception of what they do so they can better understand and prepare for potential challenges along the way.Thurlow is currently the Chief Executive Officer at The Flow Consortium, a collection of highly regarded companies in the Lean and Agile world — as well as the scientific and academic communities at large. The Flow Consortium strives to expand the boundaries of current Lean and Agile thinking through the understanding of complexity thinking, distributed leadership, and team science by tapping into the minds of top thought leaders from these concentrations.While at Toyota, Thurlow worked to frame Scrum as more than just a standardized behavioral process by applying and advancing fundamental methodologies to spur innovative, forward-thinking solutions to Toyota’s most complex challenges. He also founded the Toyota Agile Academy in 2018. These efforts signaled a transformative phase for Toyota, leading the company towards organizational agility and helping its team members better understand this concept in an automotive production context.Additionally, Thurlow has been a board presence at the University of North Texas since 2019, serving as an advisor to the Department of Information Science Board and a member of the College of Information Leadership Board. He has also served as the President of CDQ LLC since 2012. Prior to that, Thurlow held executive coaching and training roles for companies including Vodafone, Lumen Technologies, Scrum, Inc., GE Power & Water, 3M Healthcare Information Systems, Bose Corporation, The TJX Companies, Inc. – as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has also taught Scrum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).As an author, Thurlow was named a Forbes top 10 author for co-authoring the book “The Flow System™” in 2020. He has recently co-authored “The Flow System Playbook” published in 2023 which presents a practical study guide and reference book to all the concepts covered in the first book.His other notable publications include “Introducing the Flow System (2019)” and “TPS and the Age of Destruction (2019).” He is also the co-author of The Flow Guide and The Flow System Principles and Key Attributes Guidebook. Recently, Thurlow co-authored “The...

Nigel Thurlow previously served as the first-ever Chief of Agile at Toyota, where he created the World Agility Forum award-winning “Scrum the Toyota Way” and co-created The Flow System™, a holistic FLOW-based approach to delivering customer-first value built on a foundation of The Toyota Production System.Throughout his career, Thurlow has gained an enviable recognition as a leading expert in Lean and Agile methods, tools, techniques, and approaches. He specializes in developing effective organizational designs and operating models for organizations to embrace both Lean and Agile concepts. By leveraging knowledge from various sources, Thurlow helps optimize organizations to enact successful, long-lasting transformational strategies in applying Lean thinking, Agile techniques, and Scrum – while combining complexity thinking, distributive leadership, and team science, represented by a triple helix structure known as the DNA of Organizations™.As of 2024, he has trained over 8,500 people worldwide in Scrum, Agile, Lean, Flow, Complexity, and organizational design. Thurlow is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST).An instinctive problem solver, Nigel Thurlow takes a method-agnostic, cross-industry approach in helping organizations find the right tools, methods, and approaches to overcome challenges within their contextual situation. He advocates for the fact that there is not a one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach to agility; all tools have utility, but they also have contextual limitations. From this vantage point, Thurlow equips an organization’s people to become an army of problem solvers, expanding their perception of what they do so they can better understand and prepare for potential challenges along the way.Thurlow is currently the Chief Executive Officer at The Flow Consortium, a collection of highly regarded companies in the Lean and Agile world — as well as the scientific and academic communities at large. The Flow Consortium strives to expand the boundaries of current Lean and Agile thinking through the understanding of complexity thinking, distributed leadership, and team science by tapping into the minds of top thought leaders from these concentrations.While at Toyota, Thurlow worked to frame Scrum as more than just a standardized behavioral process by applying and advancing fundamental methodologies to spur innovative, forward-thinking solutions to Toyota’s most complex challenges. He also founded the Toyota Agile Academy in 2018. These efforts signaled a transformative phase for Toyota, leading the company towards organizational agility and helping its team members better understand this concept in an automotive production context.Additionally, Thurlow has been a board presence at the University of North Texas since 2019, serving as an advisor to the Department of Information Science Board and a member of the College of Information Leadership Board. He has also served as the President of CDQ LLC since 2012. Prior to that, Thurlow held executive coaching and training roles for companies including Vodafone, Lumen Technologies, Scrum, Inc., GE Power & Water, 3M Healthcare Information Systems, Bose Corporation, The TJX Companies, Inc. – as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has also taught Scrum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).As an author, Thurlow was named a Forbes top 10 author for co-authoring the book “The Flow System™” in 2020. He has recently co-authored “The Flow System Playbook” published in 2023 which presents a practical study guide and reference book to all the concepts covered in the first book.His other notable publications include “Introducing the Flow System (2019)” and “TPS and the Age of Destruction (2019).” He is also the co-author of The Flow Guide and The Flow System Principles and Key Attributes Guidebook. Recently, Thurlow co-authored “The...

Nigel Thurlow previously served as the first-ever Chief of Agile at Toyota, where he created the World Agility Forum award-winning “Scrum the Toyota Way” and co-created The Flow System™, a holistic FLOW-based approach to delivering customer-first value built on a foundation of The Toyota Production System.Throughout his career, Thurlow has gained an enviable recognition as a leading expert in Lean and Agile methods, tools, techniques, and approaches. He specializes in developing effective organizational designs and operating models for organizations to embrace both Lean and Agile concepts. By leveraging knowledge from various sources, Thurlow helps optimize organizations to enact successful, long-lasting transformational strategies in applying Lean thinking, Agile techniques, and Scrum – while combining complexity thinking, distributive leadership, and team science, represented by a triple helix structure known as the DNA of Organizations™.As of 2024, he has trained over 8,500 people worldwide in Scrum, Agile, Lean, Flow, Complexity, and organizational design. Thurlow is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST).An instinctive problem solver, Nigel Thurlow takes a method-agnostic, cross-industry approach in helping organizations find the right tools, methods, and approaches to overcome challenges within their contextual situation. He advocates for the fact that there is not a one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach to agility; all tools have utility, but they also have contextual limitations. From this vantage point, Thurlow equips an organization’s people to become an army of problem solvers, expanding their perception of what they do so they can better understand and prepare for potential challenges along the way.Thurlow is currently the Chief Executive Officer at The Flow Consortium, a collection of highly regarded companies in the Lean and Agile world — as well as the scientific and academic communities at large. The Flow Consortium strives to expand the boundaries of current Lean and Agile thinking through the understanding of complexity thinking, distributed leadership, and team science by tapping into the minds of top thought leaders from these concentrations.While at Toyota, Thurlow worked to frame Scrum as more than just a standardized behavioral process by applying and advancing fundamental methodologies to spur innovative, forward-thinking solutions to Toyota’s most complex challenges. He also founded the Toyota Agile Academy in 2018. These efforts signaled a transformative phase for Toyota, leading the company towards organizational agility and helping its team members better understand this concept in an automotive production context.Additionally, Thurlow has been a board presence at the University of North Texas since 2019, serving as an advisor to the Department of Information Science Board and a member of the College of Information Leadership Board. He has also served as the President of CDQ LLC since 2012. Prior to that, Thurlow held executive coaching and training roles for companies including Vodafone, Lumen Technologies, Scrum, Inc., GE Power & Water, 3M Healthcare Information Systems, Bose Corporation, The TJX Companies, Inc. – as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has also taught Scrum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).As an author, Thurlow was named a Forbes top 10 author for co-authoring the book “The Flow System™” in 2020. He has recently co-authored “The Flow System Playbook” published in 2023 which presents a practical study guide and reference book to all the concepts covered in the first book.His other notable publications include “Introducing the Flow System (2019)” and “TPS and the Age of Destruction (2019).” He is also the co-author of The Flow Guide and The Flow System Principles and Key Attributes Guidebook. Recently, Thurlow co-authored “The Substrate Independence Theory,” a peer-reviewed scientific article

Lisa (Elizabeth) Joyce Freeman serves as a Senior Advisor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. She administratively supports the Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement. The goal of the Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement is to become the best at getting better Inspiring and accelerating the delivery of consistent, excellent care across Stanford Medicine measured by performance improvement in Safety, Quality, Patient Experience, and Cost Reduction (Collectively=Value) from today's baseline and ultimately developing a reputation as a national leader, to which others look for inspiration and as an educational resource. From 2001 through 2016, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS). VAPAHCS is a $900M, 800 - bed federal health care system with three inpatient divisions and seven outpatient clinics serving 90,000 Veterans in 10 counties in Northern California. It is affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine, has the second-largest research enterprise in VA ($58M), trains 1500 residents, internsand students yearly and is home to every specialized Veteran treatment modality offered in the VA system. She was responsible for all administrative and clinical aspects of VA Palo Alto, including strategy and master planning for facilities. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Notre Dame in Civil Engineering and a Master of Business Administration degree from Louisiana Tech University. She is a licensed professional engineer and a Fellow in the American College of Health Care Executives. She is the recipient of two Presidential Rank Awards, one at the meritorious level and the second at the distinguished level.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Gary Peterson - Executive Vice President, Supply Chain & Production at O.C. Tanner Company As our Executive Vice President of Supply Chain & Production, Gary specializes in creating cultures of continuous improvement through manufacturing and leadership excellence. He leads our manufacturing, buying, engineering, refining, and logistics teams. Gary has been at O.C. Tanner for over 35 years and has helped transform the company’s manufacturing operations from “batch” to lean while pioneering team-based procedures that allow each unit to take full ownership of their results. His greatest joy on the job comes from interacting with and inspiring people—empowering them to do their best work. Gary enjoys traveling across the globe to assist organizations in generating newfound outcomes for their people and their machines. He retires at the end of this year and is looking forward to expanding his impact in the world of continuous improvement culture. A member of the Shingo Academy and the AME Hall of Fame, he also currently serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the Shingo Institute and is a Shingo Examiner. He holds an MBA from Brigham Young University and enjoys basketball, snowboarding, hiking, golfing and spending time with his family, including 19 grandchildren.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Dr. Sarah Womack is a distinguished researcher and consultant in the field of Industrial Engineering. Her Ph.D. in the department of Industrial & Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor focused on the intersection of lean manufacturing practices and ergonomics. She has published peer-reviewed articles, presented as guest speaker at conferences and universities, and facilitated copious workshops on lean manufacturing. She has established herself as a leading scholar and consultant of one of the world’s most coveted management systems, the Toyota Production System. She spent eight years on a journey in various leadership roles of “learning by doing” under some of the world’s greatest lean thinkers at Toyota. Applying Toyota’s management thinking, she consults across an array of industries with an innovative and practical approach to continuous improvement, organizational transformation, and operational excellence - coaching at every level from the C-suite to the shopfloor. She continues to learn and collect a patchwork of stories to teach and inspire others on their operational excellence journeys. In addition to her writing, consulting, and speaking engagements, Sarah is passionate about traveling the world and immersing herself in diverse cultures. Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Kim Olson entered the healthcare field in 2005 and has since held progressive roles in Health Information Management, Performance Excellence, and most recently, as Director of Medical Staff Office and Provider Enrollment operations, where she led initiatives to streamline credentialing workflows and improve cross-functional collaboration. She’s most energized at the crossroads of data science, leadership, and healthcare transformation—where she inspires teams to think holistically and find renewed meaning in their work. Currently, she’s focused on advancing data-driven strategies that help teams think big picture and truly enjoy the work they do. Outside of work, Kim is grounded by her faith, fueled by coffee, and happiest spending time with her family or in nature. Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Prof. Christian van Nieuwerburgh (PhD) is an academic, consultant and executive coach. He is Professor of Coaching and Positive Psychology at the Centre for Positive Health Sciences at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences (Ireland) and Consulting Professor for Growth Coaching International, a provider of coach training and consultancy for the education sector. In recognition of his contributions to the fields of positive psychology and coaching, he is Principal Fellow of the Centre for Wellbeing Science at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education of the University of Melbourne (Australia) and Honorary CollectivEd Fellow of the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University (UK). Christian is a certified executive coach and is well published in the academic literature on the topics of coaching and positive psychology. He has authored, co-authored and edited numerous books in the field of coaching, most notably An Introduction to Coaching Skills: A Practical Guide (2014, 2016, 2020). His latest books are Your Essential Guide to Effective Reflective Practice (2025, with David Love) and Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection (2025, with Robert Biswas-Diener). Follow Christian on Instagram (@coachonamotorcycle), on his YouTube channel (@coachonamotorcycle) and on his website (coachonamotorcycle.com). Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is a psychologist who researches positive topics as wide-ranging as happiness, friendship, hospitality, and friendship. His studies have taken him to Greenland, India, and Kenya. Robert has published more than 75 academic papers and has a citation count in excess of 28 thousand. Robert is also interested in applying positive psychology, especially to coaching. He is an ICF-certified coach and a Gallup certified strengths coach, and he trains coaches at his company, Positive Acorn.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact [email protected] if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Michael Chad Hoeppner is the Founder and CEO of GK Training, a firm dedicated to giving individuals, companies, and organizations the communication skills to reach their highest goals in work and life.Michael has worked with some of the world’s most influential companies and leaders, across a wide range of industries, universities, and professional sectors. His corporate clients include: three of the top eight financial firms in the world, 45 of the AmLaw 100, and multinational tech, pharma, and food and beverage companies. He teaches his unique approach to communication at Columbia Business School, in both the MBA and PhD programs.Michael assists clients in every aspect of their communication: public speaking, business development, executive presence, interpersonal agility, Q&A, speech writing, email skills, and more. His individual coaching clients include varied professionals at the peak of their industries: US Presidential candidates, deans of Ivy League business schools, three of the managing partners of the 25 largest global law firms, founders of asset management firms with $100B+ under management, field officers of international peace keeping organizations, and visionaries in various fields, including the innovator who coined the term cloud computing, the most successful venture capitalist in the US for a consecutive 5-year period, and senior board members of the Special Olympics. Michael advised US democratic presidential candidates in the 2016 and 2020 races, including his role as senior communications strategist and debate coach for the Andrew Yang 2020 Presidential campaign. He also works with political aspirants at the beginning of their careers, including pro bono work for Vote Mama, an org that supports mothers with young children seeking first-time public office.His background in communication, training, and teaching is diverse and rich, having studied linguistics, theatre, speech, rhetoric, philosophy, and communications at the graduate and undergraduate level. His work in professional communications started two decades ago with achieving his Master of Fine Arts degree from NYU’s graduate acting program, studying with many of the preeminent vocal and performance teachers in the country. After NYU, Michael enjoyed a prolific first career as a professional actor: playing on Broadway twice, including working with stage legends like Nathan Lane; touring to 30+ US states; performing internationally, including at the 2009 European Capital of Culture; guest starring in prime-time network television; and originating roles in independent film.His passion then evolved, shifting to launching his first and still primary entrepreneurial venture, GK Training. As head of GK, Michael developed his unique, proprietary approach to communications training over a decade plus, an approach that utilizes kinesthetic learning to unlock rapid and lasting behavioral change. In that work he has created a suite of over 40 proprietary kinesthetic drills to address stubborn communication challenges like excessive filler language, lack of eye contact, slouching, talking too fast, and more with innovative tools that activate embodied cognition and circumvent thought suppression. Now entering its second decade, GK Training has clients in 43 industries across five continents.Michael’s work in academia at Columbia University spans disciplines. In addition to teaching in the MBA and PhD programs at the Business school, he designed the curriculum for the PhD program’s capstone communication course focused on entering the job market, as well as Executive Presence programs for the Law school. One of the GK online courses he designed is integrated into the Advanced Management Program summer curricula. His proprietary kinesthetic learning drills are featured in the curriculum of communication courses in the Management Division. He has coached over 15 members of the business school faculty. And in a bit of...