Nick Katko and Mike De Luca Talk About Practicing Lean Accounting

Lean Blog Interviews - Healthcare, Manufacturing, Business, and Leadership

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/428

My guests for Episode #428 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are Nick Katko and Mike De Luca. Nick is president and owner of the firm BMA and Mike is a Lean coach, serving as principal and owner of Torre Consulting.

Nick and Mike have a new book out called Practicing Lean Accounting. And I'm thrilled that the title is inspired by the book I edited called Practicing Lean. Their book is available now in paperback and Amazon Kindle formats.

Nick has been practicing lean accounting for over 25 years, both as a CFO and as a lean accounting trainer and coach. Nick is also the author of the book The Lean CFO (2013) and is co-author of The Lean Business Management System (2007).

Mike's lean journey began with implementing lean accounting as a finance leader in the early 2000's – evolving the finance department's role to meet the changing needs of a lean organization.

Today, we talk about the book and more, with topics and questions including:

• Nick and then Mike, how did you first get introduced to Lean and what was the context?
  • Manufacturing and healthcare
• How did you come to collaborate on this book?
• Budgets – from quarterly batches to daily practice
• The “tyranny of budgets” leads to blame?
• What is “Lean Accounting” in relation to the accounting function, payroll, paying suppliers, etc.
• “Becoming immune to waste”
• Why is it important for others to understand “how accounting thinks”??
• What does “respect for people” mean to you?
  • “It's not about the numbers, it's about the people using the numbers”
• Lean accounting applications in healthcare? What's uniquely healthcare?
• Final tips — How to best engage CFOs?
  • Is there a clear message about what Lean means to the org?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.