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About the Podcast

Tired of watching continuous improvement efforts crash and burn?

So are we. “Why They Fail” dives headfirst into the brutal truth behind failed Lean Six Sigma deployments, exposing the myths, the mistakes, and the outright absurdities that plague organizations worldwide. Forget the sugar-coated success stories—we’re here to dissect the disasters, from executives who think training is optional to lone Green Belts drowning in unrealistic expectations. But it’s not all doom and gloom. We’ll also reveal the surprisingly simple key to unlocking sustainable success: ditching the quick fixes and building a rock-solid foundation. Buckle up, because this podcast is a no-holds-barred, reality check that will transform the way you think about continuous improvement.

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Latest Episodes

How Executive Lip Service Kills Continuous Improvement

How Executive Lip Service Kills Continuous Improvement

How Executive Lip Service Kills Continuous Improvement 96% of continuous improvement deployments fail within 18 months. The number one cause is not bad methodology or undertrained practitioners. It is the absence of genuine executive leadership continuous improvement...

How Haphazard Continuous Improvement Blinds Teams

How Haphazard Continuous Improvement Blinds Teams

Haphazard continuous improvement does not just waste money. It blinds your teams, fractures trust, and quietly sets up every practitioner you train to fail. When corporate leadership throws disconnected lean tools at isolated problems without a structural foundation,...

Bad Leaders, Broken Cultures: The Uncomfortable Truth 

Bad Leaders, Broken Cultures: The Uncomfortable Truth 

Bad cultures with bad leaders do not fix themselves. They buy their way out. A new warehouse management system. A bigger facility. An expensive digital platform. The same chaos, now running on software that costs a fortune. In this episode of the Why They Fail...

From Blackhawk Cockpits to Real Lean Six Sigma Success 

From Blackhawk Cockpits to Real Lean Six Sigma Success 

Over 90% of corporate deployments fail within eighteen months. One of the most common reasons is the creation of continuous improvement silos. When process improvement is locked inside a single department or treated as a leadership checklist, cultural transformation...

Gen Z Grit: How Cheer Stunts Breed Future CEOs  

Gen Z Grit: How Cheer Stunts Breed Future CEOs  

Gen Z Grit: How Cheer Stunts Breed Future CEOs  Welcome to another episode of Why They Fail. In this episode, we tackle an exciting angle on organizational health: gen z leadership development. Many corporate leaders wonder how the next generation will...

Inside Amazon: Why Process Engineers Are Guides, Not Sages  

Inside Amazon: Why Process Engineers Are Guides, Not Sages  

Inside Amazon: Why Process Engineers Are Guides, Not Sages Most companies build their continuous improvement programs the wrong way. They train a single green belt or black belt and expect that one person to fix everything. However, studying Six Sigma principles in...

Beyond the Shiny Kanban: Driving a Real EBITDA Explosion

Beyond the Shiny Kanban: Driving a Real EBITDA Explosion

Beyond the Shiny Kanban: Driving a Real EBITDA Explosion Most business leaders believe they are running a lean operation. However, if your Kanban cards are still moving to the beat of unstable MRP lead times, you are not pulling. You are running a heavily masked push...

Why Continuous Improvement Leaders Pick Crap Projects

Why Continuous Improvement Leaders Pick Crap Projects

Why Continuous Improvement Leaders Pick Crap Projects Most continuous improvement programs fail within 18 months. The reason is almost always the same: leadership started by avoiding bad Six Sigma projects the wrong way. Instead of using data, they used gut feeling....

Fear and Loathing: The Danger of Numerical Goals 

Fear and Loathing: The Danger of Numerical Goals 

Fear and Loathing: The Danger of Numerical Goals In this episode of the Why They Fail Podcast, we take on one of the biggest traps in modern management: the obsession with numerical goals.Dr. W. Edwards Deming warned against this decades ago in his famous Point 11,...

How Lean Six Sigma Transformed a City Govt.

How Lean Six Sigma Transformed a City Govt.

How Lean Six Sigma Transformed a City Govt.  Can Lean Six Sigma principles truly revolutionize municipal operations? This episode delves into the remarkable success story of Fort Wayne, Indiana, exploring how continuous improvement in city...

Continuous Improvement at Danone: The Shotgun Approach 

Continuous Improvement at Danone: The Shotgun Approach 

Continuous Improvement at Danone: The Shotgun Approach  Welcome to our latest episode! We dive into Continuous Improvement at Danone, a global leader that embeds operational excellence into its culture. In this episode, I talk with Cici Haines, Danone’s...

Shainin & Six Sigma: It All Comes Down to Leadership 

Shainin & Six Sigma: It All Comes Down to Leadership 

Shainin and Six Sigma: It All Comes Down to Leadership Welcome to another episode of Why They Fail. In this episode, we explore the heart of every successful continuous improvement effort: leadership. Many companies invest in Lean Six Sigma or the Shainin Red X...

Meet Your Host

Headshot of Kevin Clay for Why They Fail Podcast

Kevin Clay, MBB

Kevin is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and President of Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc. Moreover, Kevin has spent over 25 years in the trenches of process improvement and Six Sigma implementation. He’s seen everything from amazing successes to total disasters. As a Master Black Belt and executive consultant, he’s helped companies across all industries transform how they work.

What makes Kevin different isn’t his impressive resume. It’s his core belief that our biggest failures teach us the most valuable lessons. Through authentic conversations and real stories, he creates a space where professionals can learn from others’ mistakes without having to make them all themselves.

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Join thousands of professionals who are changing how they approach continuous improvement through honest conversations about failure.