There's a concept in lean manufacturing called the gemba — the "real place" where value is actually created. You go to the gemba to see what's happening. You walk the floor. You watch the process. You find the waste.

Peter Weiss spent years doing exactly that. Process engineer turned operations leader, he ran manufacturing businesses in Thailand, got his MBA, and walked into his first turnaround assignment armed with every tool he needed. The KPIs improved. The investors were happy. And every single person on the floor hated him.

He lost the job after a year and a half.

"Instead of looking to the outside and saying the others are all wrong," he told us, "I said it has something to do with me."

What followed was a ten-day Vipassana retreat, a fundamental reorientation, and eventually a concept he now calls the inner gemba — ...