Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker, and podcaster with experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups.
Mark's latest book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, a recipient of the Shingo Publication Award.
He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean, previous Shingo recipients.
Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.
What Jim Womack Kept Telling Us
In March 2007, Jim Womack told me about his biggest disappointment.
The Machine That Changed the World had been out for more than sixteen years,...
Mistakes and Leadership Lessons: Still Learning, Three Years Later
Three years ago, The Mistakes That Make Us came out. Around the same time, Elisabeth Swan published Picture Yourself a Leader. Both books' third...
A Bar Chart Said 24% Reduction — A Process Behavior Chart...
Most hospital quality dashboards are designed to answer one question: Are we OK? Green means yes. Red means no. The trouble is, once the...
Belief vs. Compliance: Why Lean Still Struggles to Take Root
TL;DR: Lean doesn't fail because people resist change. It struggles when organizations ask for participation without earning belief. Don Ephlin saw this decades ago:...
The Most Expensive Person on Your Unit Is the One You...
There's a hospital somewhere this quarter presenting a labor efficiency story to its board. A unit that used to have a dedicated charge nurse...
Remembering Norm Bodek, 20 Years After Episode #1
In July 2006, I pressed record on a conversation with Norm Bodek. The audio quality was poor. I had no idea what I was...
Why Most People Don’t Think — and What to Do About...
Scott Burgmeyer, founder and CEO of Become More Group, has spent more than 30 years watching smart people make avoidable decisions -- not because...
Calling a Supervisor a “Process Coach” Doesn’t Mean the Job Really...
Ford spends roughly $100,000 a year on each of its first-line production supervisors. The title on the job posting is "Process Coach" - language...
A Free Red Bead Game Simulator: Try Dr. Deming’s Experiment Online
A hospital VP I worked with once told her board the number of infections had dropped from 4 to 3. She got a small...
Did Ford’s Andon Cord Problem Ever Get Fixed? Help Me Find...
In 2007, I wrote about a BBC article that included a number I've never quite been able to shake. Workers at Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky...
New Book Announcement: Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders — Vote on...
I haven't said much about this here yet, so consider this the announcement.
I'm writing a new book. It's a practical guide for Lean leaders,...
Why You Can’t Think Your Way to a Root Cause
You know the feeling in the conference room when the team finally lands it.
The fishbone is covered in sticky notes. You've worked through five...
