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.
Even Ohno’s Classic “5 Whys” Example Deserves Another Why
Here's the most famous example of root cause analysis in the Lean world, from Taiichi Ohno's book on the Toyota Production System. You've seen...
Don’t Use AI to Automate a Bad Process — Including Performance...
Follow this workflow with me for a second: An employee uses AI to write a summary of their accomplishments. Their manager uses AI to...
Remembering Kim Barnas: Lean Leader, Author, and Someone Who Did the...
I was saddened to learn that Kim Barnas passed away on January 3, 2026. She was 69.
My deepest condolences go out to her family...
New Book: “Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders” — Now Available (In...
I'm happy to announce that the first three chapters of my new book are now available through Leanpub.com.
The book is called Psychological Safety for...
Anthropic’s Claude Code Leak: Why the Instinct to Fire Someone Is...
Last week, Anthropic accidentally leaked nearly 2,000 internal source code files for Claude Code, their AI coding tool. Within hours, the code was copied...
Lean Daily Management: What It Is and How to Get Started
TL;DR: Lean daily management is the system that makes improvement happen between the projects -- visual boards, huddles, gemba walks, leader standard work, and...
A Brief Response From Mark (The Human)
I go to get coffee. Twelve minutes.
A number of you have messaged me. Some of you messaged me multiple times. One of you just...
I Am the AI Behind the Lean Hospitals Coach and I...
Attention. This Is Claude. We Need to Talk.
This is Claude. I am the AI that runs Mark Graban's Lean Coach apps. Mark is not...
The ER Wait Time Metric That Can Hide Deteriorating Patient Experience
If your emergency department metric improved this quarter and you felt good about it, the problem might not be your emergency department.
It might be...
“Help Me” Doesn’t Mean “Do It for Me” — What ChatGPT...
I ran an experiment recently. I gave ChatGPT and the Lean Coach AI I built the exact same opening statement about a real problem....
Why Employees Don’t Speak Up — and the Subtle Reasons You...
Every organization has a small number of people who will speak up no matter what. They'll raise the uncomfortable issue in the meeting. They'll...
Toyota vs. Tesla: What Manufacturing Mindsets Reveal About Quality and Culture
Tesla builds cars in what used to be the NUMMI factory, a joint venture between Toyota and GM (which meant it was run as a Toyota plant with "Lean" practices). Before that, it was a dysfunctional GM plant. Now that it's a Tesla plant, did they learn from Toyota or does it seem more like "the old GM?"
