All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Lean leadership isn’t just about asking people how to fix problems–it’s about asking them what problems matter most. When leaders shift from telling to asking, they unlock intrinsic motivation, deeper engagement, and more sustainable improvement. This lesson came through clearly…
For those of you who have been around Lean healthcare for a while, I hope you’ve met or at least heard of Dr. Jack Billi from the University of Michigan. He’s currently the Associate VP of Medical Affairs and he’s…
TL;DR: Franciscan Health built a lasting culture of continuous improvement by patiently practicing Kaizen every day–not as a program, but as a way of thinking. Over time, consistent leadership behaviors, frontline engagement, and psychological safety led to more than 27,000…
This week, Joe Swartz (pictured at left) and I are running a “Kaizen Live” workshop at his main hospital, Franciscan St. Francis Health. Today and tomorrow, we’re running a 1.5-day workshop where attendees will get to visit departments and hear…
The past two weeks have been very busy, to say the least. Thanks to the guest bloggers who contributed posts to help reduce my personal overburden (this particular overburden, of course, being a “First World Problem,” as they say). My…
Today’s guest post is by Sue Kozlowski, who is part of the team at Techsolve, a team that’s based in Cincinnati. In the past, I’ve collaborated with them on some training and they’re a great group. She has co-authored or…
Mark’s Note: Here is another guest post from Drew Locher. I’m hoping that he’ll contribute occasionally to the blog as a guest author. My podcast with him is coming soon… please do read his “part 1” of this post and then…
Mark’s Note: Today’s guest post comes via my friends at the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, who suggested this case study from Salem Health. You might remember my post from 2012 where I shared a video of some of their senior…
Today’s Throwback Thursday looks back to an article from April 2010: Should Have Posted a “Caution: Don’t Knock Our House Down” Sign? A house in Denton, Texas (not far from where I now live in the DFW area) was knocked…
My guest for episode #247 is James Chisholm, a principal and co-founder of the Toronto-based ExperiencePoint. James is a pioneer in the design of online game-based learning, and has authored numerous leadership simulations in use by over 100,000 executives and managers worldwide.…
Mark’s note: Today’s post is a guest contribution from Paul Critchley. Check out his previous posts here. As a long time Lean practitioner (and now Lean consultant), I have been asked lots of questions about Lean over the years. There’s…
Back in December, I wrote about a method called “Motivational Interviewing” (MI), something I learned about from a social worker who was also at the Lean Startup Conference. It’s funny how these worlds intersect sometimes. I saw parallels between people…
