What’s Your Role in Hospital Quality?
I snapped this pic while visiting a hospital earlier this year. This was out in the cafeteria as part of a series of signs that featured real people talking about their real role in quality.
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All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Command-and-Control Killed this Cosmonaut? Lessons for Our Organizations…
Lean is not a “command and control” leadership and management model. The old command-and-control dynamic leads to so much poor quality and misery in all sorts of industries and organizations – including factories and hospitals. In a command and control…
Weekend Fun: The Management Methods, They Are a-Changin’
Fans of Bob Dylan and Mike Rother’s book Toyota Kata will appreciate this song especially:
Interview Today with Prof. Samuel Culbert – Questions on Annual Reviews?
Today, I am recording a podcast interview with Prof. Samuel Culbert from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He is author of the recent NY Times piece “Why Your Boss Is Wrong About You” and the book Get Rid of…
An Astronaut’s Viewpoints on Systems & Patient Safety
Today, I’m sharing a brilliant Slate.com interview: “Risky Business: James Bagian “NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert” on Being Wrong.” He’s actually also an engineer and an anesthesiologist. An impressive background and impressive thinking. I will share a few highlights…
Jim Womack on Gemba Walks, Lean Leadership, and Lessons for Healthcare
Jim Womack explains why real gemba walks–not management strolls–are essential for lean leadership, and why healthcare leaders must change behavior to improve systems and outcomes. In Episode #116 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, Mark Graban talks with Jim Womack,…
Why GM Blamed JIT for Layoffs After the Japan Earthquake — and Why Toyota Didn’t
TL;DR — GM vs. Toyota After the Japan Earthquake General Motors (GM) Toyota Bottom line:This wasn’t a failure of JIT or Lean. It was a leadership choice. Toyota showed that real Lean is about how you treat people when work…
A Vision for a Lean Hospital (2026 Update)
Back in 2011, I shared a draft of the final chapter from the first edition of Lean Hospitals and invited readers to contribute their thoughts on “A Vision for a Lean Hospital.” The responses were thoughtful, insightful, and helped shape…
Collected Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Improvement Statistics – Lean Healthcare
I’m going to use this blog post / page to collect published statistics about the impact the Lean management philosophy has had on healthcare quality and patient safety. I have a similar page on quality and patient safety statistics here.…
Survey: Title & Subtitle for My Second Book on “Kaizen” and Continuous Improvement for Healthcare
Hi – As a reader of my blog, your input and thoughts are important to me. I am currently co-authoring a new book with Joe Swartz (from the Franciscan Health System in Indiana) on a subset of Lean methods, focused…
Check Out the Healthcare Value Network Podcast Series
One of my projects with LEI and the Healthcare Value Network is a podcast series I am hosting featuring leaders from our various Network member organizations. I don’t have a LeanBlog Podcast this week, but if you are listening for…
From the LEI Summit: Mike Rother on Toyota’s View on ROI
I really had a great learning experience at last week’s LEI Lean Transformation Summit that was held here in Dallas. The event sold out six weeks in advance, so a lot of regular attendees got frozen out, unfortunately. All of…
