Lean Coffee Talk is a podcast hosted by Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh — authors, speakers, and longtime leaders in the Lean community. Each episode explores practical ideas about Lean leadership, continuous improvement, organizational culture, problem solving, and customer value.
The conversations blend real-world experience from healthcare, manufacturing, technology, and service organizations with reflections on leadership, management mistakes, and what actually works when building high-performing systems.
Unlike scripted interviews, Lean Coffee Talk follows a flexible “Lean Coffee” format — a structured but open discussion driven by questions, observations, and current challenges facing leaders today.
Whether you’re new to Lean or deeply experienced, the goal is simple: share insights that help organizations improve faster, think more clearly, and create better outcomes for customers and employees.
In Episode 24, Mark and Jamie return to a familiar format, just the two of them chatting over some whiskey. In this episode, they decide to make homemade whiskey cream (more popularly known as Irish cream or just Bailey’s). Mark’s…
In Episode 23, Mark and Jamie return to finish out 2020, this time joined by Kentucky native Deondra Wardelle, so naturally Kentucky bourbon is our whiskey category of choice. Bourbons selected include Brough Brothers, Willett, and Barton 1792. After introducing…
For Episode 22, Mark Graban is joined by Darril Wilburn and Sammy Obara, two former Toyota employees who are colleagues at the firm Honsha. They are two of the authors of the excellent book Toyota by Toyota. The three talk…
In Episode 21, Mark and Jamie return to our regular casual format of open discussion over a drink, this time joined by Tom Ehrenfeld, well known to the Lean community for his writing and editorial work with the Lean Enterprise…
In Episode 20, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh join the Colorado Lean Summit live and host a virtual happy hour while discussing the first couple days of the event’s proceedings. Joining us as co-hosts are Colorado Lean Network (CLN) members…
For Episode #19, Mark Graban is joined by a new guest host, Cliff Hazell. Mark and Cliff first met years ago in Austin at the Lean Coaching Summit, where they shared some Garrison Brothers whiskey and talked about Lean, Deming,…
In Episode 18, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh return to our tried and true format of “just the two of us”, although that won’t last long as Mark will soon have a guest co-host and then we will record an…
In Episode 17, after not doing an episode of Lean Whiskey in almost two months, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh try all sorts of firsts. We had three people, with Jim Huntzinger of Lean Frontiers joining us. We all drank…
We didn’t do a live stream like last time, but we did record another video for the Lean Whiskey podcast series, here for Episode #16. You can also listen as an audio podcast, as usual. Today, Mark Graban and Jamie…
Listen: = In a special live-to-YouTube Episode 15 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh begin their week by catching up, drinking whiskey, and talking shop. This episode was an experiment both in video recording and streaming it live…
Listen: In Episode 14 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh finish off another weekend by catching up, drinking whiskey, and talking shop. In whiskey, we explore the idea of adding water to your whiskey. Rather than take the…
In Episode 13 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh reconnect in their first joint episode this year, after a couple weeks of guest hosts. Our last episode together was filled with Grinches, gremlins, and glitches, so it was…