In-depth conversations with leaders, authors, executives, and practitioners shaping the future of Lean, continuous improvement, and operational excellence. Hosted by Mark Graban, these interviews explore real-world leadership, systems thinking, psychological safety, and learning cultures across industries.
Browse episodes featuring CEOs, Toyota veterans, healthcare leaders, MIT researchers, and improvement thinkers sharing practical insights you can apply beyond tools and buzzwords.
Lean Blog Interviews features in-depth conversations on Lean leadership, continuous improvement, and operational excellence across healthcare, manufacturing, and knowledge work. Explore hundreds of podcast episodes with CEOs, authors, and practitioners focused on learning, systems thinking, and real-world results.
My guest for episode #150 is Jeffrey M. Lobosky, MD, the author of the book It’s Enough to Make You Sick: The Failure of American Health Care and a Prescription for the Cure. Dr. Lobosky talks about what he thinks…
Listen My guest for episode #149 is Gregory Jacobson, MD, the co-founder and CEO at KaiNexus. We’ll be talking about his early work with Kaizen in emergency medicine settings – how did he get introduced to Kaizen principles and how…
Episode #148 is a conversation with a returning guest, Naida Grunden (previous episode) and her co-author Charles Hagood (of Healthcare Performance Partners), talking about their new book Lean-Led Hospital Design: Creating the Efficient Hospital of the Future. It’s an outstanding…
Listen Episode #147 is a part two of a conversation with Scott Patten and Peter Armstrong from LeanPub.com (listen to part one in episode #140). They want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. In this episode, we are talking…
Episode #146 is a discussion with a returning guest (#54, #62, #72), John Toussaint, MD, the CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. Today, we’re talking about his latest book, recently released, called Potent Medicine: The Collaborative Cure for…
Episode #145 is a conversation with Natalie J. Sayer, co-author of the recently updated 2nd edition of the book Lean For Dummies. I was able to meet Natalie at the recent ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference, where she was…
Episode #144 is a discussion with Dean Gruner, MD, the president & CEO of ThedaCare, talking about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and how ThedaCare is using this approach, along with Lean methods, to improve the coordination of care for patients.
Listen Like podcast #133, this episode is a Q&A that follows up a webinar I did for my good friends at Gemba Academy recently, on the topic “Using Statistical Process Control (SPC) to Make Better Management Decisions.” You can…
Episode #142 brings us a returning guest (#115), Eric Ries, author of the best-selling book The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. In the book, Eric cites the work of Taiichi Ohno, including the “5…
Norman Bodek recorded this conversation with me in early 2012, on what would have been Taiichi Ohno’s 100th birthday. Having first met Ohno in 1981 and gone on to publish the English translation of Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production,…
Listen Episode #140 is a discussion with Scott Patten and Peter Armstrong from LeanPub.com – they want to be THE website for publishing “in-progress books”. We’ll be talking about lean publishing and how that’s different than self publishing and about…
Listen: Episode #139 is a conversation with Dave Munch, MD, the Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for Healthcare Performance Partners (HPP). Before joining the consulting firm, Dave was a senior C-level clinical leader at Exempla Lutheran Health System…
