Mark Graban

Lean Leadership, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

Since 2005, LeanBlog.org has shared practical insights from real-world work in healthcare, manufacturing, and beyond.

Books Keynote Speaking Coaching / Advisory Podcasts

Books by Mark Graban on Lean, Leadership, and Learning (4)

Insights from ‘Leading Excellence’: Brad Jevons and Stephen Dargan on Adaptive Leadership

ByMark Graban August 21, 2024 4791

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guests for Episode #512 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are two of three co-authors of the upcoming book “Leading Excellence: 5 Hats...

Flow Engineering in Action: Insights from Authors Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis

ByMark Graban August 7, 2024 5555

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guests for Episode #512 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast are Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, authors of the new book Flow Engineering: From...

Failing Forward: An Interview with Sam Yankelevitch on Lean, Communication, and Innovation

ByMark Graban July 24, 2024 3839

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #511 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Sam Yankelevitch, a distinguished global operations executive who has dedicated...

The image is a promotional cover for the Lean Blog Interviews podcast, Episode 510. It features a teal background with rays emanating from the center. The title "MISTAKES & LEAN" is prominently displayed in bold, black letters with a white outline. The episode number "Episode 510" is written below the title. On the right side, there is a photo of Karen Martin, smiling and looking towards the camera. In the top left corner, there is a smaller image of Mark Graban with the text "Lean Blog Interviews" and his name, "Mark Graban."

Karen Martin on the Power of Mistake Proofing in Lean Management

ByMark Graban July 10, 2024 4873

Karen Martin and Mark Graban discuss mistake proofing in lean management, why “zero harm” is a meaningful aspiration, and how building quality at the source reduces errors without blaming...

Cartoon illustration of a royal Burger King–style mascot holding up the back of a smartphone while looking confused and frustrated, with a no-signal icon in a speech bubble and a question mark beside him.

Admitting Mistakes Is Not Enough: The Leadership Lesson Behind the Burger King and Domino’s Ads

ByMark Graban June 4, 2026 1192

TL;DR: Burger King, T-Mobile, and Domino's have all built ad campaigns around the same confession: our product was bad, but it's better now. The marketing is interesting. The leadership lesson is...

Lean Blog Post Cover Image - 2026-06-02T170331.956

You’re Not Hiring Talent. You’re Renting It.

ByMark Graban June 2, 2026 559

Lean Blog Post Cover Image - 2026-05-03T211321.053

What Toyota’s 1992 Booklet Says About Stopping the Line, and What It Leaves to You

ByMark Graban June 2, 2026 919

Ohba Toyota palms up palms down improvement

First, We Develop the People

ByMark Graban June 1, 2026 604

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: May 29, 2026

ByRyan McCormack May 29, 2026 4178

karen martin ask the expert webinar kainexus

Ask Karen Martin Anything on Operational Excellence: A KaiNexus Webinar

March 5, 2026

Karen Martin is one of those people I've been lucky to know and learn from for a long time. She's...

Unlock the Power of Leadership: A Preview of the Electrolux Manufacturing System (EMS) Webinar

December 4, 2025

KaiNexus recently hosted a webinar I was especially looking forward to: “Unlock the Power of...

Breaking Through Cultural Friction: Respect for People and Sustainable Performance

June 9, 2025

When organizations struggle to sustain Lean transformation, people often look first at tools...

Driving a Culture of Patient Safety: Lessons for Healthcare and Beyond

April 28, 2025

Recently, I had the pleasure of moderating a webinar titled “Driving a Culture of Transforming...

Why Lean Fails Without Psychological Safety

April 16, 2025

TL;DR: Lean tools don't fail because people resist change–they fail because people don't feel...

Preview: Driving a Culture of Accountability – Transforming Patient Safety with KaiNexus (Webinar, April 15)

April 8, 2025

One of the most powerful elements of continuous improvement is the ability to learn from each other...

My Upcoming Webinar on Mistake-Proofing Across Industries

February 3, 2025

I'm excited to be presenting this webinar on February 12th at 1 pm ET as part of the KaiNexus...

Top 5 Takeaways from my KaiNexus Webinar: Psychological Safety as a Precondition for Continuous Improvement

January 8, 2025

TL;DR: Psychological safety isn't optional for continuous improvement. This KaiNexus webinar...

Creating Leader Standard Work (LSW) Across a Distributed Business Model — Webinar Preview

November 7, 2024

I'm happy to be hosting and moderating this webinar that will be presented by Brent Loescher, a...

Embedding Change Management into your Continuous Improvement Initiatives – Webinar Preview

September 25, 2024

I'm happy to be hosting and moderating this webinar that will be presented by Melissa Sherman, a...

View Our “Ask Us Anything” Event on Psychological Safety and Lean

August 20, 2024

Psychological safety is often described as “feeling safe to speak up.” In Lean...

From Strategy to Execution: Webinar with Karen Friedenberg

July 17, 2024

Are you looking to transform your business strategy into actionable results? Join us for our...

Videos by Skip Steward That Explain Routine Variation and Rules for Finding “Signals”

ByMark Graban November 7, 2018 Comment (0) 894

You might remember the podcasts that I did with my friend Skip Steward, the Chief Improvement...

The One Where I’m Interviewed About Lean in Healthcare (and Also Talk Metrics)

ByMark Graban August 17, 2018 Comment (1) 952

Somebody pointed Dominic Rubino to me as somebody who could be a guest on his podcast. His podcast...

My Article for the LEI “Lean Post”: React Less and Improve More…

ByMark Graban August 14, 2018 Comment (1) 1190

It's been a while since I've contributed something to the Lean Enterprise Institute's online...

Mark Graban on YouTube

Fear is a real reason people stay quiet at work, but it is not the top one. When I poll audiences and groups I work with, futility comes out ahead of fear.

People do not always say they are afraid. Plenty of them say some version of "What's the point? Nothing changes anyway." That is a different problem than fear, and it calls for a different response from leaders.

If someone fears getting in trouble, and especially if they have watched it happen to someone else, staying quiet to protect yourself is a rational calculation. I would not tell anyone to speak up no matter what.

I also take a practical question in this clip: what do you do when you work for a difficult boss and cannot leave right away? One option is to test the waters. Raise a small, specific, fact-based concern rather than a sweeping statement about how nobody here listens, then see what the response tells you.

🔵 Why silence is often a rational cost-benefit decision
🔵 Futility versus fear as the top driver of silence
🔵 What leaders can do about each
🔵 How to test the waters with a tough boss

Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/b4Z9RdjgTp8

Fear vs Futility: The Real Reason People Stay Silent at Work

The silence tax is what an organization pays when people stop speaking candidly. It never appears as a line on the financial statements, which is exactly what makes it dangerous.

In this clip I explain how the cost compounds. A quality problem nobody mentions gets past the process and reaches a customer. An issue nobody raises while it is small grows into an expensive one. The spending is real even though nothing on the P&L is labeled "silence."

I also reference survey research estimating that poor management costs the U.S. economy more than $500 billion a year through turnover and lost productivity. That is a gut feeling on my part, but I suspect the estimate is low, since most organizations are paying some version of the silence tax right now.

Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/b4Z9RdjgTp8

🔵 What the silence tax is
🔵 Why it stays invisible to leaders
🔵 How small unspoken problems become costly ones
🔵 What poor management is estimated to cost the U.S. economy

More on psychological safety and Lean leadership: https://www.leanblog.org

The Silence Tax: The Hidden Cost of People Not Speaking Up

Michael Chaleff spent his first week as a restaurant magician learning that things go wrong constantly in that job. Then a stranger said four words that took away his ability to speak for the first time in his adult life.

🔵 The line that stopped him cold
🔵 What actually happened next
🔵 Why he still remembers the shame decades later
🔵 The rule he built from that year: the sin isn't the mistake, it's what you do after

Full episode: https://youtu.be/aHY6w449NZs

"I Don't Have Hands"