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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)

Lean Blog Interviews Podcast

Marcia Daszko on Leadership Lessons from Dr. Deming; Pivot Disrupt Transform [Podcast]

Marcia Daszko on Leadership Lessons from Dr. Deming; Pivot Disrupt Transform [Podcast]

ByMark Graban March 26, 2024 3496
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #501 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Marcia Daszko, a speaker, workshop facilitator, and consultant. For more than 25...
500 Episodes and Growing: The History and Evolution of the Lean Blog Podcast

500 Episodes and Growing: The History and Evolution of the Lean Blog Podcast

ByMark Graban March 13, 2024 4354
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #500 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is me, your usual host Mark Graban. Today, I'm mixing up the format with a solo...
Jim Womack on Lean’s Evolution, Boeing, Toyota, and the Future of Improvement

Jim Womack on Lean’s Evolution, Boeing, Toyota, and the Future of Improvement

ByMark Graban February 28, 2024 5653
Jim Womack returns to the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast to reflect on how Lean thinking has evolved–and where it has gone off track. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience, he shares candid...
**Alt Text:** A promotional image featuring Jeff Liker. The background is a blue gradient with diagonal stripes. On the left side of the image, there's a white rectangular banner with bold blue text that reads "JEFF LIKER LEARNING FROM MISTAKES." Below this text, there's a smaller logo for "Lean Blog Interviews" with a photo of Mark Graban and the text "MARK GRABAN" underneath. On the right side of the image, there is a headshot of Jeff Liker, wearing glasses and a light-colored shirt with a blazer.

How Toyota Leaders React to Mistakes: Jeff Liker on Blame, Andon Cords, and Psychological Safety

ByMark Graban February 14, 2024 10023
Jeff Liker explains how Toyota leaders at every level are expected to respond when something goes wrong — and why most other companies default to blame instead. We also dig into the real story...

More Blog Posts

lean blog mixtape

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

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack May 29, 2026 4178
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts...
Man seated in Rodin Thinker pose in front of a whiteboard covered with A3 problem solving, fishbone diagram, and sticky notes.

What Do You Know? And How Do You Know It?

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 28, 2026 682
liker lean blog 20 years

Jeff Liker, Twenty Years Later: The Ideas That Keep Showing Up

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 27, 2026 768
lessons from Eric Ries my favorite mistake

When Following “Best Practices” Is the Real Mistake: What Lean Practitioners Can Learn from Eric Ries

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 26, 2026 1429
toyota production system 1992 booklet

What Toyota Said About Their Own Production System in 1992

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 21, 2026 1440

Webinars

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...
1. Professor with glasses in front of EMS 20th anniversary logo and KaiNexus logo on blue background.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Ten-Minute Talk on “Practicing Lean” – And an Update on the Book

A Ten-Minute Talk on “Practicing Lean” – And an Update on the Book

ByMark Graban August 1, 2017 Comment (0) 1192
I was invited to give a talk at a gathering of improvement teams and Kaizen Promotion Offices within...
Do you need to make it mandatory to participate in continuous improvement?

Do you need to make it mandatory to participate in continuous improvement?

ByMark Graban July 20, 2017 Comments (14) 1860
Every month or two, Greg Jacobson, MD and I have an “Ask Us Anything” video discussion...
3 Nice Videos About Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) in Various Industries

3 Nice Videos About Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) in Various Industries

ByMark Graban June 5, 2017 Comments (2) 6817
There are many helpful videos on YouTube with great illustrations of Kaizen and continuous...

Mark Graban on YouTube

The Toyota andon cord allows a team member to signal a problem and request help without immediately stopping the production line. Pulling the cord activates a light and calls the team leader to the workstation. If the problem can be resolved before the vehicle reaches a fixed stopping point, production continues. If it cannot, that section of the line stops. This animation was AI-generated from still images taken from a Toyota video. It is a reconstructed demonstration, not original footage of the action or an official Toyota production. The andon system gives team members both the ability and the obligation to call attention to problems so the team can respond before defects continue downstream. #Andon #ToyotaProductionSystem #Lean #Kaizen #ContinuousImprovement #AIGenerated Read more about andon: https://www.leanblog.org/2012/11/andon-cords-toyota-takaota-speaking-up/
Toyota Andon Cord Explained: How It Works
When someone makes a mistake, most managers say the same thing: be more careful next time. There's a Japanese term for why that almost never works. Poka-yoke means mistake-proofing. It rests on one uncomfortable truth -- telling people to be more careful isn't a countermeasure. It's just asking them to try harder at something they were already trying at. So poka-yoke changes the question. Not "how do we get people to stop making this mistake," but "how do we design the work so this mistake is hard, or impossible, to make in the first place?" In this short: the part that only fits one way, the loom Sakichi Toyoda built before Toyota made cars, and why mistake-proofing is a more respectful idea than it first appears. More on Lean leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement at LeanBlog.org. #PokaYoke #MistakeProofing #Lean #ContinuousImprovement #LeanManufacturing #Leadership #Quality #OperationalExcellence #Kaizen #ProcessImprovement
"Be More Careful" Is Not a Real Countermeasure
85% of Americans avoided at least one difficult conversation in the past 30 days. Dr. Jonathan Thorp, CEO of Quantum Connections, has the survey data behind that number, and a mistake of his own that took him decades to name: he spent a career building systems that made work better, then assumed the value would be obvious to everyone else. Promoting the work felt like vanity, so he didn't. Good work kept landing as a non-event. In this episode of My Favorite Mistake with Mark Graban: 🔵 Why value is not self-evident, and what translating it actually takes 🔵 The redesigned incentive plan people mistook for a lucky run of customer calls 🔵 Why Jonathan now describes promotion as the servant of mission rather than the face of vanity 🔵 What the Quantum Connections 2026 American Dialogue Report found about avoidance, curiosity, and Gen Z 🔵 The gap between believing everyone else is closed-minded and admitting it about yourself 🔵 What naval aviation debriefs teach about candor: nobody wins with secret keeping 🔵 Why engagement, retention, and morale are downstream measures, and what sits above them 🔵 Why leaders who declare psychological safety without evidence undercut themselves Chapters (approximate): 00:00 Meet Dr. Jonathan Thorp 02:15 The mistake: thinking good work speaks for itself 05:25 Nobody actually wants the drill bit 07:52 Work as a place we tolerate 10:20 Inside the American Dialogue Report 12:37 Why 85% avoided a hard conversation 15:46 Futility, not fear 20:08 Relational health is upstream of everything 25:17 What aviation debriefs get right about candor 31:28 You can't declare psychological safety 35:21 What Gen Z is telling us About the guest: Dr. Jonathan Thorp is CEO of Quantum Connections in Dallas. He is a Naval Academy graduate in ocean engineering who spent 24 years as a naval aviator, later served as VP of organizational development at JPMorgan Chase, and has taught leadership and decision making at the Naval War College since 2010. Quantum Connections: https://quantumconnections.com/ The 2026 American Dialogue Report: https://quantumconnections.com/why-americans-avoid-difficult-conversations/ Jonathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanthorp Full episode page, show notes, and transcript: https://markgraban.com/mistake366 Subscribe for new episodes on learning from mistakes without blame. #MyFavoriteMistake #Leadership #DifficultConversations #PsychologicalSafety #WorkplaceCulture #LearningFromMistakes
Why 85% of Us Avoid Hard Conversations | Dr. Jonathan Thorp
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