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)

Chad Diggs on Building Quality Systems, Not Heroes

ByMark Graban May 20, 2026 1968

Why do so many quality programs fall apart the moment the firefighter walks out the door? In this conversation, Chad Diggs talks about his new book, Below the Surface, and what it takes to...

Why Most People Don’t Think — and What to Do About It, with Scott Burgmeyer

ByMark Graban April 29, 2026 1837

Scott Burgmeyer, founder and CEO of Become More Group, has spent more than 30 years watching smart people make avoidable decisions — not because they lack intelligence, but because they stopped...

Creating Value Without Command-and-Control — John Rizzo on Empowering People

ByMark Graban January 21, 2026 2290

In this episode of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, John Rizzo explains how organizations create lasting value by empowering people instead of relying on command-and-control leadership. The...

kathy miller lean blog interviews more is better

Kathy Miller on “MORE Is Better”: Meaning, Optimism, and Relationships in Operations Leadership

ByMark Graban January 7, 2026 2602

What if stronger operations don't come from doing less–but from leading with more meaning, optimism, and connection? In this conversation, Kathy Miller shares insights from her new book More Is...

Conceptual illustration of one hospital reporting a safety incident, with the warning transformed into shared learning that spreads through connected pathways to multiple hospitals, each shown with safety shields and improvement symbols.

What If Every Hospital Learned From Every Other Hospital’s Safety Incidents?

ByMark Graban August 14, 2026 235

On Thursday, I wrote about the death of Donald Gough at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. He received insulin during liver surgery even though he was not diabetic and had no clinical reason...

A single open door stands alone in a wide, empty slate-blue space, with warm light spilling through the doorway and casting a long beam across the floor.

An Insulin Error Killed a Hospital Patient. How Does Every Other Hospital Learn From It?

ByMark Graban August 13, 2026 324

A vintage “Suggestion Plan” booklet sits between a dark, top-down factory culture and a bright, collaborative improvement team, illustrating how the same formal system can produce very different results.

Toyota Copied Ford’s Suggestion System–and Got Far Better Results

ByMark Graban August 12, 2026 578

“Most People Wouldn’t”: Fear, Gratitude, and Reporting Medical Errors

ByMark Graban August 11, 2026 284

GE Aerospace employees review a cell daily management board displaying safety, quality, delivery, inventory, and productivity measures on the factory floor.

GE Aerospace’s Greenville Plant Proves Larry Culp’s “Safety First” Wasn’t Just Talk

ByMark Graban August 10, 2026 338

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...

Illustration of a laptop on a desk showing an AI coaching chat interface with a question from the user and a follow-up coaching response ending with a reflective question, representing the Lean Hospitals Coach tool

Watch the Lean Hospitals Coach in Action — Live, Unscripted, With Your Questions

ByMark Graban March 4, 2026 Comment (0) 806

Here's something I've learned over many years of consulting: giving people advice they haven't asked...

Innovative man with glasses smiling against a blue background, symbolizing continuous improvement.

Digital Support for a Culture of Improvement: A Reflection on Electrolux and KaiNexus

ByMark Graban December 15, 2025 Comment (0) 1284

In a webinar I hosted with Sandro Casagrande from Electrolux, we reflected on the 20-year evolution...

Smiling men with glasses, one in casual clothing and the other in a suit, against a bokeh background.

5 Big Lean Questions with Mark Graban: Purpose, Misconceptions, and the Path Forward

ByMark Graban December 1, 2025 Comment (0) 1140

Last year, my friend (and long-time fellow blogger) Tim McMahon from the A Lean Journey blog sent me...

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"