Popular Posts
GE Aerospace’s Greenville Plant Proves Larry Culp’s “Safety First” Wasn’t Just Talk An Insulin Error Killed a Hospital Patient. How Does Every Other Hospital Learn From It? “Most People Wouldn’t”: Fear, Gratitude, and Reporting Medical Errors Larry Culp on Success Theater, Embracing Red, and the GE Turnaround What If Every Hospital Learned From Every Other Hospital’s Safety Incidents? Four Patients Got the Wrong Drug in Nashville. Ask a Better Question. Toyota Doesn’t Call It Lean? Its Own Websites Say Otherwise Ten Psychological Safety Outcomes, and What They Do and Don’t Prove The Independent Double Check and the Risk of Human Error
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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

Unlocking The Power Of Kata: Tracy Defoe On Adult Learning, Coaching, And Asking Questions

Unlocking The Power Of Kata: Tracy Defoe On Adult Learning, Coaching, And Asking Questions

ByMark Graban January 25, 2023 2162
Joining us for Episode #467 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Tracy Defoe. She is an adult education consultant and researcher specializing in workplace education. For parts of the...
Billy Taylor on The Winning Link: Defining Strategy, Building Trust, and Making Jobs Better

Billy Taylor on The Winning Link: Defining Strategy, Building Trust, and Making Jobs Better

ByMark Graban January 11, 2023 2415
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more Joining us for Episode #466 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is a returning guest, Billy Taylor. Since his last appearance, Billy has written...
Tom Peters on Extreme Humanism, Leadership, and His Compact Guide to Excellence

Tom Peters on Extreme Humanism, Leadership, and His Compact Guide to Excellence

ByMark Graban December 13, 2022 2975
In this LeanBlog Podcast episode, Tom Peters shares why “extreme humanism” is essential to modern leadership. He explains why caring deeply about people isn't soft–it's the...
Katie Anderson Discusses Larry Culp’s AME Keynote And Their Fireside Chat

Katie Anderson Discusses Larry Culp’s AME Keynote And Their Fireside Chat

ByMark Graban November 30, 2022 4126
TL;DR: Larry Culp's AME keynote shows that Lean leadership at GE is about how leaders think, learn, and respond to problems–not tools. Katie Anderson and Mark Graban discuss psychological...

More Blog Posts

eric dickson kainexus speaking at 2026 LEI / Catalysis Lean Summit in Houston

Eric Dickson on Building a Management System That Produced 200,000 Ideas at UMass Memorial

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 16, 2026 1173
Dr. Eric Dickson spent the early part of his leadership career telling people what to do. It nearly cost him everything. What he built after that failure — over 23 years and eventually across a...
Lean Hospitals Coach providing just-in-time coaching for a nurse manager working on a problem statement

She Tried to Build Her Own Lean Coaching AI. Then She Subscribed to Mine.

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 13, 2026 744
Hospital safety monitoring dashboard with half of its panels dark or blank, representing the 49 percent of patient harm events that hospitals fail to capture

Hospitals Still Miss Half of Patient Harm Events — And the Reasons Why Should Trouble Us

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 12, 2026 978
Coffee mug with disclaimer text May contain mistakes as a metaphor for leaders admitting fallibility

The One Thing ChatGPT Does That Most Leaders Won’t

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 10, 2026 1283
A dusty, padlocked suggestion box mounted on a clean hospital hallway wall, cobwebs forming around the edges, a few paper slips visible through the slot -- untouched and forgotten.

Kaizen: The Improvement System Most Organizations Talk About but Struggle to Practice

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 10, 2026 3240

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

Gemba Academy Interviews on Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, & KaiNexus

Gemba Academy Interviews on Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, & KaiNexus

ByMark Graban October 10, 2014 Comment (0) 820
Thanks to Ron Pereira and my other friends at Gemba Academy for interviewing me when I visited their...
TV Ad for GE Capital Features a Lean Turnaround for a Factory

TV Ad for GE Capital Features a Lean Turnaround for a Factory

ByMark Graban October 2, 2014 Comment (1) 1190
Thanks to my friend and former Toyota employee Karthik Chandramouli for noticing this commercial on...
New KaiNexus Education Videos – #9: Identify, Report, and Solve Small, Local Problems

New KaiNexus Education Videos – #9: Identify, Report, and Solve Small, Local Problems

ByMark Graban September 16, 2014 Comment (0) 1009
About two years ago, we produced some short two- to three-minute education videos about Lean...

Mark Graban on YouTube

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"
Is the "nice boss era" over? I joined Chris and Amy on KMOX in St. Louis to talk about tough bosses, why employees stay quiet, and what that silence costs. What we covered: - The difference between demanding and cruel, and why "kind" beats "nice" - Why the pendulum swings with the job market, and why both extremes backfire - Two kinds of bad boss: people promoted for the wrong reasons with no leadership training, and founders who never learn to ask - Why futility, not fear, is the most common reason people keep quiet - How to test the waters with one small, fact-based concern instead of a sweeping complaint - Whether it is safe to go to HR - The silence tax: a real cost that never appears on the financial statements 0:00 A bad boss bit, courtesy of Chris and Amy 0:57 Demanding versus cruel: a false trade-off 2:07 Is the nice boss era over? The pendulum and the job market 3:55 How common are cruel managers? 4:39 Two categories of bad boss 6:26 Fear versus futility 7:49 What to do when you cannot leave yet 8:34 Testing the waters with a small, specific issue 9:39 Can you trust HR? 13:06 What the silence tax is and what it costs 14:26 Setting goals without blaming people My next book, The Silence Tax: How Lean Leaders Can Drive Out Fear and Futility, is coming in early 2027. https://thesilencetaxbook.com/ Blog: https://www.leanblog.org Speaking and books: https://www.markgraban.com Podcast: My Favorite Mistake https://myfavoritemistakepodcast.com/
Is the Nice Boss Era Over? Fear, Futility, and the Silence Tax
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