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)

Gerald Harris on Lean Lessons from Auto Manufacturing and Healthcare

ByMark Graban October 4, 2022 1943

Gerald Harris spent 25 years leading lean transformations in automotive manufacturing before shifting into healthcare consulting, and his origin story starts with a Toyota supplier in crisis that went...

Damon Baker on Lean, Private Equity, and the Ownership Works Initiative

ByMark Graban September 28, 2022 2548

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #458 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Damon Baker. He was recently my guest in Episode #454. He is the founder and CEO...

Why Sam Morgan Loves Lean (and Kata) and How He Helps Others Be Confident Learners

ByMark Graban September 21, 2022 2166

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more Joining me for Episode #457 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Sam Morgan. Sam is a self-proclaimed “confident learner” and...

Jake Stiles on Lean Executives, the Recruiting Landscape, and a Coming “Compensation Correction”

ByMark Graban September 14, 2022 2100

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more Joining me for Episode #456 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jake Stiles, CEO of Stiles Associates. For nearly three decades, Jake has...

Worker covering their mouth in a workplace setting, representing the gap between seeing problems and speaking up about them

Problem-Seeing Eyes Are Everywhere. Problem-Speaking Mouths Are Rare.

ByMark Graban March 17, 2026 1004

TL;DR: Organizations invest in teaching people to see problems and solve problems — but skip the middle step: making it safe and worthwhile to speak up about them. I've seen blank huddle boards...

Hospital leader reflecting on a coaching question displayed on screen in a quiet office

My AI Coach Told Me My Coaching Was Wrong. It Was Right.

ByMark Graban March 17, 2026 800

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

ByMark Graban March 16, 2026 1173

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.

ByMark 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

ByMark Graban March 12, 2026 978

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...

My #IceBucketChallenge Video for #ALS and Patient Safety

ByMark Graban August 22, 2014 Comment (0) 820

I was nominated to do the ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge.” I think I was officially the last...

KaiNexus Webinar Recording – Our First Years in Continuous Improvement

ByMark Graban August 22, 2014 Comment (0) 995

Here is a recording of our most recent KaiNexus webinar: Getting Started with Continuous...

Barriers to Continuous Improvement: Are You Making Excuses or Solving Problems?

ByMark Graban August 16, 2014 Comments (5) 2631

Here is a 10-minute talk I gave at the 2014 Lean Transformation Summit, where I challenged the...

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

Why 85% of Us Avoid Hard Conversations | Dr. Jonathan Thorp