Lean Blog: Lean Management & Continuous Improvement

What the First Twelve Years of Writing About Sports Taught Me About Leadership

ByMark Graban July 17, 2026 Comment (0) 103

I've been pulling together a slightly updated edition of my eBook collecting the sports-related...

20 year anniversary lean blog interviews podcast

20 Years Of Lean Podcasting, Thanks to Norman Bodek

ByMark Graban July 16, 2026 Comments (4) 696

A Bending Column, a Bad Answer, and the Real Test of a Speak-Up Culture

ByMark Graban July 15, 2026 Comment (0) 202

We Thought We Solved That: The Art and Judgment Calls in the PDSA Cycle

ByMark Graban July 14, 2026 Comment (0) 232

Mark Graban

Welcome to my blog!

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 (3)

Don Koeffer, smiling in a professional setting, with colleagues in the background discussing data charts.

How Don Kieffer Applies Toyota Thinking to Modern Knowledge Work

ByMark Graban December 3, 2025 4060

Why do so many Lean efforts fail in offices, engineering, and executive work? In this episode, Don Kieffer explains why copying Toyota's rituals misses the point–and how Dynamic Work Design...

From Firefighting to Flow — Darren Walsh on Lean Leadership Routines That Sustain Results

ByMark Graban November 12, 2025 3181

Why do so many Lean efforts stall after early wins? In this episode, Darren Walsh explains why firefighting feels productive but prevents real progress–and how leaders can build daily routines...

Why Leaders Get Trapped in Firefighting: Nelson Repenning on Lean, Flow, and Work Design

ByMark Graban October 29, 2025 4492

Why do capable leaders spend their days firefighting instead of improving the system? In this episode, MIT professor Nelson Repenning explains how poorly designed work systems trap organizations in...

Why Psychological Safety Is Essential to Quality and Continuous Improvement

ByMark Graban October 22, 2025 9572

In this special bonus episode, Mark Graban and C.J. Kaufman preview the ASQ Cincinnati-Dayton 2025 conference and explore why quality, leadership, and psychological safety are inseparable foundations...

Manga- and anime-influenced editorial illustration in a wide horizontal format. A small lone figure, seen from behind in plain clothes, stands on a glowing crimson ribbon that stretches horizontally across the frame like a floating path. The ribbon gently rises and falls but stays level. The person leans forward with one arm extended, reaching toward a soft sage-green glowing ring far below and ahead across a wide empty gap. Pale cliffs frame the distant lower edges, while most of the image is filled with a vast cream-to-blue sky with thin clouds and ample negative space. The mood is quiet, reflective, and slightly wistful.

Even in Japan: A Target of Zero and a Process That Lives Near Seven Percent

ByMark Graban June 19, 2026 424

The target printed on the chart was zero percent. The red line had never been near zero. Not in the nine months posted on the wall, and probably not in any month before them. It sat between 6.43% and...

Lean Blog Post Cover Image - 2026-06-04T124136.036

‘No Debbie Downers’ and the Hidden Cost of a Positive Team

ByMark Graban June 18, 2026 617

john toussaint collaborative care fox video

ThedaCare’s Collaborative Care, Captured on a 2009 Video

ByMark Graban June 17, 2026 425

102 Seconds vs. 300 Seconds: Toyota’s 1992 Case for One-Piece Flow

ByMark Graban June 16, 2026 510

A quiet office meeting in a modern conference room, with one woman in sharp focus looking down with folded hands while colleagues around her continue the discussion in soft blur.

Four Recent Episodes on Why People Stay Silent — and What It Costs

ByMark Graban June 15, 2026 409

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...

Flashback Friday: My First Video Podcast with Jamie Flinchbaugh in 2009

ByMark Graban June 7, 2024 Comment (0) 2516

Wow, time flies! 15 years ago, Jamie Flinchbaugh and I embarked on our first-ever video podcast...

Mistake-Proofing That Builds Learning: A New Course on Preventing Errors Without Blame

ByMark Graban May 27, 2024 Comment (0) 2655

Over the years, I've seen how often organizations respond to mistakes with blame, punishment, or...

Japan Study Trips: A Voyage of Leadership Discovery; Mark Graban and Katie Anderson Discuss

ByMark Graban April 4, 2024 Comment (0) 1881

The other day, Katie Anderson and I did a livestream about her November Lean study trip to Japan...

Turning Bad News into Building Blocks: Cultivating a Culture Where Mistakes Fuel Growth

ByMark Graban April 3, 2024 Comment (0) 1606

Embracing Imperfections and Learning from Mistakes: A Leadership Insight from the 2022 AME Annual...

Continuous Improvement Requires Psychological Safety and Problem Solving

ByMark Graban February 8, 2024 Comment (0) 2609

TL;DR: Continuous improvement only takes root when psychological safety and problem-solving exist...

Mark Graban on YouTube

"Lean is for speed, Six Sigma is for quality." You've heard it in training classes, certification courses, and all over LinkedIn. It's tidy, it's memorable -- and it's wrong about both.

Toyota's system rests on two pillars: flow AND quality built in at the source. Quality isn't a side effect of Lean. It's half the structure. In this short, I break down where the myth comes from, why "making bad stuff faster" was never the goal, and the lesson a Toyota-trained plant manager taught me in 1996 that's stuck with me for 30 years.

Speed and quality were never enemies. In a well-designed system, they're two sides of the same coin.

More on Lean leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement at LeanBlog.org.

#Lean #LeanManufacturing #SixSigma #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #LeanSixSigma #OperationalExcellence #Toyota #ProcessImprovement #Kaizen

Lean Is NOT About Speed (Here's What Toyota Actually Says)

Toyota once paid employees $20 for every improvement idea. Employees quickly learned how to maximize the incentive—including one person who reportedly earned enough for a swimming pool.

Norman Bodek explains why the answer was not to abandon employee ideas, but to fix the poorly designed reward system.

People respond to the incentives leaders create.

Watch the full episode:
https://leanblog.org/1

#Shorts #Kaizen #Toyota #Lean #ContinuousImprovement #Incentives #NormanBodek

Toyota Paid $20 Per Idea—It Didn't Go Well

Most people want their idea to get an enthusiastic yes. Larry Kasanoff has learned to distrust it. When he pitches a movie and the room says "great idea, easy, no problem," he gets a little nervous -- because an idea everyone instantly approves is usually one that's been done before.

When people tell him he's crazy and it'll never work, he feels something closer to calm. That reaction, to him, is a sign he might be onto something.

There's a useful distinction buried in this, and Mark draws it out in the clip: being told an idea is a little crazy might actually be a warning -- a signal you've wandered into a bad bet. But being told it's really crazy, the kind that makes people worry about your career, can mean you've found something genuinely new. The easy, comfortable yes is the one to watch.

This is worth holding loosely rather than as a rule. Plenty of bad ideas also get called crazy. The point isn't that resistance proves you're right -- it's that universal, instant agreement should make you ask whether you're actually doing anything new, or just reaching for everyone's safe second choice.

🔵 Why an enthusiastic yes can be a warning sign

🔵 The difference between "a little crazy" and "really crazy"

🔵 What strong resistance might be telling you

🔵 Why instant agreement often means the idea isn't new

Larry Kasanoff is a film producer and studio head behind Terminator 2, True Lies, Mortal Kombat, and Platoon, and the author of A Touch of the Madness.

From the My Favorite Mistake podcast with Mark Graban.
Full video: https://youtu.be/Zx9IuIB2m0g

#Leadership #Innovation #DecisionMaking #LarryKasanoff #MyFavoriteMistake #Shorts

When Everyone Loves Your Idea, Get Nervous | Larry Kasanoff

The phrase that became Larry Kasanoff's whole philosophy came from Oliver Stone, at a bar in New York. "Kid, I like you," Stone said. "You have a touch of the madness." Larry wasn't sure whether to take it as a compliment, until he looked at what had just happened around Platoon.

His boss had a touch of the madness, handing an 80-picture slate to a 25-year-old with no track record. Oliver had it, insisting on a Vietnam movie when no one had made one that way. And Larry had it, gambling the best job he'd ever had on a single film.

Then the bigger idea landed. The current of the river of life, as Larry puts it, always pulls you toward the middle -- toward the safe, the tried, the comfortable. Companies and people drift there without noticing. The trouble is that audiences, customers, the people you're trying to reach, want what's new and different, and the ones who keep swimming to the middle get eclipsed by the ones who don't.

The way you fight that pull is by taking a real swing -- which takes a little bit of crazy. Not recklessness, but the willingness to back an unusual idea instead of settling for everyone's safe second choice.

🔵 Where the phrase "a touch of the madness" actually came from

🔵 Why people and organizations drift toward the middle without noticing

🔵 What that drift costs you when audiences want new and different

🔵 Why taking a big swing requires a little bit of crazy

Larry Kasanoff is a film producer and studio head behind Terminator 2, True Lies, Mortal Kombat, and Platoon, and the author of A Touch of the Madness.

From the My Favorite Mistake podcast with Mark Graban.
Full video: https://youtu.be/Zx9IuIB2m0g

#Leadership #Innovation #Creativity #LarryKasanoff #MyFavoriteMistake #Shorts

What Oliver Stone Meant by "A Touch of the Madness" | Larry Kasanoff

The Lean Blog Podcast began on July 16, 2006, with a conversation featuring my friend and mentor, Norman Bodek.

To celebrate the podcast’s 20th anniversary, I’m revisiting highlights from that first episode. Norman explains why Quick and Easy Kaizen is different from a kaizen event, how employee ideas can generate substantial results, and why managers should ask questions instead of assuming they have all the answers.

Norman also discusses:

• Kaizen versus kaikaku
• Employee suggestion systems
• Trust and respect for people
• Giving employees the freedom to improve their own work
• A Gulfstream idea that saved thousands of hours
• How poorly designed incentives encourage gaming
• How one dismissive response can discourage future ideas
• Why organizations overlook the knowledge of their own employees

Norman passed away in 2020, but his influence continues through the people he taught, the books he wrote and published, and the ideas he helped introduce to a much wider audience.

I remain incredibly grateful that he encouraged me to start this podcast and agreed to become its first guest.

Listen to the complete original episode:
https://leanblog.org/1

Learn more and explore additional episodes:
https://www.leanblog.org/podcast

#Lean #Kaizen #ContinuousImprovement #NormanBodek #Leadership #ToyotaProductionSystem #RespectForPeople #EmployeeEngagement #LeanManagement

20 Years of the Lean Blog Podcast: Norman Bodek on Kaizen and Employee Ideas

When Terminator 2 was made, it was the most expensive movie ever produced. The effects that defined it -- the liquid-metal T-1000 -- were theoretically possible, and James Cameron had proven the idea on a smaller scale, but nothing like it had ever been done at this size. The film became the dawn of the CGI era.

Here is the part Larry Kasanoff finds most interesting, looking back. The studio didn't fully grasp the risk sitting inside those effects. The team was confident, but confidence is not the same as certainty -- and they genuinely did not know whether the effects would work until they saw the first finished shot, halfway through production. A record budget was already committed before anyone could confirm the thing it was riding on.

That gap between confidence and certainty is worth sitting with. Bold work often means moving before the proof is in. The skill isn't eliminating the risk -- it's knowing it's there, naming it honestly, and deciding to take the shot anyway, eyes open.

🔵 Why T2 was the most expensive movie ever made at the time

🔵 The liquid-metal effects that launched the age of CGI

🔵 The risk the studio didn't fully see

🔵 The difference between being confident and actually knowing

Larry Kasanoff is a film producer and studio head behind Terminator 2, True Lies, Mortal Kombat, and Platoon, and the author of A Touch of the Madness.

From the My Favorite Mistake podcast with Mark Graban.
Full video: https://youtu.be/Zx9IuIB2m0g

#Leadership #Innovation #RiskTaking #LarryKasanoff #MyFavoriteMistake #Shorts

The Most Expensive Movie Ever, and Nobody Knew If It Would Work | Larry Kasanoff

What happens when you pay employees $20 for every improvement idea?

Norman Bodek shares a funny Toyota story about an incentive that worked exactly as designed—and not at all as intended. Employees quickly realized that even trivial changes could earn the same reward, allowing one particularly prolific employee to pay for a swimming pool.

Toyota stopped the payment program, but Norman’s larger point was not to abandon employee ideas because one incentive was poorly designed.

His simpler approach:

• Pay $20 when an idea is worth $20
• Thank employees for smaller ideas
• Use drawings or modest recognition instead of paying the same amount for every suggestion
• Fix the incentive without discarding the improvement system

The lesson extends well beyond kaizen: people respond rationally to the systems and incentives leaders create.

Watch the full 20th-anniversary episode:
https://leanblog.org/1

#Kaizen #Lean #Toyota #ContinuousImprovement #NormanBodek #Leadership #EmployeeIdeas #Incentives #LeanManagement

Toyota Paid $20 Per Idea—Then Employees Gamed the System

A studio once came to Larry Kasanoff wanting content for a new 3D network. He asked the obvious questions -- what do you want, who is it for, why are you doing this? The answers were "we don't know" and "everyone's doing it." Larry passed. The network was gone in six months.

He gets the same calls today, except now it's about AI. People tell him what the technology can do and ask what he wants to use it for. His answer is the same every time: he won't build a movie around what the tech can do. The tech has to serve the story, not the other way around.
That is the whole principle, and it travels well beyond Hollywood.

Adopting a tool because it's the hot thing -- with no clear problem it solves and no idea who it serves -- is a red flag, not a strategy. The question that actually matters isn't "what can this do?" It's "what are we trying to accomplish, and does this help?"

🔵 The 3D network that launched with no idea and folded in six months

🔵 Why "everyone's doing it" is a warning sign, not a reason

🔵 The same trap playing out right now with AI

🔵 Making technology serve the goal instead of driving it

Larry Kasanoff is a film producer and studio head behind Terminator 2, True Lies, Mortal Kombat, and Platoon, and the author of A Touch of the Madness.

From the My Favorite Mistake podcast with Mark Graban.
Full video: https://youtu.be/Zx9IuIB2m0g

#Leadership #Innovation #AI #LarryKasanoff #MyFavoriteMistake #Shorts

Tech for Its Own Sake Is a Red Flag | Larry Kasanoff

Betting My Job on Platoon | Larry Kasanoff #myfavoritemistake

What the First Twelve Years of Writing About Sports Taught Me About Leadership

20 Years Of Lean Podcasting, Thanks to Norman Bodek

A Bending Column, a Bad Answer, and the Real Test of a Speak-Up Culture

We Thought We Solved That: The Art and Judgment Calls in the PDSA Cycle

Mark Graban

Welcome to my blog!

Lean Blog Interviews Podcast

How Don Kieffer Applies Toyota Thinking to Modern Knowledge Work

From Firefighting to Flow — Darren Walsh on Lean Leadership Routines That Sustain Results

Why Leaders Get Trapped in Firefighting: Nelson Repenning on Lean, Flow, and Work Design

Why Psychological Safety Is Essential to Quality and Continuous Improvement

More Blog Posts

Even in Japan: A Target of Zero and a Process That Lives Near Seven Percent

‘No Debbie Downers’ and the Hidden Cost of a Positive Team

ThedaCare’s Collaborative Care, Captured on a 2009 Video

102 Seconds vs. 300 Seconds: Toyota’s 1992 Case for One-Piece Flow

Four Recent Episodes on Why People Stay Silent — and What It Costs

Webinars

Ask Karen Martin Anything on Operational Excellence: A KaiNexus Webinar

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

Breaking Through Cultural Friction: Respect for People and Sustainable Performance

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

Why Lean Fails Without Psychological Safety

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

My Upcoming Webinar on Mistake-Proofing Across Industries

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

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

Embedding Change Management into your Continuous Improvement Initiatives – Webinar Preview

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

From Strategy to Execution: Webinar with Karen Friedenberg

Videos

Flashback Friday: My First Video Podcast with Jamie Flinchbaugh in 2009

Mistake-Proofing That Builds Learning: A New Course on Preventing Errors Without Blame

Japan Study Trips: A Voyage of Leadership Discovery; Mark Graban and Katie Anderson Discuss

Turning Bad News into Building Blocks: Cultivating a Culture Where Mistakes Fuel Growth

Continuous Improvement Requires Psychological Safety and Problem Solving

Mark Graban on YouTube

Mark Graban

Welcome to my blog!

Lean Blog Interviews Podcast

More Blog Posts

Webinars

Videos

Mark Graban on YouTube

Trending now