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)

Dale Lucht on Leadership Habits That Sustain Lean Transformations

ByMark Graban September 3, 2025 2956

In this episode of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, Dale Lucht reflects on the leadership habits that separate short-lived Lean gains from lasting cultural transformation–and the mistakes...

Building Independent, Empowered Teams Through 6 Transformational Leadership Habits, with Cheryl Jekiel

ByMark Graban August 20, 2025 3506

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #533 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Cheryl Jekiel, founder of the Lean Leadership Center and a longtime advocate for...

Coaching Relentless Problem Solvers and Building a Culture of Lean Thinking — Anne Frewin’s Leadership Approach

ByMark Graban August 6, 2025 3157

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #532 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Anne Frewin, a seasoned Lean leader with over 12 years of improvement experience...

Melisa Buie on Lean Culture, Scientific Thinking, and Empowering Engineers

ByMark Graban July 23, 2025 3309

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #531 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Dr. Melisa Buie, a seasoned operations and engineering leader with decades of...

Where Was Toyota’s First Andon Cord?

ByMark Graban August 3, 2026 442

For years, I've been asking a very specific question about Lean history: Where was Toyota's first andon cord? Jeff Liker didn't know. Neither did Isao Yoshino. I've asked other former Toyota people...

Hyundai’s Humanoid Robots, GM Layoffs, Jim Farley’s Ford Quality Turnaround, and Toyota Kaizen for Coffee Farmers

ByMark Graban July 31, 2026 8641

Corkboard covered in pinned papers and red yarn, every strand converging on one small index card at the center

Do 90% of Lean Transformations Really Fail? I Went Looking for the Number

ByMark Graban July 30, 2026 697

Composite blog cover image showing four factory workers of different ages in safety gear standing in an industrial workplace, above two side-by-side charts comparing workplace fatality counts and rates by age; the left chart suggests higher total deaths in middle age groups, while the right chart shows fatality rates rising sharply for older workers.

Workplace Deaths by Age: Why Counts and Rates Tell Different Stories

ByMark Graban July 29, 2026 398

A Locked Complaint Box in Greece: Learning From Customer Complaints, or Just Bureaucracy?

ByMark Graban July 28, 2026 387

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...

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

ByMark Graban April 4, 2024 Comment (0) 1944

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) 1664

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) 2714

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

Mark Graban on YouTube

Airline captain and retired Navy pilot Steve Montague explains why aviation stopped expecting pilots to be flawless. He cites a figure he recalls from NASA Ames research that pilots make about seven errors an hour, and he flags in the moment that he had not looked it up before we talked.

The number matters less than what follows it. Pilots catch most of their own errors. A colleague catches some of the rest. A controller or the technology traps others. The system is built so that a normal rate of small mistakes does not turn into an accident.

Steve traces the cultural piece back to a flight instructor saying "keep an eye on me." Nobody boasts about screwing up, and he names the barrier honestly: if you call out what looks like your supervisor's mistake and you turn out to be wrong, now you are the one who was wrong in front of everyone. That risk is real in a cockpit, on a shop floor, and in an operating room.

Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/vfVTIKqi45I

Why Aviation Expects Pilots to Make Mistakes | Steve Montague

Airline captain and retired Navy pilot Steve Montague describes what he did to make speaking up more likely on his flights, and none of it was a poster or a training module.

He shook hands and made eye contact with every flight attendant before the flight, walking to the back of the aircraft if he had not met them yet. In his briefing he told them to bring anything that did not look right to him or to the purser immediately. With the other pilots he was more direct: if you see anything I am doing that looks wrong, I expect you to speak up.

His point about repetition is the one worth borrowing. If enough people say it to each other on enough flights, it stops being a personal preference and becomes the culture.

He also notes that the closer you sit to the instruments, the less you see. The relief pilot in the jump seat, two feet back and not flying the airplane, misses nothing.

Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/vfVTIKqi45I

How a Captain Makes It Safe to Speak Up | Steve Montague

Too many leaders think a gemba walk means going to the floor to look at a metrics board. That's just moving the dashboard closer -- you've changed your location, not your thinking.

Gemba is the real place, where the work actually happens. But going there like an inspector teaches people to tidy up before you arrive and tell you what they think you want to hear. You went to the real place and still didn't see reality.

In this short, I cover what a gemba walk is actually for, the three questions that change everything about how it goes, and why curiosity beats judgment every time.

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

#Gemba #GembaWalk #Lean #LeanManufacturing #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #LeanLeadership #OperationalExcellence #Kaizen #ProcessImprovement

Notes: I led the hashtags with #Gemba and #GembaWalk rather than the broad #Lean, since this one has real term-specific search intent behind it — someone looking up gemba is closer to your audience than someone browsing #Lean generally. And I pulled the "you went to the real place" line into the description on purpose; it's the strongest line in the script and it does double duty as a hook for anyone reading before watching.

Your Gemba Walk Isn't a Gemba Walk If You Do This