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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

Podcast #361 — Ask Docs Anything on Covid-19 / Coronavirus (Read, Listen, or Watch)

Podcast #361 — Ask Docs Anything on Covid-19 / Coronavirus (Read, Listen, or Watch)

ByMark Graban March 19, 2020 1742
Episode #361 of the podcast is admittedly not about Lean, but it's an important topic that I think needs to be shared in these times. I'm sharing audio that came from a KaiNexus webinar yesterday that...
Podcast #360 — @LeahBinder of @LeapfrogGroup on Coronavirus Prep & #PatientSafety Progress

Podcast #360 — @LeahBinder of @LeapfrogGroup on Coronavirus Prep & #PatientSafety Progress

ByMark Graban March 15, 2020 1516
Returning for Episode #360 of the podcast is Leah Binder, the president and CEO of Leapfrog Group. We last talked four years ago in Episode #240 about the patient safety crisis and efforts to improve...
Podcast #359 — Alfred Angerer on Lean Healthcare in Switzerland

Podcast #359 — Alfred Angerer on Lean Healthcare in Switzerland

ByMark Graban March 2, 2020 1286
My guest for Episode #359 of the podcast is Prof. Dr. Alfred Angerer, joining me from Switzerland to talk about Lean healthcare. I had a chance to visit a hospital with Alfred, in Switzerland, late...
Podcast #358 — Steve Spear on Evolving our Knowledge and Learning on #Lean

Podcast #358 — Steve Spear on Evolving our Knowledge and Learning on #Lean

ByMark Graban February 10, 2020 2377
Returning to the podcast for Episode #358 is Steve Spear, a senior lecturer at MIT and author of the book The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the...

More Blog Posts

Lean Lessons from Japan: Mindsets, Culture, and the Challenge of Speaking Up

Lean Lessons from Japan: Mindsets, Culture, and the Challenge of Speaking Up

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 23, 2025 3266
This article is based on my recent Catalysis webinar, “Lean Lessons from Japan: Mindsets, Culture, and the Challenge of Speaking Up.” The session was part of their ongoing learning series...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: August 22, 2025

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack August 22, 2025 4738

Your Current Estimated Alarm Response Time Is… 13 Hours? A Lesson in Small Mistakes and Kind Responses

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 21, 2025 1280

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

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 20, 2025 3506
Dunning–Kruger effect Lean overconfidence first belt class

Avoiding the Dunning-Kruger Trap in Lean: Lessons from Early Mistakes

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 19, 2025 1479

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

KaiNexus Education Video #1 – Getting Started with Kaizen

KaiNexus Education Video #1 – Getting Started with Kaizen

ByMark Graban September 5, 2011 Comments (4) 1193
We've created and released our first in our series of short, simple Kaizen education...

Eric Ries TechCrunch Video on Lean Startups

ByMark Graban August 20, 2011 Comments (5) 1612
Here's a video with Eric Ries giving a good overview of key points on Lean Startups. I'd urge you to...
Recording of my “Quality Digest Live” Appearance – Lean in Healthcare

Recording of my “Quality Digest Live” Appearance – Lean in Healthcare

ByMark Graban August 16, 2011 Comments (2) 1239
In my segment, we talk about Lean in healthcare, including my recent article on Healthcare Kaizen...

Mark Graban on YouTube

An ICU nurse was asked to run a hospital laboratory she knew nothing about, right as consultants arrived to cut costs. Four months in, she was sure saying yes had been a mistake. Stephanie Mitchell explains what changed her mind, and what she learned about leading people whose work you could never do yourself. 🔵 Why leading experts starts with admitting you are not one 🔵 What separates real cost reduction from an across-the-board 10 percent cut 🔵 Why a written no-layoff commitment was a condition of the consulting contract 🔵 How faster lab turnaround times helped the hospital avoid building an ER expansion 🔵 The five separate checks that stop one human error from reaching a patient 🔵 What David Mann meant by embracing a mistake instead of looking away from it 🔵 Why the people who never ask questions were the ones she worried about Chapters (approximate, pending verification against the published video): 00:00 Meeting again 20 years later 01:43 The favorite mistake: saying yes to the lab 05:01 Leading people who know more than you 09:48 Cutting costs the right way 13:54 The no-layoff promise 16:52 Turnaround times and the ER expansion they skipped 21:15 Convincing a skeptical CEO 24:35 Building the lean team 28:34 Five checks in the blood bank 33:18 Embracing the mistake Stephanie Mitchell, RN, BSN, MBA, retired as Director of Lean Process Improvement and Laboratory Services at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, Illinois, where she led the laboratory for 20 years. Full episode page: https://markgraban.com/mistake367 Host Mark Graban is a consultant, speaker, and the author of The Mistakes That Make Us. Subscribe for new episodes of My Favorite Mistake every week. #MyFavoriteMistake #Leadership #Healthcare #Lean #ContinuousImprovement #PsychologicalSafety
They Asked a Nurse to Run the Hospital Lab | Stephanie Mitchell
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
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