Popular Posts
A Lean Management System That Doesn’t Depend on the Lean Team — Emily Swaney, OhioHealth Creating a Continuous Improvement System in Accounting: Nick Katko on PDCA, Culture, and Psychological Safety Signals & Levers: Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi on Change Theater, Open Loops, and Systems Thinking for Software Teams
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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

How Cleveland Clinic Uses Daily Tiered Huddles to Drive Lean, Accountability, and Learning

How Cleveland Clinic Uses Daily Tiered Huddles to Drive Lean, Accountability, and Learning

ByMark Graban September 17, 2019 3213
Cleveland Clinic's daily tiered huddles are not just short meetings–they're a Lean management system that connects front-line realities to executive decision-making in real time. By combining...
Podcast #347 — Brad Parsons, Hospital CEO & Co-Author of “Creating an Effective Management System”

Podcast #347 — Brad Parsons, Hospital CEO & Co-Author of “Creating an Effective Management System”

ByMark Graban September 9, 2019 1646
Our guest today for Episode 347 is Brad Parsons, the CEO of NEA Baptist, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. NEA Baptist is a 228-bed hospital and 140-provider medical group serving northeast Arkansas —...
Podcast #346 — Mark Ryan, Transformation, Kaizen, and Management at Franciscan St. Francis Health

Podcast #346 — Mark Ryan, Transformation, Kaizen, and Management at Franciscan St. Francis Health

ByMark Graban August 24, 2019 1583
Joining me for Episode 346 of the podcast is Mark Ryan, a Transformation Coach and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at Franciscan Health. Mark will be one of the hosts and facilitators at our upcoming...
Interview with Edward Niedermeyer on Tesla, Toyota, and the Cultural Lessons Behind “Ludicrous”

Interview with Edward Niedermeyer on Tesla, Toyota, and the Cultural Lessons Behind “Ludicrous”

ByMark Graban August 12, 2019 3261
My guest for Episode #345 is Edward Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. The book offers a deeply reported look at Tesla's history, strategy, and culture–and...

More Blog Posts

Three Ways Pressure Warps Performance Metrics–and What Leaders Must Do Instead

Three Ways Pressure Warps Performance Metrics–and What Leaders Must Do Instead

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 2, 2025 1488
TL;DR: When leaders apply pressure instead of support, people don't improve processes–they distort data or hide problems. Real improvement starts when leaders make it safe to report bad news and...

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

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 23, 2025 3309

Lean Healthcare Beyond Tools: Respect for People and Continuous Improvement

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 22, 2025 3298

17 Years Later: Reflections on Lean Hospitals and the Journey of Improvement

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 18, 2025 2472

What’s Your Organization’s Real Mistake Policy? [Poll]

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 17, 2025 928

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

Lean Lessons for Healthcare from a Boeing 737 Factory Video

ByMark Graban June 3, 2011 Comment (1) 1263
Podcaster Cali Lewis (a fellow DFW-area Texan) hosts a show called GeekBeat.tv, where she normally...

Audio Story w Pictures: Lean at Virginia Mason Medical Center & Barnes-Jewish

ByMark Graban May 27, 2011 Comments (2) 1065
Here is a video from the St. Louis Beacon (actually, an NPR-style audio story with pictures) about...

Lean Healthcare Design Video Series – Part 4, Continuous Improvement

ByMark Graban May 24, 2011 Comment (1) 1867
Here is the long overdue Part 4 of our video discussion series about Lean Healthcare Design...

Mark Graban on YouTube

Psychological safety means everybody can have their say. It doesn’t mean they get their way. The goal is candor, not agreement. Psychological safety also isn’t all or nothing. It varies by team, by who’s in the room, and by topic. Someone might feel safe pointing out a machine that’s been down all week, but not safe saying the project is $50,000 over budget. That’s why it’s a problem when a leader says, “We already have psychological safety.” The people who say that are often the ones who feel safest. This clip is from my new course, Leading with Psychological Safety, from TKMG Academy. The course covers: 🔵 What psychological safety is, and common misconceptions 🔵 The four stages of psychological safety (from Timothy R. Clark) 🔵 Two reasons people stay silent: fear and futility 🔵 Four leadership behaviors that build it: Model, Encourage, Enable, and Reward 🔵 How to assess progress 13 lessons, about an hour total. Also available in Spanish. Learn more and purchase here: https://tkmgacademy.com/courses/leading-with-psychological-safety/
Psychological Safety Means Everyone Gets Their Say, Not Their Way
Someone sees a problem coming, a wrong assumption, or a risk in the plan. They don’t say anything, and the moment passes. That silence is what this course is about. People speak up when two things are true: it feels safe, and it feels worthwhile. In Leading with Psychological Safety, my new course from TKMG Academy, I explain what leaders can do to create both conditions. The course is for senior leaders, frontline managers, continuous improvement professionals, consultants, educators, and anyone who wants a culture where people speak up to improve how work gets done. The course covers: 🔵 What psychological safety is, and common misconceptions 🔵 The four stages of psychological safety (from Timothy R. Clark) 🔵 Two reasons people stay silent: fear and futility 🔵 Four leadership behaviors that build it: Model, Encourage, Enable, and Reward 🔵 How to assess progress 13 lessons, about an hour total. Also available in Spanish. Available now. Learn more and purchase here: https://tkmgacademy.com/courses/leading-with-psychological-safety/ Music used with permission, copyright ID code AA2WMUIT7Z48VWPQ
Why People Stay Silent at Work: Leading with Psychological Safety Preview
Counting how many teams run Agile ceremonies is measuring activity, not improvement. Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi call that “change theater,” and it’s one of the illusions their new book Signals & Levers is built to dismantle. In Episode 550 of Lean Blog Interviews, I talk with Elisabeth and Joel about Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery (IT Revolution, September 2026). The book applies systems thinking, Deming, Shewhart, Argyris, and Donella Meadows to software delivery, but most of the conversation applies to any organization trying to improve. In this conversation: 🔵 The three illusions that travel together: predictability, progress, and control 🔵 Why “running open loop” means changing things without ever checking whether the change worked 🔵 How organizations accidentally create latency by separating strategy from execution and skills from each other 🔵 Why Joel introduced process behavior charts (Shewhart charts) to software teams, and what he wanted to stop arguing about 🔵 Why story points are an opinion, cycle time is a fact, and doing math on an opinion still gives you an opinion 🔵 Why a Chris Argyris “Model One” organization scores itself high on psychological safety surveys while behaving otherwise 🔵 Why you can’t fix fear by telling people to be brave Chapters: 00:00 Meet Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi 04:30 Origin stories and a Toyota supplier lesson 11:50 Systems thinking applied to software 14:07 Three illusions: predictability, progress, control 17:32 Every change is a hypothesis 20:16 Open loop vs closed loop 25:24 Change theater and measuring activity 28:15 Latency that organizations create by accident 36:21 Process behavior charts and variability 44:11 Why story points are opinions 47:17 Psychological safety surveys that mislead 55:31 You can't fix fear by telling people to be brave 58:40 Everyone has levers About the guests: Elisabeth Hendrickson is the founder of Curious Duck Digital Laboratory, where she advises and coaches technology leaders. She was previously VP of R&D at Pivotal, leading about 170 engineers, product managers, and designers, and she is the author of Explore It! Joel Tosi is co-founder and CTO of Dojo & Co., which helps organizations improve the flow of work through immersive learning environments. He has more than 25 years of experience delivering software and is co-author of Creating Your Dojo and Coaching for Learning. Joel previously appeared in Episode 351 with Dion Stewart: https://www.leanblog.org/351 Signals & Levers: https://link.amazon/B0cmgBGmU Curious Duck Digital Laboratory: https://curiousduck.io Dojo & Co.: https://www.dojoandco.com Full show notes and transcript: https://www.leanblog.org/550 Mark Graban is an author, consultant, and speaker on Lean management, continuous improvement, and psychological safety. His books include Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, Measures of Success, and The Mistakes That Make Us. His next book is The Silence Tax: How Lean Leaders Drive Out Fear and Futility. He hosts the Lean Blog Interviews and My Favorite Mistake podcasts and writes at https://www.leanblog.org Subscribe for more conversations on Lean, leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement. #LeanBlogInterviews #SystemsThinking #SignalsAndLevers #SoftwareDelivery #PsychologicalSafety #ProcessBehaviorCharts #ChangeTheater #Deming #DevOps #ContinuousImprovement
Change Theater and the Illusion of Progress | Elisabeth Hendrickson & Joel Tosi
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