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
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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

Karen Martin on Clarity First and Why Leaders Must Confront Ambiguity

Karen Martin on Clarity First and Why Leaders Must Confront Ambiguity

ByMark Graban October 1, 2018 2485
My guest for Episode #319 is Karen Martin, whose most recent book is Clarity First: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance. She was previously a guest on Episodes #151...
Podcast #318 – Marcus Hammarberg, How Lean & Kanban Saved an Indonesian Hospital

Podcast #318 – Marcus Hammarberg, How Lean & Kanban Saved an Indonesian Hospital

ByMark Graban September 17, 2018 1433
Joining me from Sweden for Episode 318 of the podcast is Marcus Hammarberg, author of the fascinating book Salvation: The Bungsu Story: How Lean and Kanban saved a small hospital in Indonesia. Twice...
Podcast #317 – Patricia Morrill, “The Perils of Uncoordinated Care”

Podcast #317 – Patricia Morrill, “The Perils of Uncoordinated Care”

ByMark Graban September 4, 2018 1507
My guest for Episode #317 of the podcast is Patricia Morrill, a speaker, trainer, consultant, researcher, and author of the book The Perils of Un-Coordinated Healthcare: A Strategic Approach toward...
Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban

Mark Graban on Measures of Success: Understanding Variation, Reacting Less, and Leading Better

ByMark Graban August 28, 2018 2099
oday's episode is the second time that friend and podcast guest Jamie Flinchbaugh has turned the tables by playing host to interview me about my new book, Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better...

More Blog Posts

Free Kindle Book: Reflections from Lean Leaders — For a Limited Time

Free Kindle Book: Reflections from Lean Leaders — For a Limited Time

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 22, 2025 4271
I wanted to share that one of my early experiments in e-book publishing is available for free on Amazon Kindle for a limited time — from now through May 25. About the Book Reflections from Lean...

Why Bowling Charts Mislead Leaders–and What to Use Instead

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 21, 2025 1737

How Safe Is It to Admit a Mistake at Work? New Poll Results on Psychological Safety

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 20, 2025 5240

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: May 16, 2025

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack May 17, 2025 8323

The Mistake-Smart Leader’s Checklist: 6 Behaviors to Build Trust, Safety, and Continuous Improvement

Mark GrabanByMark Graban May 15, 2025 1556

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

Video of Toyota’s Thanksgiving Kaizen

Video of Toyota’s Thanksgiving Kaizen

ByMark Graban December 5, 2010 Comments (2) 1840
I blogged about this a few weeks back, but Toyota has posted an outstanding short video about their...
Lean Gone Lego

Weekend Fun: “Lean Gone Lego” Video

ByMark Graban October 31, 2010 Comments (2) 1528
Here's a fun stop-motion video – I presume it's from Australia or New Zealand?? I don't know...
Depersonalized Workplaces are L.A.M.E., not Lean, Harming Productivity and People

Depersonalized Workplaces are L.A.M.E., not Lean, Harming Productivity and People

ByMark Graban September 29, 2010 Comments (12) 2772
When I was traveling last week, a magazine caught my eye, one I don't normally read: Scientific...

Mark Graban on YouTube

CPA Tyler McBroom had a call booked to discuss partnering with Tony Robbins. It was set for 10:30 PM, so he asked to reschedule. Then came three years of silence. Tyler, CEO of TRM CPA and author of Cash Flow and Grow, explains what that request taught him about how opportunity works and why he kept following up anyway. He also talks about whether his four-person firm was ready for what it wanted. Later in the conversation, he shares how changing when the firm got paid nearly eliminated its accounts receivable. He also describes how a remote team built a culture that ranked number one among small employers on America’s Best Workplaces. What you’ll learn: 🔵 Why adapting to a rare opportunity’s terms can matter more than protecting your schedule 🔵 How monthly follow-ups that showed real progress kept Tyler on the partner’s radar 🔵 Why a delayed opportunity can arrive when you’re finally able to absorb it 🔵 How charging up front, without raising prices, cut accounts receivable to a week or two of sales 🔵 Why a big price increase loses fewer clients than most owners fear 🔵 The “grin test” for deductions, and the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion 🔵 How a daily huddle keeps a remote team from feeling like a set of islands Chapters: 00:00 Meet Tyler McBroom, CPA and author 01:10 The meeting he rescheduled with Tony Robbins' team 05:14 Three years of follow-up 06:20 The callback and the partnership offer 08:12 Why the wait built the capacity to grow 09:26 Tax avoidance vs. tax evasion 13:00 Changing when you get paid, not what you charge 20:09 Nine months of social media with zero clients 26:29 Bad tax advice and the grin test 35:16 Building a best place to work About Tyler McBroom: Tyler McBroom, CPA, MBA, is the CEO of TRM CPA, which helps business owners legally keep more of their profits, and the author of Cash Flow and Grow. Episode page: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake371
The Tony Robbins Meeting He Rescheduled | Tyler McBroom
I built an AI coach this year, and almost all of the work went into teaching it not to answer questions. Early on, someone would type a real problem -- our lab turnaround times are terrible, we tried 5S and it didn’t stick -- and it would immediately deliver a confident, well-organized lecture. Good content. Useless as coaching. It didn’t know what they’d tried or what their constraints were. It just pattern-matched to a topic and started teaching. The coaching prompt is now around five thousand words, and most of it is some version of: don’t answer yet, ask what’s going on. That number has stuck with me as a measure of how strong the pull toward answering is -- and not just for software. The second lesson surprised me more. I built a direct-answer mode alongside the Socratic one, assuming the coaching mode was the real one. I was wrong. Sometimes a person needs a definition or a worked example, and making them earn it with six questions isn’t coaching. It’s a performance of coaching. You can try it at https://leancoach.ai -- I’m still tuning it. More on Lean leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement at LeanBlog.org. #Coaching #Leadership #Lean #AI #ContinuousImprovement #LeadershipDevelopment #ArtificialIntelligence #OperationalExcellence #Mentoring #ProcessImprovement
I Spent Months Teaching an AI Coach Not to Answer
Nick Katko returns to Lean Blog Interviews to talk about his new book, Creating a Continuous Improvement System in Accounting. Nick is president and owner of BMA, a CPA, and author of The Lean CFO and Practicing Lean Accounting. Accounting teams see problems every day. As Nick puts it, they fix them, but they don’t necessarily solve them. We talk about why that happens, what a continuous improvement system looks like inside an accounting department, and why culture and psychological safety have to come before improvement events. Topics include: 🔵 Why many accounting leaders misunderstand continuous improvement, especially when it gets done to them 🔵 An accounts payable team that cut invoice defects from about 43% to 15% by starting with data 🔵 The three components of the system: simple PDCA problem solving, daily lean management, and improvement events 🔵 Why small improvements beat the next big thing (blockchain then, AI now) 🔵 Time, not ability, as the main reason problems don’t get solved 🔵 What happened when the one person who spoke up about month-end close was fired 🔵 Why psychological safety shifts when a leader walks into the room 🔵 A daily problem-solving huddle that ended finger-pointing between accounting and purchasing 🔵 Measuring a faster close in person-hours, not just days 🔵 Independent publishing, and the book covers drawn by Nick’s grandchildren Chapters: 00:00 Intro and Nick’s background 01:31 Where the book came from: coaching two accounting teams in Ohio 03:19 More than a book: checklists, assessments, and training slides on Nick’s website 04:16 Why accounting teams fix problems instead of solving them 06:03 Accounts payable example: data first, then improvement events 08:03 The three parts of a continuous improvement system in accounting 11:41 Big initiatives vs. small improvements 14:07 The real reason problems don’t get solved: time 17:19 When one person is the process: psychological safety in small teams 18:44 The person who spoke up and was fired 21:22 Psychological safety is situational 26:24 Creating the culture first, and a leader self-assessment 29:31 Fear and futility: why people stay quiet 33:12 Accounting vs. purchasing: a daily problem-solving huddle 35:34 A healthcare parallel: the ED, the lab, and crooked labels 39:37 Walking away from a top-down engagement 41:46 What a faster close is really worth 45:00 Independent publishing and the grandchildren’s book covers 50:51 Closing Nick’s book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HCRDNBJM Supplemental materials: [VERIFY: URL on Nick’s website] Nick’s previous appearance, Episode 492: [VERIFY: link] About Mark Graban: Mark is an author, speaker, consultant, and Senior Advisor to KaiNexus. 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. #LeanAccounting #ContinuousImprovement #PsychologicalSafety #LeanThinking #Accounting #CFO #PDCA #Kaizen #LeanLeadership #RespectForPeople #LeanCFO #MonthEndClose
Continuous Improvement in Accounting with Nick Katko | Lean Blog Interviews
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