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)

10+ Years of Kaizen at Franciscan Health: Joe Swartz on Building a Lean Culture That Lasts

ByMark Graban February 7, 2018 2274

Joining me again for episode #299 of the podcast is Joe Swartz, my friend and esteemed co-author for our books Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements and...

Podcast #298 – Billy Taylor, Lean Manufacturing Leadership, Part 2

ByMark Graban January 30, 2018 1971

Joining me again for Episode #298 is Billy R. Taylor, for Part 2 of a discussion we started in Episode #293. Last week, a friend texted me last week and said he couldn't wait for Part 2. He said he...

Podcast #297 – JJ Villarreal, Ed.D. on #Lean in Public Education

ByMark Graban January 17, 2018 1792

My guest for Episode #297 is John (JJ) Villareal, Ed.D., the superintendent of the Rockwall I.S.D. here in the Dallas area. In this podcast, we talk about the applications of Lean in education...

Podcast #296 – Dr. Zeev N. Kain on Lean and Clinical Variation

ByMark Graban January 10, 2018 1516

Joining me for Episode #296 of the podcast is Zeev N. Kain, MD. MBA, FAAP. He is a physician and a Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has many additional roles and...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: April 4, 2025

ByRyan McCormack April 4, 2025 5522

Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts...

KaiNexTips: Finally, a Tipping Point for Continuous Improvement?

ByMark Graban April 1, 2025 1466

Flying Koalas & The Joy of Unexpected Learning in Australia

ByMark Graban March 27, 2025 1799

What Aviation Teaches Leaders About Mistakes, Humility, and Psychological Safety

ByMark Graban March 27, 2025 2956

How Chick-fil-A Uses Lean “Game Film” to Improve Drive-Thru Flow

ByMark Graban March 23, 2025 5941

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...

A Glimpse into a “3P” Lean Space Design Process

ByMark Graban May 17, 2010 Comments (12) 2680

Paul Levy has shared some photos and a video, from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center...

Intrinsic Motivation in Lean Leadership: Lessons from Daniel Pink, Deming, and Healthcare

ByMark Graban April 6, 2010 Comments (10) 5732

What really motivates people to improve their work–especially in healthcare and other complex...

No Joke: Lean Methods Applied by a Hockey Coach in Ontario

ByMark Graban April 3, 2010 Comment (1) 940

Unlike Thursday's joke, this is real. It's a video posted by the Association for Manufacturing...

Mark Graban on YouTube

Getting the Deal Early Would Have Sunk Us | Tyler McBroom

Why don’t employees speak up? Fear is part of it. But most silence comes from futility - people have spoken up before and nothing changed.

That distinction is the subject of my keynote, “The Silence Tax: Why People Stay Quiet, and What Leaders Can Do About It.”

Fear and futility look identical from the outside. Someone sees a problem and says nothing. But they’re different problems with different fixes, and most organizations only address the first one. The cost shows up as problems leaders never hear about, improvement ideas that never arrive, and mistakes nobody learns from.

In this keynote, we look at what makes speaking up feel safer and what makes it feel worth the effort: how leaders respond in the moment, whether problems actually get worked on, and whether anyone hears what happened next. Telling people to speak up doesn’t do it.

Audiences include healthcare leaders, manufacturers, municipal and government teams, and continuous improvement professionals. The keynote works as an opening session, a closing session, or paired with a half-day workshop.

Interested in bringing this to your organization or event? Get in touch: [SPEAKING PAGE URL]

I’m Mark Graban - speaker, consultant, and author of The Mistakes That Make Us, Measures of Success, Lean Hospitals, and Healthcare Kaizen. I host the Lean Blog Interviews and My Favorite Mistake podcasts and write at LeanBlog.org. My next book, The Silence Tax, comes out in early 2027.

More: https://www.leanblog.org

#PsychologicalSafety #KeynoteSpeaker #Leadership #SpeakingUp #WorkplaceCulture #LeanLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #EmployeeEngagement #LeadershipDevelopment #TheSilenceTax

Why Employees Don’t Speak Up | Psychological Safety Keynote

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