Popular Posts
GE Aerospace’s Greenville Plant Proves Larry Culp’s “Safety First” Wasn’t Just Talk An Insulin Error Killed a Hospital Patient. How Does Every Other Hospital Learn From It? “Most People Wouldn’t”: Fear, Gratitude, and Reporting Medical Errors Larry Culp on Success Theater, Embracing Red, and the GE Turnaround What If Every Hospital Learned From Every Other Hospital’s Safety Incidents? Four Patients Got the Wrong Drug in Nashville. Ask a Better Question. Toyota Doesn’t Call It Lean? Its Own Websites Say Otherwise Ten Psychological Safety Outcomes, and What They Do and Don’t Prove The Independent Double Check and the Risk of Human Error
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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

Leading Lean for Profitable Growth: CEO Bill Canady on Using Lean and the 80/20 Principle

Leading Lean for Profitable Growth: CEO Bill Canady on Using Lean and the 80/20 Principle

ByMark Graban April 9, 2025 5606
What happens when a CEO treats Lean as a growth system instead of a cost-cutting program? In this episode, Bill Canady shares how he combines Lean, daily management, and the 80/20 principle to drive...
From Noise to Knowledge: Embracing Data-Driven Leadership – Christopher R. Chapman

From Noise to Knowledge: Embracing Data-Driven Leadership – Christopher R. Chapman

ByMark Graban March 18, 2025 4726
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #525 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Christopher R. Chapman. He's an experienced agile coach and consultant with a...
John Willis on Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge in IT and DevOps

John Willis on Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge in IT and DevOps

ByMark Graban March 12, 2025 8610
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #524 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is John Willis, an accomplished IT management expert with over 45 years of...
Innovating Patient Safety: Mike Eisenberg Discusses Healthcare Technology and Trust

Innovating Patient Safety: Mike Eisenberg Discusses Healthcare Technology and Trust

ByMark Graban February 20, 2025 4936
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #523 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Mike Eisenberg. He's been a filmmaker since 2010 with his production company...

More Blog Posts

Lean Blog Cover (3)

Do Not Remove: What a Kaizen Binder Taught Me in Japan

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 9, 2026 485
On a factory table in Japan, in December 2019, there was a binder. White cover, the word KAIZEN in big orange letters, a photo of cherry blossoms underneath. Inside the front cover, someone had...
toyota engineer gemba

What Toyota’s 1992 Booklet Leaves Out About Leadership

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 8, 2026 491
A chaotic, oversaturated AI-generated factory scene featuring robots, conveyor belts, gears, cars, cherry blossoms, Mount Fuji, a giant stopwatch, and a stern older Japanese man pointing, all covered by a large red prohibition symbol.

The Taiichi Ohno 1981 Story Keeps Getting Reposted. It Can’t Be True.

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 7, 2026 747
lean blog hospital sign standard work why

When Standard Work Isn’t Followed, Your Reaction Is the Real Standard

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 6, 2026 449
kainexus logging mistakes and failures

Eiji Toyoda on Mistakes: Give Your All, Then Write It Down

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 1, 2026 878

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

The image shows Jamie Bonini from Toyota with a quote overlayed on the image. The quote reads: "We define TPS as an organizational culture of highly engaged people solving problems or innovating to drive performance."

Toward a Lean Hospital: Culture, Engagement, and Continuous Improvement

ByMark Graban October 23, 2023 Comment (0) 2864
This video explores what it really means to build a Lean hospital culture, drawing on lessons from...

Different Types of Mistakes – Those That Are Preventable & Those That Help Us Innovate

ByMark Graban August 31, 2023 Comment (0) 1984
tl;dr: In this post, Mark categorizes mistakes into two main types: those that are preventable and...
First Printed Proof Copy of The Mistakes That Make Us (Video)

First Printed Proof Copy of The Mistakes That Make Us (Video)

ByMark Graban June 14, 2023 Comments (3) 1302
I'm excited to share the first printed proof copy of The Mistakes That Make Us, my new (upcoming)...

Mark Graban on YouTube

Michael Chaleff spent his first week as a restaurant magician learning that things go wrong constantly in that job. Then a stranger said four words that took away his ability to speak for the first time in his adult life. 🔵 The line that stopped him cold 🔵 What actually happened next 🔵 Why he still remembers the shame decades later 🔵 The rule he built from that year: the sin isn't the mistake, it's what you do after Full episode: https://youtu.be/aHY6w449NZs
"I Don't Have Hands"
Is the "nice boss era" over? I joined Chris and Amy on KMOX in St. Louis to talk about tough bosses, why employees stay quiet, and what that silence costs. What we covered: - The difference between demanding and cruel, and why "kind" beats "nice" - Why the pendulum swings with the job market, and why both extremes backfire - Two kinds of bad boss: people promoted for the wrong reasons with no leadership training, and founders who never learn to ask - Why futility, not fear, is the most common reason people keep quiet - How to test the waters with one small, fact-based concern instead of a sweeping complaint - Whether it is safe to go to HR - The silence tax: a real cost that never appears on the financial statements 0:00 A bad boss bit, courtesy of Chris and Amy 0:57 Demanding versus cruel: a false trade-off 2:07 Is the nice boss era over? The pendulum and the job market 3:55 How common are cruel managers? 4:39 Two categories of bad boss 6:26 Fear versus futility 7:49 What to do when you cannot leave yet 8:34 Testing the waters with a small, specific issue 9:39 Can you trust HR? 13:06 What the silence tax is and what it costs 14:26 Setting goals without blaming people My next book, The Silence Tax: How Lean Leaders Can Drive Out Fear and Futility, is coming in early 2027. https://thesilencetaxbook.com/ Blog: https://www.leanblog.org Speaking and books: https://www.markgraban.com Podcast: My Favorite Mistake https://myfavoritemistakepodcast.com/
Is the Nice Boss Era Over? Fear, Futility, and the Silence Tax
Michael Chaleff spent a year working as a restaurant magician before law school, in rooms where something went wrong almost every night. In his first week, he opened his best card routine with "imagine you have a deck of cards in your hands," and the woman at the head of the table said, "I don't have hands." He lost the ability to speak. The rule he took from that year: the sin is not the mistake, the sin is what you do after it. 🔵 Why the recovery, not the error, is what an audience actually judges you on 🔵 How a mistake can be something you didn't cause but are still responsible for handling 🔵 What "don't draw attention to your mistake" means for a performer, and where it stops being useful for a leader 🔵 Why anticipating the ways a moment can go wrong is a skill you build before you need it 🔵 What cross-examination teaches about never asking a question blind 🔵 Why giving people more facts makes your case weaker, not stronger 🔵 The four-act structure for micro storytelling, and the fourth act Michael added himself Michael Chaleff served as a Naval officer during the Gulf War, went on to become a DOJ trial attorney, and has performed as a professional magician and mentalist for more than three decades. He now delivers keynotes and workshops on influence and storytelling through Practical Influence. Practical Influence: https://www.practicalinfluence.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-chaleff-9269305/ Full show notes and transcript: https://markgraban.com/mistake363 Subscribe for new episodes of My Favorite Mistake, where leaders share what they got wrong and what they learned. Chapters 00:00 Meet Michael Chaleff 00:54 A year as a restaurant magician 03:31 The card routine, performed live 07:41 "I don't have hands" 10:25 When the mistake isn't yours 13:36 The sin is not the mistake 19:30 Never ask a question you don't know the answer to 29:25 The four-act structure for micro storytelling 38:27 The book in progress
What Magicians Know About Mistakes | Michael Chaleff
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