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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 How Toyota Turned Around Its Kentucky Plant: Darril Wilburn on Leadership
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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.

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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

nursing error medication syringe

“Most People Wouldn’t”: Fear, Gratitude, and Reporting Medical Errors

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 11, 2026 284
Somebody on the r/nursing subreddit asked what the worst medication error was that people had seen or heard about. Almost six hundred replies came in. I've read the whole thing, and there are a few...
GE Aerospace employees review a cell daily management board displaying safety, quality, delivery, inventory, and productivity measures on the factory floor.

GE Aerospace’s Greenville Plant Proves Larry Culp’s “Safety First” Wasn’t Just Talk

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 10, 2026 338
Illustration of a cassette tape whose tape unspools into a line of light running along an abstract production line and branching into connected nodes.

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape:  August 7, 2026

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack August 7, 2026 3956
Alt text: A yellow pull cord hangs untouched above an automotive assembly line while workers continue building vehicles in the background.

Thirty Years Later, “Keep the Line Running” Is Still the Message

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 6, 2026 565
mark graban lean blog interviews karen martin highlights

Highlights From Five Conversations With Karen Martin

Mark GrabanByMark Graban August 5, 2026 352

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

View Now: Panel Discussion Webinar on the Proposed National Patient Safety Board

View Now: Panel Discussion Webinar on the Proposed National Patient Safety Board

ByMark Graban January 18, 2023 Comment (0) 1113
I'm happy to have hosted and moderated a panel discussion format webinar that was sponsored by Value...
Lucy and the Chocolate Factory–Reimagined With Sushi: A Lean Lesson from Drake & Josh

Lucy and the Chocolate Factory–Reimagined With Sushi: A Lean Lesson from Drake & Josh

ByMark Graban January 11, 2023 Comment (0) 5294
Many Lean practitioners know the famous Lucy and the Chocolate Factory Lean example from I Love...
The Video From the Toyota Museum in Nagoya, Japan

The Video From the Toyota Museum in Nagoya, Japan

ByMark Graban December 12, 2022 Comment (0) 6439
When I visited the Toyota Museum in Nagoya, Japan (see my previous blog posts about it), they had a...

Mark Graban on YouTube

How did Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant go from needing to build almost 90% of its capacity just to break even, to a much healthier 60%? Former Toyota team member Darril Wilburn, co-author with Hiro Yoshiki of Courage, Humility, Kaizen: The Three Disciplines of Toyota Leadership, tells the inside story. We talk about the andon cord myth, “healthy paranoia,” why Toyota never talked about being number one, sending managers back through jishuken, why every VP’s first A3 was sent back by design, and why doing TPS was never the point. Full episode page, links, show notes, and transcript: https://leanblog.org/551 What you’ll learn: 🔵 What really happens when someone pulls the andon cord 🔵 Why psychological safety at Toyota includes being challenged 🔵 How “healthy paranoia” keeps an organization from getting complacent 🔵 How TMMK cut its break-even point from nearly 90% to 60% 🔵 Why Hiro Yoshiki rejected blame and focused on equipping people to succeed 🔵 How Toyota turned its masters’ know-how into teachable curriculum 🔵 Why humility had to be built into how executives were developed Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Darril Wilburn and Courage, Humility, Kaizen 01:47 How Darril met Hiro Yoshiki 05:52 The andon cord myth 07:59 How andon escalation actually works 11:35 Building psychological safety before line-off 13:23 Respect for humanity includes challenge 15:56 Healthy paranoia 18:36 Why Toyota didn’t talk about being number one 20:03 Toyota’s careful entry into the U.S. 22:36 Rapid expansion and a 90% break-even point 24:47 The turnaround: from 90% to 60% 25:39 No blame 27:00 Pulling wisdom out of the masters 30:36 Why expertise had to be dragged out 33:52 Breaking the cycle of rescue teams 35:11 Jishuken and the humility to relearn 37:04 Straight talk instead of spin 40:35 Hiro, not heroes 42:52 Formal and informal communication 46:08 Can you help someone become more humble? 47:42 Every VP sent back on the first A3 51:07 “Doing TPS was never the point” 52:32 Toyota is a business 53:48 Stop counting kaizens when you’re losing money 54:36 Closing Subscribe to Lean Blog Interviews for more conversations on Lean, leadership, continuous improvement, and psychological safety: http://leancast.org/ #Toyota #LeanManagement #ToyotaWay #Kaizen #Leadership #ContinuousImprovement #PsychologicalSafety
Toyota’s Kentucky Turnaround: Courage, Humility, Kaizen | Darril Wilburn
Wrong-site surgery didn’t disappear once healthcare introduced timeouts, checklists, and surgical-site marking. In this clip, Dr. David Mayer explains why those safeguards matter—but also why they aren’t enough on their own. Healthcare began improving these systems because clinicians started talking openly about errors that had previously remained hidden. Without transparency, organizations lose the opportunity to understand how mistakes happen and prevent them from happening again. That’s the larger patient-safety lesson: checklists and mistake-proofing matter, but learning also requires a culture where people can speak openly about errors, near misses, and system failures. This clip is from my My Favorite Mistake conversation with Dr. David Mayer about wrong-site surgery, medical error, transparency, and patient safety. #PatientSafety #MedicalErrors #SurgicalSafety #Healthcare #PsychologicalSafety #MyFavoriteMistake
Why Wrong-Site Surgery Still Happens — Even With Checklists
What happens when experienced problem-solvers start letting AI do the thinking for them? In this clip, Dr. Jeffrey Liker shares a cautionary story from a hospital CEO. Highly trained problem-solvers started using AI—and, as he puts it, “forgot everything they knew about problem-solving.” They were jumping to AI-generated solutions, sometimes solving the wrong problems, without finding root causes or testing their assumptions. The response wasn’t to abandon AI. It was to use it differently. Instead of asking AI for solutions, they learned to prompt it to challenge their assumptions and push their thinking. The result: AI became more of a sparring partner than a substitute for problem-solving. This clip is from an upcoming episode of Lean Blog Interviews with Dr. Jeffrey Liker, author of *The Toyota Way* and the new book *Tech and AI: The Toyota Way: Think, Test, and Learn Your Way to Prudent, Targeted Technology Adoption*. Full episode coming soon. https://www.leancast.org #Lean #AI #ProblemSolving #ToyotaWay #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership
AI Problem-Solving: Stop Asking for Answers, Ask Better Questions
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