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A Lean Management System That Doesn’t Depend on the Lean Team — Emily Swaney, OhioHealth What 21,050 Clinicians Told Us About Fear and Futility
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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

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...
Bridging the Communication Gap in Lean: What We Can Learn from Journalism with Jacquie Maupin

Bridging the Communication Gap in Lean: What We Can Learn from Journalism with Jacquie Maupin

ByMark Graban February 13, 2025 4519
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #522 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jacquie Maupin. She joins the podcast to discuss her upcoming workshop at the...
Preview of Mark Graban’s AME Australia “Road Show” in 2025; Improving the Way We Improve

Preview of Mark Graban’s AME Australia “Road Show” in 2025; Improving the Way We Improve

ByMark Graban December 11, 2024 5222
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more Welcome to this bonus session of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, originally recorded as a LinkedIn Live event! In this conversation, I...
Daily Management, Strategy Execution, and Lean Leadership with José Ferro

Daily Management, Strategy Execution, and Lean Leadership with José Ferro

ByMark Graban December 4, 2024 5792
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #521 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is  José R. Ferro, PhD, a Senior Advisor with the Lean Enterprise Institute and the...

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Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: July 24, 2026

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack July 24, 2026 4030
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...
Bulletin board with headers Patient Safety, Quality, Patient Satisfaction, Financial Stewardship and no metrics posted.

Four Headers, Zero Metrics: An Empty Huddle Board in the ICU Hallway

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 23, 2026 403
A worn photocopied training page titled “Standardized Work and Kaizen” lies on a production manager’s desk near a factory window. Around it are safety glasses, a notebook with handwritten shift notes, a pen, a travel mug, a desk phone, a walkie-talkie, and a clipboard with a daily production chart.

Toyota’s 1992 View: Standardized Work and Kaizen Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 22, 2026 649
japan kaizen board

A Kaizen Board in Japan, and a Manager Who Answered Every Sheet

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 21, 2026 874
Suggestion box with coins beside it, simple flat illustration, no text.

Toyota’s $20-an-Idea Experiment–and the Risk of Fixing the Wrong Problem

Mark GrabanByMark Graban July 20, 2026 560

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

Emily Swaney, VP of Operational Excellence at OhioHealth, explains how a Lean Promotion Office of 11 people supports a Lean management system for 35,000 associates - by developing about 1,500 leaders as problem-solving coaches instead of leading projects. Episode #548 of Lean Blog Interviews. Full transcript and show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/548 We discuss: - Why the Lean team doesn't lead projects, and how process owners take over after kaizen events - Coaching leaders to stop being heroes and to advance problem-solving at the gemba - The patient safety exception to slow coaching - Second coaches, including managers who coach hospital presidents on their coaching - Five-tier safety huddles, good catches, and a roughly twofold increase in reported concerns - Closing the loop on escalations during daily protected gemba time - How frontline teams choose their own KPIs, connected to the balanced scorecard - What's next: an associate idea platform and extending the system into corporate functions Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:08 Emily's path into Lean and healthcare 3:29 Why Lean over Six Sigma in healthcare 6:05 Using marketing to sell the management system 8:47 An 11-person Lean team for 35,000 associates 12:21 Why the Lean team doesn't lead projects 15:08 Coaching leaders to stop being heroes 18:29 The patient safety exception 19:01 Psychological safety and tiered safety huddles 22:59 Good catches and looking for patterns 27:30 Closing the loop through protected gemba time 30:45 Structure and accountability for gemba walks 33:44 Coaching the coaches 35:53 Connecting frontline KPIs to the balanced scorecard 42:17 Executive buy-in and results 45:01 What's next: idea platform and corporate functions 47:58 Emily's expanded role Guest: Emily Swaney - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyswaney/ Host: Mark Graban - https://www.markgraban.com/ Subscribe to the podcast: https://www.leanblog.org/podcasts/podcasts-how-to-subscribe/ Part of the Lean Communicators network: https://leancommunicators.com/ #Lean #LeanHealthcare #OhioHealth #ContinuousImprovement #TieredHuddles #Gemba #PsychologicalSafety #LeanManagement
How 11 People Support a Lean Management System for 35,000 | Emily Swaney, OhioHealth
Toyota has been replacing its famous andon cord with buttons. I visited Toyota's plant in Durban, South Africa, to see how the andon system works there and why they made the switch. Toyota started the change at a plant in Toyota City in 2013. The Durban plant switched about a year ago, and they gave me two reasons. First, there are now two buttons. Yellow calls for help, and red stops the line right away for something like a safety issue. Second, with 90 to 100 andon activations a day in one area, reaching overhead that often was becoming an ergonomics risk. The hardware changed, but the response didn't. When a team member pressed the button, the team leader was there within seconds. Read more on LeanBlog.org: The Toyota Andon System in South Africa: Two Buttons Instead of a Cord https://www.leanblog.org/2026/09/toyota-andon-system-south-africa/ Why Toyota Is Eliminating the Andon Cord (2014) https://www.leanblog.org/2014/08/toyota-eliminating-andon-cord/ Follow for a new Lean short every week. #Andon #Toyota #ToyotaProductionSystem #Lean #LeanManufacturing #ContinuousImprovement #Kaizen #Leadership #PsychologicalSafety #Manufacturing #Shorts
Why Toyota Is Replacing the Andon Cord with Buttons
Strategy deployment -- hoshin kanri -- is supposed to work like a game of catch. Goals flow down from leadership, ideas and feedback flow back up from the people doing the work, and both sides adjust. The ball goes back and forth. A lot of organizations are playing dodgeball instead. The ball only goes one direction, it's thrown hard, and the people on the receiving end are just trying not to get hit. The cost isn't the meeting time you save by skipping the conversation. It's the year you lose executing against metrics that don't match the work. In this short, I share what happened when a hospital cascaded a patient falls target to a labor and delivery unit whose patients don't fall -- and the dashboard that would have looked perfect while the real risks went unmeasured. More on Lean leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement at LeanBlog.org. #StrategyDeployment #HoshinKanri #Lean #LeanLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #CatchBall #OperationalExcellence #Kaizen #ProcessImprovement
Catch Ball or Dodgeball? How Goals Really Flow in Lean Management
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