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)

Podcast #209 – George Friesen on Lean, Kaizen, and Idea Boards – Experiences at the NUMMI Plant

ByMark Graban September 18, 2014 1545

Listen My guest for episode #209 is George Friesen, Business Practice Leader for Lean Transformations in the Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College. In this episode, we talk about...

Podcast #208 – Michael Bremer on How to Do a Gemba Walk in Lean Management

ByMark Graban September 9, 2014 2439

Joining me for episode #208 is Michael Bremer, author of the recently released book How to Do a Gemba Walk. Michael is president of The Cumberland Group, a business improvement consulting firm...

Emily’s Story, Part 2: Forgiveness, Emily’s Law, and the Case for System Change in Healthcare

ByMark Graban August 28, 2014 3274

Chris Jerry, founder of the Emily Jerry Foundation, continues his conversation on why patient safety demands system change — not blame — and why he chose to publicly forgive the pharmacist...

Podcast #206 – Ed Pound, “Factory Physics for Managers”

ByMark Graban August 14, 2014 1739

My guest for episode #206 is Ed Pound, co-author of the book Factory Physics for Managers: How Leaders Improve Performance in a Post-Lean Six Sigma World that was released in April. It is, of...

What People Know But Won’t Say: The Hidden Cost of Low Psychological Safety

ByMark Graban July 11, 2024 2672

TL;DR: Most organizations are running on a fraction of the intelligence they're actually paying for. The people who know what's going wrong often don't say so. That's not a personality problem —...

The image is a promotional cover for the Lean Blog Interviews podcast, Episode 510. It features a teal background with rays emanating from the center. The title "MISTAKES & LEAN" is prominently displayed in bold, black letters with a white outline. The episode number "Episode 510" is written below the title. On the right side, there is a photo of Karen Martin, smiling and looking towards the camera. In the top left corner, there is a smaller image of Mark Graban with the text "Lean Blog Interviews" and his name, "Mark Graban."

Karen Martin on the Power of Mistake Proofing in Lean Management

ByMark Graban July 10, 2024 4873

My Shingo Webinar Recording on Learning from Mistakes and More

ByMark Graban July 9, 2024 2937

What Were the 10 Most Read LeanBlog.org Posts of the First Half of 2024?

ByMark Graban July 8, 2024 2702

Throwback Thursday: An Independence Day Post

ByMark Graban July 4, 2024 1340

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...

Lean Blog Homework – CNBC CEO Videos

ByMark Graban January 9, 2007 Comment (0) 771

I can't get the videos to play on my PC. CNBC did interviews today with the Big 3 big wigs, a big...

30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy Declares Jack Welch Greater Than the Pharaohs

ByMark Graban December 2, 2006 Comments (8) 2713

We know Dilbert makes fun of Six Sigma, but the new NBC show “30 Rock” does a great job...

“Assembly Line Medicine”? What Lean Healthcare Really Means

ByMark Graban November 28, 2006 Comments (7) 1674

I give many lean overview presentations to healthcare audiences. While I mostly talk about the...

Mark Graban on YouTube

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

They Asked a Nurse to Run the Hospital Lab | Stephanie Mitchell

The Toyota andon cord allows a team member to signal a problem and request help without immediately stopping the production line.

Pulling the cord activates a light and calls the team leader to the workstation. If the problem can be resolved before the vehicle reaches a fixed stopping point, production continues. If it cannot, that section of the line stops.

This animation was AI-generated from still images taken from a Toyota video. It is a reconstructed demonstration, not original footage of the action or an official Toyota production.

The andon system gives team members both the ability and the obligation to call attention to problems so the team can respond before defects continue downstream.

#Andon #ToyotaProductionSystem #Lean #Kaizen #ContinuousImprovement #AIGenerated

Read more about andon: https://www.leanblog.org/2012/11/andon-cords-toyota-takaota-speaking-up/

Toyota Andon Cord Explained: How It Works