Popular Posts
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 Somebody Pulled the Cord and the Chairman of Radiology Showed Up
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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

Len Berry on The Promise of Lean in Healthcare and Lessons from ThedaCare

Len Berry on The Promise of Lean in Healthcare and Lessons from ThedaCare

ByMark Graban March 27, 2013 3504
Joining me for Episode #169 is Leonard L. Berry, PhD,  Distinguished Professor of Marketing in the  Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. We are talking about his article that he...
Breaking the Wall of Silence: Carolyn McCulley on Patient Safety, Transparency, and Hopeful Change

Breaking the Wall of Silence: Carolyn McCulley on Patient Safety, Transparency, and Hopeful Change

ByMark Graban March 18, 2013 2039
My guest for episode #168 is Carolyn McCulley, from CityGate Films, and  she is a co-director and producer of the upcoming documentary called “Breaking the Wall of Silence,” which sheds...
Clare Crawford-Mason on Deming, “If Japan Can Do It, Why Can’t We?”

Clare Crawford-Mason on Deming, “If Japan Can Do It, Why Can’t We?”

ByMark Graban March 11, 2013 4487
Producer Clare Crawford-Mason shares behind-the-scenes stories of W. Edwards Deming and the 1980 NBC documentary If Japan Can Do It, Why Can't We?–and reflects on Deming's lasting impact on...
Podcast #166 – Julie Bartels, Healthcare Clinical Business Intelligence Network at Catalysis

Podcast #166 – Julie Bartels, Healthcare Clinical Business Intelligence Network at Catalysis

ByMark Graban February 27, 2013 1608
Listen My guest for episode #166 is Julie Bartels,  Executive Vice President, National Healthcare Information at the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. In this episode, we are talking about their...

More Blog Posts

Boeing’s Leadership Failure: How Executives Waved Off Lean and Put Safety at Risk

Boeing’s Leadership Failure: How Executives Waved Off Lean and Put Safety at Risk

Mark GrabanByMark Graban April 1, 2024 2778
TL;DR: Boeing's 737 MAX failures weren't caused by frontline workers–they were the predictable result of leadership choices that prioritized schedule over safety and ignored core Lean...

A Look Back at LeanBlog April Fools’ Pranks, Including Wii Lean and Baby’s First Lean Book

Mark GrabanByMark Graban April 1, 2024 2212

Apple and I Made a Similar Mistake: 24 or 2024?

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 29, 2024 1793

Marcia Daszko on Leadership Lessons from Dr. Deming; Pivot Disrupt Transform [Podcast]

Mark GrabanByMark Graban March 26, 2024 3496

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: March 22, 2024

Ryan McCormackByRyan McCormack March 22, 2024 5692

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

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Mark Graban on YouTube

Fear is a real reason people stay quiet at work, but it is not the top one. When I poll audiences and groups I work with, futility comes out ahead of fear. People do not always say they are afraid. Plenty of them say some version of "What's the point? Nothing changes anyway." That is a different problem than fear, and it calls for a different response from leaders. If someone fears getting in trouble, and especially if they have watched it happen to someone else, staying quiet to protect yourself is a rational calculation. I would not tell anyone to speak up no matter what. I also take a practical question in this clip: what do you do when you work for a difficult boss and cannot leave right away? One option is to test the waters. Raise a small, specific, fact-based concern rather than a sweeping statement about how nobody here listens, then see what the response tells you. 🔵 Why silence is often a rational cost-benefit decision 🔵 Futility versus fear as the top driver of silence 🔵 What leaders can do about each 🔵 How to test the waters with a tough boss Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/b4Z9RdjgTp8
Fear vs Futility: The Real Reason People Stay Silent at Work
The silence tax is what an organization pays when people stop speaking candidly. It never appears as a line on the financial statements, which is exactly what makes it dangerous. In this clip I explain how the cost compounds. A quality problem nobody mentions gets past the process and reaches a customer. An issue nobody raises while it is small grows into an expensive one. The spending is real even though nothing on the P&L is labeled "silence." I also reference survey research estimating that poor management costs the U.S. economy more than $500 billion a year through turnover and lost productivity. That is a gut feeling on my part, but I suspect the estimate is low, since most organizations are paying some version of the silence tax right now. Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/b4Z9RdjgTp8 🔵 What the silence tax is 🔵 Why it stays invisible to leaders 🔵 How small unspoken problems become costly ones 🔵 What poor management is estimated to cost the U.S. economy More on psychological safety and Lean leadership: https://www.leanblog.org
The Silence Tax: The Hidden Cost of People Not Speaking Up
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"
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