A nurse makes a medication error. A patient is harmed. The nurse already feels terrible — they went into healthcare to help people, and now the worst has happened. Then comes the organizational response. The investigation. The suspension. Maybe termination.…
TL;DR: The phrase “mistakes are proof you’re trying” is true in some settings and dangerously misleading in others. In innovation work — product development, marketing experiments, learning new skills — mistakes are often part of growth and should be expected,…
Listen: In Episode 44 of the Lean Whiskey podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban get back together for this first episode of 2024. Since we’re not doing Dry January, we go right into the whiskey first by talking about old…
TL;DR: A true culture of learning doesn’t fear mistakes–it learns from them. Drawing inspiration from Toyota’s mindset, this post explores how psychological safety and problem-solving discipline are essential to preventing repeated errors and building continuous improvement into the DNA of…
Update: I’ve written a longer piece about inspection that’s now at the bottom of this post. I’m frustrated that the official Boeing response to their high-profile quality problems (and safety risks) is more… INSPECTIONS! Boeing will inspect Boeing’s work more.…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #489 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Ward Vuillemot, a seasoned C-suite executive with over six years of leading fully remotely while building technology organizations from…
Here’s the latest roundup of blog posts, articles, and interviews / videos related to learning from mistakes and my book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. I wrote this article that was published by…
tl;dr: In this post, Mark argues against the conventional punitive approach to mistakes in organizations, advocating for a culture that prioritizes learning and improvement. Using case studies and real-world examples, he outlines how such a shift in perspective can lead…
tl;dr: In this post, Mark categorizes mistakes into two main types: those that are preventable and those that spur innovation. He elucidates how recognizing the difference between these types can inform an organization’s approach to error management. By doing so,…
Here’s a short video that I made that talks through the chapters and main points of my new book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. Update: The book is now a Shingo Publication Award…
tl;dr: Firing someone after a mistake doesn’t prevent recurrence. The next person will make the same error unless you improve the process with mistake-proofing, clear standards, and better system design. This post shares a story I heard at the Michigan…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #482 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Gemma Jones. Gemma is an Improvement Coach, Trainer, and Visual Facilitator, based in the UK and working globally. Gemma…