Mistakes are inevitable—but how leaders and organizations respond to them determines whether they improve or repeat the same failures. These posts explore mistakes through a Lean lens: system design vs. “human error,” psychological safety, learning cultures, and leadership behaviors that turn errors into improvement rather than blame.
Drawing from healthcare, manufacturing, aviation, sports, and everyday work, this archive focuses less on who failed—and more on what the system made possible.
Mistakes are inevitable; learning is not. These posts align with ideas I expanded on in The Mistakes That Make Us, which examines how leaders, cultures, and systems determine whether errors become liabilities—or catalysts for improvement.
Since I host a podcast about mistakes (“My Favorite Mistake“), this is a topic I think about a lot. I hear about people’s “favorite” professional mistakes and I reflect on my own. This headline naturally caught my eye last week:…
I’ve interviewed over 180 people over the past 18 months for my podcast series, asking them all the SAME question: “What’s your favorite mistake?” Everybody makes mistakes, even the most successful people out there. A “favorite mistake,” to me, is…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #446 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Sumitra Vig. She is a partner with her advisory firm Svakarma Advisory, LLP, based in Mumbai India. She is…
One lesson I’ve learned from Toyota people about problem solving is that you have to work to “grasp the situation.” This is true whether you’re reacting to a “big vague concern” (as expressed in a statement such as “all of…
Recently, I re-shared a LinkedIn post by Maryam Najafi PhD, a clinical scientist from Germany. I re-posted it and that drove even more visibility (over 100,000 views) and more discussion. You might need to click through to LinkedIn to see…
I love the theme of learning from mistakes. That’s why I started my latest podcast, “My Favorite Mistake.” Yesterday, I just released Episode 150. Who knew that so many people would be willing to talk about their mistakes and how…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! News, blogs, articles, resources, and links about creating value, continuous improvement, innovation, and leadership. Healthcare – Creating Value for…
Long-time listeners of my Lean Blog Interviews podcast will remember my interview with the NY Times best-selling author Daniel H. Pink back in 2010: Back then, we talked about his fantastic book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.…
“A mistake that makes you humble is better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.” My father sent me this quote, thinking it fit the spirit of my “My Favorite Mistake” podcast. He was right. It gets shared because it…
Here’s another recent interview, with the Cincinnati radio station WLW — Ken Broo sitting in as guest host for the Bill Cunningham Show. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript: Full Transcript [background music] Announcer: Now, your…
The other day, I wrote a post that referenced my appearance on The Laura Coates Show. I had a transcript made, so I am putting that into a new post here, which can be found after the streaming audio player,…
I’ve been doing some radio interviews recently (as I blogged about here and here). The firm that helps line these up is very good at connecting topics I’d like to talk about, the “My Favorite Mistake” podcast and data-related topics…
