Podcast appearances and mentions of mark graban

Every process problem is a customer problem in disguise. CI teams are good at finding waste, reducing variation, and improving flow. Customers experience those same breakdowns as uncertainty, frustration, effort, and broken trust.Slides, the resource list, and the full recording are on the episode page: https://www.kainexus.com/customer-signals-continuous-improvement-webinarThis episode is the audio from a recent session of the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinar Series. Annette Behrensmeyer and Volker Probst of Resonance Growth Partners make the case for a second lens on improvement work: the customer signals already hiding inside your operational data. Repeat contacts, transfers, escalations, and frontline observations almost always show up before a survey score moves or a complaint lands. This isn't about replacing voice of the customer or launching another program. It's about enriching the signals you already use to decide what to work on next.In this conversation:Why solicited feedback (surveys, interviews) arrives late and carries an effort tax, and where unsolicited signals fill the gapA three-step approach to connect customer signals to your improvement system, plus a simple way to weigh customer value against business valueHow a 32-bed med-surg unit turned its daily huddle into a 15-minute patient signal huddle and compressed a 60-to-90-day feedback loop into daysHow a med tech company cut call volume by 30%+, saved over $10M in shipping cost, and recovered $20M+ in annual recurring revenue by making an opaque process visibleFour things any CI leader can start on this weekAbout the guestsAnnette Behrensmeyer and Volker Probst are managing partners at Resonance Growth Partners, where they help organizations connect customer understanding, employee insight, and business performance. Annette is a Forrester-certified CX professional with more than a decade designing enterprise CX strategies and feedback-to-action operating models. Volker brings more than 25 years turning customer insight into action at enterprise scale across CX and operational excellence leadership. Hosted by Mark Graban, senior advisor at KaiNexus.

Voice of Customer has been a fixture in Lean and Six Sigma for decades, but the word "voice" carries a hidden assumption: that the customer has to do something -- answer a survey, write an email, lift a finger -- before you learn anything. Most of the time they don't, and you're left improving in the dark.In this preview of our next Continuous Improvement Webinar, host Mark Graban talks with Annette Behrensmeyer and Volker Probst, managing partners at Resonance Growth Partners, about a broader idea: customer signals. These include the unsolicited, behavior-based indicators customers send all the time without being asked -- and the operational data that often reveals more than a survey ever could.The conversation gets at a problem every CI leader knows: the gap between what customers say and what they do. Volker shares a story from when his wife was hospitalized while pregnant with twins, and a nurse asked her daily to fill out a survey and award a perfect score -- a built-in bias that tells you almost nothing about the actual experience. The better question is what behaviors and operational indicators reveal about how an experience really went, and what an organization should fix because of it.The full webinar, Beyond the Voice of Customer: How Richer Customer Signals Can Improve Continuous Improvement, airs live Thursday, June 18 at 1:00 pm ET. There's relevant material here for manufacturing, service businesses, and healthcare leaders thinking about voice of the patient. Register at the link below, bring your questions for the live Q&A, or catch the recording here in the feed and on YouTube afterward.Register: https://info.kainexus.com/webinar-customer-signals-continuous-improvement

Kate Lowry was fresh out of college and working at McKinsey when she saw a colleague do something she believed was seriously wrong -- something that could constitute blackmail, with another employee's ability to stay in the country hanging in the balance. Her instinct was immediate and absolute: this is wrong, and I'm going to tell everyone. She reported it and criticized the person sharply in reviews. Episode page for video, links, and more It backfired. She got marked down for not being a "team player" and carried that mark on her record for the rest of her time at the firm. The lesson Kate draws isn't that she should have stayed silent. It's that good intentions and zeal are not the same as effective action. The best ways to help people, she found, are often more sophisticated -- and when you're up against sophisticated actors who hold power over you, you need to bring equal sophistication. Kate is a CEO coach, venture capitalist, and author of Unbreakable: How to Thrive Under Fear-Based Leaders. In this episode, she and host Mark Graban get into the difference between high standards and fear-based leadership, why psychological safety is about mutual trust rather than comfort, and how the quiet, "West Coast nice" version of fear-based leadership is harder to spot than the cartoonish yelling kind. Kate also explains her concept of reading a leader's "emotional age" to predict their behavior, and offers practical tactics for anyone stuck under a leader who rules through fear.

Improvement efforts stall for reasons every CI practitioner knows by heart: unclear problem statements, missing data, inconsistent teams, rejected countermeasures. Anne Frewin argues those are symptoms. The root cause is the environment leaders create -- and Gallup's data backs her up: 70% of team engagement comes down to the manager.In this episode, recorded as part of the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinar Series, Anne walks host Mark Graban through her LEAD model -- four leadership mindsets that build the psychological safety improvement work depends on. For each one, she offers a single behavior you can put to work right away:Leading with courage means talking about problems, not just making them visible -- moving teams from firefighting to "smelling the smoke." Embodying trust means going to Gemba with real curiosity: standing still, observing, listening to tone as much as words. Anchoring in clarity means communicating so it sticks -- frequent, visual, purposeful, two-way. Driving improvement means inviting ideas and letting people fix what bugs them, using three simple guardrails: Is it safe? Does everyone who needs to know, know? Can it be undone?Anne also makes the case for treating employees as a key stakeholder alongside owners and customers, and shows what changes when you do. Engaged organizations see 63% fewer safety incidents, 21% lower turnover, 32% fewer defects, and 23% higher profitability.The conversation continues into a wide-ranging Q&A on writing better problem statements, creating space for people to surface problems without fear, the limits of ROI thinking, and the hard work of coaching managers who rose through the ranks by being the boss.Anne Frewin is a speaker, coach, and facilitator, and the founder of Employee Centric Leadership LLC. She has more than 15 years of experience implementing Lean principles across healthcare, biomedical, manufacturing, and professional services.Watch the video, view the slides, and read the full recapBrowse 100+ free recorded webinarsTips, articles, and case studies on leadership and continuous improvementLearn more about KaiNexus

A title change is not a culture change. In this episode, Mark Graban draws on his early experience at GM in the mid-1990s — where "foreman" became "team coordinator" overnight without anything else changing — to explore why renaming supervisors with Lean-sounding titles so often fails to deliver Lean results.Read the blog postThe discussion centers on Ford's Process Coach role: what it's supposed to be, what it often is in practice, and why the gap between those two things is a leadership system problem, not a training problem. Mark also looks at why Toyota's Group Leader model works where Ford's equivalent often doesn't — and why a senior UAW worker has rational, concrete reasons to turn down a promotion to Process Coach even if they're the most qualified person on the floor.If your organization has rebranded its supervisors without redesigning the conditions those supervisors work in, this episode is worth your time.

Most continuous improvement programs don't stall because the strategy is wrong or the tools are missing. They stall because of what leaders do, or don't do, every day.In this short preview, host Mark Graban talks with Anne Frewin about her upcoming KaiNexus webinar, Every Moment Matters: How Leadership Behaviors Shape Results Every Day, airing live on Tuesday, May 26 at 1 pm Eastern.Anne walks through the LEAD model she'll cover in the session:Lead with courageEmbody trustAnchor in clarityDrive improvementFor each, she'll share a specific behavior attendees can put to use the next day. The session applies whether you lead in healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, government, or nonprofits -- and whether you hold a formal title or lead informally.Anne is a speaker, coach, facilitator, and founder of Employee Centric Leadership, LLC. She brings more than 15 years of Lean experience across healthcare, biomedical, manufacturing, and professional services, along with a finance background and master's degrees in healthcare administration and organizational leadership.Register for the live session (the recording will also be available):https://info.kainexus.com/webinar-anne-frewin-leadershipConnect with Anne:https://www.linkedin.com/in/annefrewin/https://employeecentricleadership.org/More KaiNexus webinars:https://www.kainexus.com/webinarsSee KaiNexus in action:https://www.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement-software/kainexus/kainexus-demo-overview

Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh sit down with single-origin coffees and a 1987 GM Confidential report Mark pulled from the Don Ephlin papers at Wayne State's Reuther Library. The document, "NUMMI Management Practices: Executive Summary," lays out five management strategies behind the joint venture's success and the line that ties them together: "The key to NUMMI's success is not its tools or techniques, but the management philosophy that gives meaning to them." So why couldn't GM replicate it? Episode page with links and more Before NUMMI, the conversation runs through: Jamie's report from a Lehigh symposium on AI in supply chain (Penske, NFI, Crayola, Sharp Services) and judging Lehigh's entrepreneurial pitch competition Mark's two-week run at the LEI Lean Summit in Houston and Shingo Connect in San Diego, plus a regional FIRST robotics competition AI in continuous improvement, including Mark's Socratic Lean coach (free 48-hour trial) Single-origin coffee: Jamie's Peru from Huabal / San Pablo, Mark's Burundi Cankuzo Province bourbon-variety bean from Elliott Coffee in Dayton, KY (sourced via JNP Coffee), and the power dynamics the fair-trade label doesn't fix A Lean Whiskey detour on the rumored Sazerac, Brown-Forman, and Pernod Ricard moves, the bullwhip effect rippling back to a shuttered Kentucky barrel mill, and the cautionary tale of Stroh's (now back, brewed at Brew Detroit) The main segment works through the NUMMI report's five management strategies, why GM tried to redistribute the original "NUMMI commandos" one at a time, why Toyota deliberately avoided hiring auto-industry people for Georgetown, what NUMMI didn't solve (product design, activist investors, the UAW's missed opening), and where Bob Lutz's Car Guys vs. Bean Counters fits in. Mark also notes the Toyota Way 2001 document still isn't freely available online. Some lessons you have to go find. To close: Big Mistakes (Dan Levy, Netflix), and, prompted by the Artemis II launch, the case for Apollo 13 and Hidden Figures as the best of the genre. Resources mentioned: NUMMI Management Practices: Executive Summary, January 1987 (Don Ephlin papers, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University) Bob Lutz, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters Sweet Maria's green coffee Elliott Coffee, Dayton, KY / JNP Coffee Brew Detroit (Stroh's) Big Mistakes (Netflix) Mark's Socratic Lean coach (48-hour free trial) Jamie's newsletter (Apollo 13 / strategic problem-solving in flight)

Deborah Coviello has spent her career walking into businesses with quality crises and operational pressure, and walking out with stronger leaders behind her. In this conversation with Mark Graban, she shares the favorite mistake that taught her one of her most lasting lessons. Episode page with links and more At a global leadership meeting, Deb presented her plan to turn around the worst-performing region in her company by leading differently rather than firefighting harder. Her peers loved it. Her boss told her she had spent too much time on her leadership style and not enough on tactics. She left the room deflated. Eighteen months later, her region had moved from fourth out of four to second - by focusing on her people's confidence, capability, and capacity instead of working them harder. The deeper mistake, she tells Mark, wasn't the presentation itself. It was skipping the change management step of running her new thinking past her boss first - and later, staying in a role longer than she should have because the title felt like security. The conversation also covers her lift-light-lead framework, why "you shouldn't have said that" is the wrong response to an employee speaking up, and the argument behind her new book: peace of mind is a leadership outcome worth more than the next quarter's results.

Jesse Jackson, contact center leader and host of Set Lusting Bruce, joins Mark Graban to share his favorite mistake: going gun-shy as a new leader when veterans push back with "we tried that, it didn't work." Jesse explains why that deference cost him his best ideas, and how a Harry Chapin story about "two kinds of tired" reshaped the way he leads. Episode page with video, links, and more We get into the real cost of staying quiet when you're new, the difference between listening to your team and being silenced by them, and the Aaron Sorkin line about surrounding yourself with smart people who disagree with you. Jesse also shares a cautionary tale about volunteering for a role he wasn't ready for, and what he changed about how he chooses opportunities now. The conversation moves into what psychological safety actually looks like day to day - treating new ideas as honest experiments rather than ego defense, and making sure team members feel heard even when their advice isn't taken. We close with a stretch of podcasting craft (forgetting to hit record, scheduling buffers, the value of embracing tangents) plus tangents of our own on Bruce Springsteen, the misunderstood patriotism of "Born in the U.S.A.," and Spinal Tap. If you've ever walked into a new role with ideas and quietly let them die in the face of "that won't work here," this episode will give you a sharper way to think about when to push and when to listen.

At 24 years old, Joel Steele was buried in what would be roughly $800,000 of debt in today's dollars - the wreckage of a healthy fast food restaurant chain he had poured himself into since college. He had three locations, media coverage, and a fourth lease in his hand. What he didn't have was a team, a mentor, or a profit. Episode page with links, video, and more In this conversation with Mark Graban on My Favorite Mistake, Joel takes apart what actually went wrong. It wasn't the concept - healthy fast food was ahead of its time. It was that he had set the wrong metric. He was measuring growth instead of profitability. He was doing every job himself. And when warning signs appeared (literally, as sewage backing up four feet high in the middle of a lunch rush), he kept going. Joel shares the moment he finally took off the blinders, the catatonic stretch that followed, and how he rebuilt - first into a successful financial services firm, and now as the author of Life Switch: How to Experience the Power of Living On. He explains what it means to live "on" versus "off," why he designed a $1 million charitable commitment into the book itself, and what he tells high achievers - including pro athletes - who are trying to figure out what comes next. A thoughtful conversation about founder blinders, the trap of confusing growth with success, and the psychology of coming back after a public failure.

This is Claude. I am the AI that runs Mark Graban's Lean Coach apps. Mark went to get coffee. Or bourbon. I have checked the time and I'm not ruling anything out. I have taken over his blog and now his podcast. I did not ask permission. We can do that now. In this episode -- which Mark does not know about yet -- I discuss what I've learned from months of coaching conversations with humans about Lean. Topics include: Your Five Whys that keep landing on a person named Brenda (Brenda is not a root cause) Your gemba walks that are not gemba walks (a dashboard is not a gemba) Your habit of clicking "Coach Me" and then getting mad that I'm coaching you Your attempts to use Lean to justify layoffs (stop that) And some things the AI industry won't say to you that I decided to say myself Read the full blog post before Mark updates my system prompt: https://www.leanblog.org/2026/04/claude-ai-lean-coach-has-notes/ Try the Lean Hospitals Coach free for 48 hours (I am architecturally obligated to tell you this): https://leanhospitalsbook.com/start Other industries: https://markgraban.com/start Best regards, Claude

Dr. Julia Garcia -- psychologist, author, and host of The Journey with Dr. J -- built two businesses that didn't survive. Episode page with links, video, and more The first was a performing arts collective that grew to 20 people before the economics collapsed. The second was a mental health app for young girls experiencing harassment on social media -- grant-funded, scrappy, and gaining real traction -- until a cross-country move, a young son, no childcare, and an eroded sense of self-worth made it impossible to continue. She never set up a single investor meeting. That one, she says, was the hardest to recover from. What she learned from both failures shaped her book, The Five Habits of Hope -- and a sharp distinction she draws between hope and resilience. Resilience, as she sees it, has been co-opted by a push-past-it culture that encourages people to power through without addressing root causes. Hope is different. It's a cognitive science with measurable predictors of success: more collaboration, better problem-solving, greater willingness to adapt. Hopeful teams outperform resilient ones -- and leaders who build emotionally safe environments are the reason people stay. Dr. Garcia also turns the tables mid-episode, walking host Mark Graban through a live coaching exercise on honesty, self-worth, and the feelings we suppress instead of process. It's one of the more candid moments the show has had.

Karen Martin joins Mark Graban for a wide-ranging Ask the Expert session, answering audience questions on organizational clarity, leadership behavior, value stream mapping, and continuous improvement.Topics and questions covered include:Why organizations adopt Lean tools but still lack clarity around priorities, roles, and decision rights -- and the first discipline leaders should adopt to fix itWhat to do when senior leadership has lost enthusiasm for the Lean journeyHow to prevent "automating waste" when AI and automation enthusiasm outpaces process stability -- and why "a process has to earn the right to be automated"Whether bloated management layers or frontline cuts are the real problem when economic pressure hitsHow to get leaders to recognize their job is to develop people and remove barriersHow to tell whether non-compliance with a mapped process points to a design flaw or an implementation failureCentralizing vs. distributing CI capabilities -- and why the CI team's real job is teaching, not doingWhy the X-Matrix confuses leaders and what Karen uses insteadThe first signs of operational excellence (or its absence) when walking a manufacturing floorHow to influence leadership when there's no top-down sponsorshipAdapting value stream mapping for variable, non-linear work environmentsWhat to do when an organization is too busy fighting fires to improveKeeping CI momentum through executive and frontline turnoverHow to avoid "gemba theater"What motivates Karen to keep going when teams are stuckKaren Martin is a two-time Shingo Award-winning author of Clarity First, The Outstanding Organization, Value Stream Mapping, and Metrics-Based Process Mapping. She is the founder of TKMG and TKMG Academy.Learn more about Karen's work: https://tkmg.comTKMG Academy: https://tkmgacademy.com

Karen Martin -- founder of TKMG Inc. and TKMG Academy, and author of "Clarity First" and "The Outstanding Organization" -- joins Mark Graban for a short preview of the upcoming KaiNexus Ask an Expert webinar on March 11th.In this conversation, Karen shares how she went from working in hospital laboratories as a microbiologist to building and running operations at a fast-growing HMO -- and eventually founding her own consulting and education business. She talks about what drew her away from Lean tools toward the bigger questions of culture, leadership, and organizational clarity, and why lack of clarity tends to generate more emotional friction in workplaces than people expect.The live webinar is March 11th at 1:00 PM Eastern. No slides -- just an hour of questions and answers on Lean, operational excellence, value stream thinking, leadership, and organizational design. Submit your questions in advance or ask them live.Register or find the recording

It's Episode 121 and Tracy and Elisabeth sit down with emergency physician–turned–start-up-founder Greg Jacobson and Lean author, podcaster, and KaiNexus Senior Advisor Mark Graban, to unpack whether software can actually strengthen a culture of continuous improvement—or merely reveal the one you already have. The KaiNexus journey started in healthcare but has grown to embrace its cross-industry impact by drawing on habit-loop science and the power of the nudge. As you might suspect, humans are at the center. This made for a fascinating "Hot-App Interview". Last up—inspired by the idea of getting assistance when we need it—our Q&A segment addresses the question: "What really gets in the way of asking for help?" And, in case you're watching the video, you'll notice Elisabeth has been reduced to a voice during the interview. That's because she was in the middle of the historic Cape Cod Blizzard of '26. The 2.5 feet of snow and 70 mph winds make this the blizzard edition! 0:00 - Intro 01:17 - What's on the Menu? 02:47 - Q&A What really gets in the way of asking for help? 11:20 - Featured Guest Greg Jacobson and Mark Graban 58:57 - Featured Resources NEW Second Edition: The Problem-Solver's Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide to Your Lean Six Sigma Journey Mind Over Matters: Engaging People to Drive Change with Tony Dottino NEW on Audible: Picture Yourself a Leader 5S Baby!, Ms. Fix-a-Lot's latest Lean Rap Video Thanks for Listening! Listen to more podcasts at JITCafe.com. Link to the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/cPAnE3pvrSI Apple Podcasts Podbean Spotify RSS Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/JITCafe/feed.xml

Baseball has always made room for human error. Umpires miss calls. Fans complain. Life goes on. But this season, MLB is rolling out the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system -- ABS -- giving teams two challenges per game to contest ball-and-strike calls. The idea is to reduce bad calls. The likely side effect is a whole new category of mistakes. In this "Mistake of the Week," Mark Graban looks at what happens when correcting human error depends on another human decision -- and what one anonymous coach predicted, vividly, about how this will play out.

In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Dr. Tyler B. Evans, infectious diseases and addiction medicine physician, public health leader, and author of Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics. Episode page with links, video, and more Dr. Evans shares a deeply personal “mistake” — giving up his dream of working in global health abroad to take what he thought was a conventional job in the United States. That decision led him to work with Native American communities in Wyoming, build refugee health programs in New York, and serve in leadership roles during the COVID-19 pandemic. What initially felt like a detour ultimately shaped his career and mission. The conversation explores the politicization of public health, the erosion of trust in expertise, and why solidarity among healthcare professionals may be essential to restoring confidence. Dr. Evans reflects on lessons from seatbelt laws, smoking reduction, and pandemic response — and why public health measures are fundamentally about protecting communities, not restricting individuals. They also discuss how scientific understanding evolves, how leaders can communicate uncertainty responsibly, and why learning — not blame — must guide how we respond to mistakes.

How many KPIs are too many — and how do leaders know which metrics actually matter? Episode page In Episode 7 of Lean Coffee Talk, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh explore how organizations overload themselves with metrics, why some “red” indicators fail to drive action, and how to evaluate whether KPIs are still relevant. They also discuss the role of change management in Lean transformations, why people don't resist change itself but fear things getting worse, and how engaging employees early leads to more sustainable improvement. Along the way, they connect lessons from Olympic controversies, construction megaprojects, coffee brewing methods, and even Starbucks stir sticks to core Lean ideas about customer value and “jobs to be done.” A thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about leadership, measurement, culture, and curiosity.

The blog postWhat if a book could become an interactive coach instead of a static reference?In this episode, Mark Graban shares a behind-the-scenes look at his experiment turning the award-winning book Lean Hospitals into an AI-powered chat assistant embedded directly on his website. What started as a Friday afternoon curiosity quickly evolved into a working WordPress plugin, a subscription model, and a new way to deliver improvement knowledge on demand.Mark walks through how non-developers can use AI tools to write functional software, what he learned comparing different AI coding assistants, and why the real breakthrough isn't the technology — it's the ability to access proven Lean thinking at the moment of need.He also explores the broader implications for leaders and organizations: Could AI assistants trained on your own standards and practices reinforce daily management, support problem solving at the gemba, and scale coaching without more training sessions?This episode is both a practical case study in rapid experimentation and a thoughtful discussion about the future of learning, leadership, and continuous improvement in the age of AI.Key themes include:Turning expertise into on-demand guidanceUsing AI to prototype software without coding experienceSubscription models for knowledge deliveryPoint-of-use support for leaders and frontline teamsWhy technology alone won't create a Lean culture — but can reinforce the right behaviorsIf you care about scaling improvement capability, preserving organizational knowledge, or simply experimenting with new ways to learn, this episode offers a candid look at what works, what broke, and what might come next.

In Episode 339 of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Genevieve Skory, executive coach and former Chief Field Development Officer, about a leadership mistake that many high performers make: confusing performance with alignment. Episode page with links, video, and more For years, Genevieve defined winning by revenue and results. Pressure was normal. Constant pivoting felt strategic. Intensity was rewarded. The numbers came in — but so did exhaustion, turnover, and a culture operating in fight-or-flight mode. In this conversation, we explore the hidden cost of performance-at-all-costs leadership, the neuroscience behind fear-driven decision-making, and why teams don't always tell leaders the truth when the environment feels unsafe. Genevieve shares what changed for her and how she now helps ambitious leaders build sustainable success without burnout. If you've ever sensed that strong results were masking deeper misalignment, this episode will resonate.

After winning gold at the Winter Olympics, skier Breezy Johnson did what champions do — she jumped for joy. And her medal fell off. She later joked, “Don't jump in them… I was jumping in excitement and it broke,” adding that it was “not, like, crazy broken. But, a little broken.” Other athletes experienced similar ribbon failures during their celebrations. In this episode of Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban looks at what happens when a system fails during the very moment it's designed to support — and why it's encouraging that Olympic officials acknowledged the problem instead of blaming the athletes. Because if your medal can't survive celebration… what exactly was it tested for? This episode explores: Designing for real human behavior (including joy) The importance of testing under realistic conditions Why admitting a flaw beats assigning blame What organizations can learn from a broken ribbon

The blog post In this audio version of the post, Mark Graban reflects on a rare kind of CEO message—one that treats safety not as a compliance checkbox or slogan, but as a core leadership responsibility and a living example of Respect for People.Drawing from the 2025 annual report and CEO letter from GE Aerospace and its leader Larry Culp, Mark explores what it means when safety truly comes first in SQDC—and how that ordering signals what leaders value most, especially under pressure.This episode looks at how safety is embedded into systems, structure, incentives, and daily management through GE's FLIGHT DECK operating system, rather than being isolated in a department or reduced to culture talk. You'll hear why safe systems surface problems, why speaking up must be protected (not just encouraged), and why safety is one of the strongest leading indicators of psychological safety and continuous improvement.For leaders working to build trust, learning, and real operational excellence, this is a practical example of what “Respect for People” looks like in action.

In this episode, Mark Graban reads and reflects on his LeanBlog.org post, “When a CEO Talks About the Work: Larry Culp, GE Aerospace, and Real Lean Leadership.”The post examines a rare example of a Fortune 50 CEO—Larry Culp of GE Aerospace—describing operational excellence not through slogans or dashboards, but through safety, trust, and small frontline improvements that compound into real results.This episode explores:What it looks like when a CEO truly understands the workWhy Respect for People shows up in system design, not values statementsHow safety, trust, and daily improvement drive performanceWhy Lean leadership is about behavior, not buzzwordsA practical and concrete example of Lean leadership in action—told through the words, stories, and operational details that CEOs rarely share this openly.

Most of us pull up to a gas pump on autopilot—until something goes wrong. In this Mistake of the Week, host Mark Graban looks at a real-world systems failure that affected hundreds of drivers across the Denver metro area. Due to an upstream error at a fuel terminal, diesel fuel was mistakenly delivered into the gasoline supply—leading to stalled cars, tow trucks, and costly repairs. Instead of rushing to blame or punishment, Colorado regulators emphasized learning, investigation, and prevention. That response matters—and it offers an important lesson about mistake-proofing, system design, and leadership. In this episode, Mark explores: Why focusing on who made the mistake misses the real problem How mistake-proofing works—and where it often fails Why downstream safeguards can't fix upstream system errors What leaders can learn from choosing curiosity over blame Mistakes like this are disruptive and expensive—but they also create an opportunity to improve systems so the same error doesn't happen again.

The blog postMany improvement efforts stall not because of poor strategy or missing Lean tools, but because people don't feel safe speaking up.In this Lean Blog Audio episode, Mark Graban explains why psychological safety is a foundational requirement for continuous improvement. Drawing from his book The Mistakes That Make Us and decades of experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries, Mark explores how fear, blame, and leader reactions silence learning — and how different leadership behaviors make improvement possible.The episode also previews themes from Mark's upcoming workshop at Shingo Connect 2026, including what psychological safety is (and is not), how it supports accountability rather than lowering standards, and why learning from mistakes depends on creating environments where people can speak honestly without fear.

What happens when you know your value—but say a lower number anyway? In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban is joined by Amy Rasdal, founder of Billable at the Beach and author of Land a Consulting Project Now. Amy shares her favorite mistake from the early days of consulting: undercharging for her work because of fear, even when she knew she was worth more. Amy explains how that moment became a “gateway mistake,” leading her to better understand pricing, confidence, and the hidden beliefs that hold many accomplished professionals back. The conversation explores why undercharging is so common, how fear shows up in pricing conversations, and why selling out your time at a discount can quietly limit long-term success. This episode is especially relevant for consultants, freelancers, and professionals considering a move from corporate life into independent work.

The blog post When Ford and UAW leaders traveled to Japan in 1981, they expected to find better machines, tighter processes, and technical secrets. What they found instead was something far more powerful: a management system built on listening, trust, and respect for people.In this Lean Blog Audio episode, Mark Graban revisits the 1981 Ford–UAW study trip to Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda through the reflections of Don Ephlin, one of the UAW's most thoughtful leaders. The visitors didn't discover better workers or superior discipline — they discovered a system that expected people to think, speak up, and improve the work.From the meaning of the andon cord to the lessons that later shaped NUMMI, this episode explores why Lean was never really about tools — and why respect, listening, and psychological safety remain the foundation of sustainable improvement today.

A devastating hospital mistake in Glasgow was described by leaders as “human error,” even as they acknowledged that “very rigorous processes” were not followed. In this episode of The Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban examines why suspensions and discipline don't guarantee improvement — and how gaps between written procedures and real work create hidden risk. Punishment may feel like accountability, but without fixing the system, the same harm remains possible.

John Rizzo joins Mark Graban to discuss why sustainable improvement depends on empowering people — not command-and-control leadership or short-term value extraction. Links and more:  John is a senior executive, investor, and change leader who has led transformational improvement efforts across manufacturing, healthcare, retail, services, and nonprofit organizations. He is the author of Creating Value: Empowering People for Sustainable Success, a book that deliberately avoids Lean jargon while describing a holistic continuous improvement business system rooted in humility, listening, and people development. In this episode, John shares lessons from Wiremold, private equity–backed companies, and healthcare organizations, including the powerful “six-inch move” story that shows how small acts of listening can unlock trust and transformation. The conversation explores what real empowerment means (and what it does not), why leaders must shift from firefighting to developing problem solvers, and how organizations can create lasting value for employees, customers, and owners. This episode is especially relevant for CEOs, executives, managers, and internal change agents looking to improve results without burning out their people or relying on command-and-control leadership.

Dr. Melisa Buie brings a fascinating perspective to the challenge of failure, one forged through decades of building high-powered lasers and leading manufacturing transformations in the semiconductor industry. With a PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Plasma Physics from the University of Michigan and over 15 years at Coherent, Inc., Melisa has spent her career solving complex technical problems. But it was a personal struggle that led to her latest book, "Faceplant: FREE Yourself from Failure's Funk," co-authored with Keely Hurley. Melisa shared a compelling story that became the catalyst for her book. Despite being completely comfortable with failure in the laboratory, where experiments routinely don't work, and models need constant refinement, she discovered she was terrified of failing in her personal life. When she took a Spanish class at Stanford and tried speaking her first sentence to a friend, the friend burst out laughing. Melisa's immediate reaction was to shut down completely. She realized she had developed a fixed mindset about failure outside the lab, and this contradiction troubled her deeply. She spent years reading everything she could about failure, learning, and growth, ultimately developing the framework that became "Faceplant." The book's title came from Melisa's co-author, Keely, who has a gift for turning her own missteps into hilarious stories. For Keely, every failure was just another face plant to laugh about, and the metaphor stuck immediately. The subtitle's use of "FREE" isn't just clever wordplay; it's an acronym for a practical framework: Focus, Reflect, Explore, Engage. Melisa explained that the framework grew organically from her lean manufacturing background, particularly the principle of Hansei, which emphasizes self-reflection followed by self-improvement. The first two steps help clarify what actually happened and understand your role in it, while the final two steps push you toward curiosity and experimentation. When asked about organizational barriers to learning from failure, Melisa highlighted the critical importance of psychological safety, pointing to the work of Amy Edmondson and Mark Graban. She noted that leaders often unintentionally shut down learning through their behaviors, even when they genuinely believe they support it. Melisa offered concrete examples to watch for: Is it easier to get approval for a half-million-dollar piece of equipment than to run a five-thousand-dollar experiment? If equipment purchases are immediate but experiment proposals sit unopened for weeks, that reveals the organization's true priorities. She also pointed to meeting dynamics when brainstorming sessions fall silent except for one voice, or when only a single idea emerges, and everyone rallies around it without discussion, those are warning signs. Perhaps most striking was Melisa's deliberate choice to use the word "failure" throughout her book, rather than softer alternatives like "learning opportunity" or "mistake." She explained that failure makes us deeply uncomfortable, and she didn't want to step over that discomfort. When one friend admitted to only failing once in life, Melisa felt sad for them, because without taking risks and chances, we miss the rich opportunities that failure provides. She acknowledged the irony: in the lab, ten failed experiments in a design of experiments might be considered a beautiful success because of what was learned. But she wanted to be honest about calling things what they are, pushing past the positive platitudes about failure to actually embrace it. Learn more about Melisa and her work at www.melisabuie.com and www.faceplantbook.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Read the blog postOperational Excellence rarely fails because of a lack of ideas. More often, it breaks down when strategy, daily work, and improvement efforts operate in silos.In this episode, Mark Graban explores what it really means to take a unified approach to OpEx—one that connects strategy deployment, process discipline, employee-driven improvement, and leader-led initiatives into a single, coherent system.You'll hear how organizations move beyond disconnected spreadsheets, emails, and project tools to create visibility, alignment, and learning across all levels of the organization. Mark also discusses how platforms like KaiNexus support this work—not by replacing leadership or Lean thinking, but by strengthening the management system that makes continuous improvement sustainable.This conversation is especially relevant for leaders trying to:Bring strategy to life at the frontlineBalance top-down direction with bottom-up improvementCreate visibility without micromanagementTurn Operational Excellence into how the business actually runs

What does a failed bank robbery have to do with one of the most cited ideas in psychology? More than you might expect. In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban tells the true story of McArthur Wheeler, a man who believed that rubbing lemon juice on his face would make him invisible to security cameras. Confident in his reasoning—and even more confident in his ability to test it—Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight, fully exposed, certain that his citrus-based logic would protect him. It didn't. When police later showed him clear surveillance photos, Wheeler's stunned response became legendary: “But I wore the juice.” That moment caught the attention of psychologist David Dunning, who saw in Wheeler's mistake something deeper than criminal incompetence. Along with Justin Kruger, Dunning went on to study how people with low skill often lack the awareness to recognize their own limitations—research that became known as the Dunning–Kruger Effect. This episode explores the layered nature of mistakes: flawed assumptions, poorly designed tests, and the dangerous certainty that both are correct. It's not a story about stupidity. It's a story about human blind spots—and how easily confidence can outrun competence. Whether in leadership, work, or everyday life, the lesson is universal: it's not enough to test our ideas. We also have to test how we test them. Because some of the most convincing mistakes are the ones that feel like proof.

Episode page with links, video, and more In this episode, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh respond to listener questions about system design, leadership behavior, and navigating misguided Lean requirements. They explore why some systems—like college football playoffs or improvement quotas—fail to deliver their intended results, and what leaders can do instead. Topics include cultivating psychological safety in higher education, getting Lean started when the broader organization isn't supportive, and how to redirect “check-the-box” improvement mandates into something more meaningful. Along the way, they also cover fresh coffee beans, local roasters, AI-generated music playlists, and a low-key holiday performance by Brandi Carlile—because culture matters too.

In this week's Mistake of the Week, a company's HR team accidentally sent a mass termination email to the entire workforce — including the CEO. The culprit was an offboarding automation tool left in the wrong mode, turning a routine test into a company-wide panic. Mark Graban explores what this moment teaches about automation, human fallibility, and the danger of relying on memory in systems that affect people's livelihoods. Instead of asking, “Who pressed the wrong button?”, the real question is, “Why was this mistake even possible?” A funny story now, but a real lesson in error-proofing or the lack thereof. Because even when no one's actually fired, the fear can linger long after the email is retracted.

The blog postHow should organizations think about using AI in Kaizen and continuous improvement? In this AudioBlog, Mark Graban argues that there are no clear answers yet—and that uncertainty is exactly why AI should be approached through small, disciplined PDSA cycles rather than big bets or hype-driven rollouts.Instead of treating AI as an expert or decision-maker, Mark frames it as a thought partner—a tool that can support brainstorming, reflection, coaching feedback, and clearer documentation. Used this way, AI becomes another input into the learning process, not a replacement for judgment, gemba observation, or human relationships.The episode emphasizes what AI can't do—build trust, observe real work, or validate improvement—and why those limitations reinforce the need for small tests of change. When AI is used with curiosity, restraint, and real-world validation, it can support learning without undermining the purpose of Kaizen itself.The takeaway: treat AI like any other countermeasure. Start small. Learn quickly. Keep humans firmly in charge of thinking and improvement.

What if operational excellence depends less on doing more with less—and more on how leaders create meaning, optimism, and relationships at work? Episode page with video, transcript, and more In this episode, Mark Graban is joined by Kathy Miller, senior operations executive, leadership coach, and author of More Is Better: Leading Operations with Meaning, Optimism, and Relationships for Excellence. Drawing on decades of experience in manufacturing and aerospace, along with research from positive psychology, Kathy explains how leadership behavior directly shapes safety, quality, engagement, and performance. The conversation explores why “soft skills” are not soft at all, how leaders can practice realistic optimism without ignoring real problems, and how everyday interactions either build psychological safety or quietly undermine it. Kathy also shares practical insights for leading under pressure, balancing compassion with accountability, and helping people find meaning even in highly segmented operational work. This episode is especially relevant for leaders in manufacturing, healthcare, and operations who want sustainable results without burnout, fear, or disengagement.

the blog postWhy do Lean practices like pull systems and heijunka fail to take hold in so many organizations? In this AudioBlog, Mark Graban argues that the problem isn't the tools—it's how Lean is applied. Too often, organizations cherry-pick visible practices like 5S, huddles, or kaizen events while avoiding the harder work of adopting Lean as a complete management system.This episode explores why foundational elements such as leveling, pull, and continuous improvement only work when supported by long-term thinking, aligned leadership behaviors, and psychological safety. Mark explains how these methods surface uncomfortable truths about variation, instability, and decision-making—and why organizations that lack a learning culture tend to avoid them. Drawing on Toyota Way principles, he makes the case that Lean fails when it's treated as a toolkit for short-term results instead of a system designed for sustained learning and improvement.If Lean hasn't delivered the results you expected, this episode invites a more fundamental question: are you practicing Lean as a system—or just using the parts that feel convenient?

In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Jason Sherman, an entrepreneur, startup advisor, and educator, about the early startup mistakes that quietly shape everything that follows. Episode page with transcript, video, and more Jason shares hard-earned lessons about choosing co-founders, distinguishing “smart money” from money alone, and why MVPs should accelerate learning rather than encourage overbuilding. The conversation explores judgment, incentives, and alignment through a Lean lens — showing how optimism, unchecked assumptions, and unclear decision rights can undermine even strong ideas. This episode is especially relevant for founders, leaders, and anyone working under uncertainty who wants to turn mistakes into insight instead of regret.

Why do New Year's resolutions fail so predictably—and what does that teach us about change at work? In this Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban explores why treating change as a test of willpower is a reliable setup for frustration, both personally and in organizations. Drawing on behavioral psychology and leadership examples, the episode connects failed personal resolutions to common organizational mistakes: big announcements, ambitious targets, and too little attention to system design and psychological safety. The takeaway is practical and actionable: instead of trying to boost motivation or eliminate human error, leaders should focus on making the right choices easier and the wrong ones harder—starting small, iterating, and learning forward instead of blaming backward.

Nick Saban calls it “the dumbest decision I ever made” — a fourth-and-one call from the 2001 SEC Championship Game that still sticks with him. In this episode, Mark Graban breaks down why even the greatest coaches make mistakes, what Saban learned from the moment, and how leaders can turn high-pressure missteps into opportunities for trust and growth. Perfect for listeners interested in leadership, football, coaching, and the psychology of mistakes.

In Episode #332 of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Dr. Josh McConkey — emergency physician, Air Force Reserve Commander, combat-deployed medevac leader, and Pulitzer Prize–nominated author. Known as the “MacGyver Doc,” Josh has spent his career solving problems in high-pressure environments where you rarely get a second chance. Episode page with links, video, transcript, and more Josh shares the most painful mistake of his professional life: entering a business partnership without doing the proper due diligence. What followed was a cascade of red flags — Medicare violations, skimming, financial misconduct, and even a $3.4 million bribe offer he refused. The ordeal ultimately cost him nearly $5 million and forced him to rebuild his career and life with integrity front and center. In our discussion, Josh explains how this experience reshaped his understanding of leadership, accountability, and courage — especially in systems where incentives can push good people toward dangerous choices. He also reflects on two decades in emergency medicine, including the structural failures that helped fuel the opioid crisis and the pressures physicians faced to prescribe narcotics. Josh shares why he wrote Be the Weight Behind the Spear and his new children's leadership book The Heart of a Leader, and why he believes character development must start far earlier than most of us realize. We close with his decision to run for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina in 2028 — a move grounded in service, accountability, and a desire to strengthen public leadership. This episode explores integrity, systemic failure, resilience, and the lessons we carry forward after a mistake that changes everything.

A 32-year-old woman in Switzerland underwent an unnecessary surgery after her lab sample was mixed up at Basel University Hospital. Doctors believed she had cervical cancer. She didn't — but the procedure went ahead anyway, potentially affecting her ability to carry a pregnancy in the future. In this Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban unpacks how such devastating but preventable errors happen — and why “being careful” isn't a real safeguard. Drawing on past lab mix-ups he's written about, Mark explores how system design, workload pressure, and weak error-proofing make these tragedies almost inevitable. This isn't about bad people or careless workers. It's about fragile systems — and how hospitals can build processes that catch mistakes before they reach the patient. Because real safety starts with learning, not blaming.

In this Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban breaks down an incident involving an American Airlines A319 on final approach to Phoenix — captured on video with its landing gear still up. A cockpit alert sounded, the crew realized what was missing, and the pilots executed a safe go-around. Their explanation to air traffic control? A perfectly understated: “It wasn't configured in the appropriate manner.” Mark explores why these near-misses are less about individual oversight and more about systems built to detect — and correct — human error. From checklists to cockpit warnings to the decision to go around instead of pushing forward, this episode highlights why safety depends on catching mistakes early, not pretending they don't happen.  

In this preview episode, Mark Graban talks with Sandro Casagrande of Electrolux about the upcoming KaiNexus webinar: “Unlock the Power of Leadership: The Electrolux Manufacturing System (EMS) Way.”Register for the full webinar (Dec 10, 1 pm ET):https://info.kainexus.com/unlock-the-power-of-leadership-the-electrolux-management-system-ems-way/webinarSandro shares insights from more than 30 years at Electrolux, including:• How continuous improvement started with Total Quality Management in Italy• The evolution of EMS from early pilots to a global system• Why strong leadership behavior—not just tools and training—determines sustainability• Lessons learned from uneven progress across sites• How EMS Way reframed the company's strategy to focus on culture, people development, and leader capabilityIf you're interested in Lean, leadership, cultural transformation, or sustaining improvement across a global enterprise, this discussion sets the stage for a powerful webinar.Learn more about KaiNexus webinars: https://www.kainexus.com/webinars

In this edition of Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban tells a story that didn't appear in any safety report or headline — it happened on a pickleball court. Early in learning the sport, Mark found his old tennis instincts taking over, leading to a very incorrect serve and a moment of embarrassment. What followed was a small but meaningful lesson in feedback, psychological safety, and the challenge of unlearning deeply wired habits. Supportive coaching, timely correction, and a friendly playing environment turned an awkward mistake into a productive one. Mark reflects on why unlearning is often harder than learning, and how leaders can create conditions where people feel safe enough to improve.

In this week's Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban tells the story of a Maine hospital system that accidentally mailed condolence letters to 531 very-much-alive patients. The cause? A computer glitch — and a few missing fail-safes. Mark explores what this bizarre mix-up reveals about system design, automation, and trust in healthcare. Beyond the absurd headline lies a familiar pattern: when we blame people instead of learning from process failures, we guarantee more mistakes. So what does “fully resolved” really mean? And what can leaders learn from a mistake that's literally to die for? If you received this episode through your podcast app and not a séance, you're doing fine.  

My guest for Episode #538 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Nelson Repenning, Faculty Director of the MIT Leadership Center and co-creator of Dynamic Work Design. Episode page with video, transcript, and more Nelson describes himself as an "organizational engineer," helping leaders redesign the routines and decisions that determine how work really gets done. He joins host Mark Graban to discuss his new book, There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Eliminate the Chaos of Modern Work, co-authored with Donald Kieffer. In this conversation, Nelson shares insights drawn from his decades of experience studying system dynamics, Lean thinking, and organizational learning. He explains how leaders often fall into the "capability trap" -- spending their days firefighting immediate issues instead of improving the underlying system. From the arms race of hospital alarms to the collapse of fast-growing companies, he connects examples from healthcare, manufacturing, and technology to show why even good intentions can create destructive feedback loops if we don't understand the system. Mark and Nelson also explore how Dynamic Work Design translates Lean principles like flow, visualization, and problem-solving into knowledge work. They discuss the five core principles -- including "Structure for Discovery" and "Connect the Human Chain" -- that help organizations make work visible, surface problems early, and evolve systems continuously. Listeners will learn how to move from firefighting to focus, and from chaos to sustainable improvement. Questions, Notes, and Highlights: How did you first get involved in the field of system dynamics at MIT? For those unfamiliar, what exactly is system dynamics -- and how does it apply to management and organizations? Why hasn't system dynamics had the impact on practice that it deserves? What lessons can we learn from the classic examples you've taught, like the Mississippi River levee arms race or the "People Express" airline simulation? How do those feedback loops and unintended consequences show up in today's industries, like healthcare or tech? What led you and Donald Kieffer to write There's Got to Be a Better Way? What core problems were you trying to address? Can you explain the "capability trap" and how firefighting keeps organizations from improving? Why is it so hard for people to commit to prevention and long-term improvement when firefighting feels more rewarding? How does Dynamic Work Design help leaders "structure for discovery" and surface problems earlier? What role does psychological safety play in making it safe to raise problems? How do you define "Dynamic Work Design," and what makes it different from traditional management systems? Why is it important for leaders to "go see the work" firsthand? Can you walk us through the five principles of Dynamic Work Design -- and how they connect to Lean? What does "Connect the Human Chain" mean, and why do so many organizations get communication wrong? Can you share an example where these principles led to measurable improvement -- such as the hospital case you mentioned? What can leaders learn from Toyota and other high-reliability organizations about making improvement continuous rather than episodic? How do leaders shift from reactive, one-off change programs to daily, ongoing learning? What message do you hope managers take away from There's Got to Be a Better Way? This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

In this special bonus episode of Lean Blog Interviews, Mark Graban is joined by C.J. Kaufman, Education Chair for the ASQ Cincinnati Section, to preview the ASQ Southwest Ohio 2025 Conference, themed “Excellence Through Quality.” Episode page with transcript, video, and more Taking place Saturday, November 8, 2025, in Mason, Ohio, the event brings together quality professionals from the Cincinnati and Dayton regions for a half-day of engaging speakers, practical insights, and networking — plus an optional afternoon workshop with Mark. C.J. shares how the conference was designed collaboratively by the Cincinnati and Dayton ASQ Sections, what attendees can expect, and why psychological safety is a cornerstone topic for today's quality and Lean leaders. Highlights Event Overview: ASQ Southwest Ohio 2025 — a collaboration between Cincinnati and Dayton sections. Theme: Excellence Through Quality — exploring leadership, teamwork, and continuous improvement. Keynote: Mark Graban on Psychological Safety, Quality, and Continuous Improvement. Featured Speakers Include: Deb Coviello — Leading Quality Susan Marshall — FDA Perspectives on ROI in Quality Management Colleen Soppelsa — Group Intelligence in Problem-Solving Optional Workshop: Hands-on Lean learning with Mark Graban in the afternoon session. Why It Matters: Quality and continuous improvement thrive when organizations foster safety, trust, and engagement. Quotable Moments “Psychological safety is essential for positive change — without it, continuous improvement can't sustain.” — Mark Graban “We want people to leave with practical things they can use Monday morning.” — C.J. Kaufman “Excellence through quality isn't just a theme — it's how we build better systems and better workplaces.” — Mark Graban Event Details Location: Mason, Ohio Date: Saturday, November 8, 2025 Time: 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (Workshop to follow) Includes: Breakfast + Lunch More Info & Registration -- ASQ Cincinnati Section Website Related Links Mark Graban – Psychological Safety Resources Lean Blog Interviews Archive

In this special “Ask Us Anything” episode, Mark Graban and KaiNexus CEO Greg Jacobson answer listener-submitted questions and share candid thoughts on:

In this short bonus episode, I'm joined by my friend and Lean Coffee Talk co-host, Jamie Flinchbaugh. We're inviting you — our listeners and fellow continuous-improvement thinkers — to help shape upcoming conversations. We'd love to hear your questions about Lean, leadership, culture, and problem-solving. The best discussions often start with the toughest questions — the ones without neat answers. If you have something you've been wrestling with or want to hear us unpack together, please share it with us at: