Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement
Mark Graban
Lean Blog Audio is a short-form podcast featuring audio versions of articles from LeanBlog.org, written, read, and expanded by Mark Graban.
Each episode explores practical Lean thinking, psychological safety, continuous improvement, and leadership—through real-world examples from healthcare, manufacturing, startups, and other complex work environments.
Topics include learning from mistakes, reducing fear and blame, improving systems, and using data thoughtfully through tools like Process Behavior Charts. Episodes often go beyond the original blog post, adding fresh context and reflections.
Each episode explores practical Lean thinking, psychological safety, continuous improvement, and leadership—through real-world examples from healthcare, manufacturing, startups, and other complex work environments.
Topics include learning from mistakes, reducing fear and blame, improving systems, and using data thoughtfully through tools like Process Behavior Charts. Episodes often go beyond the original blog post, adding fresh context and reflections.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 28, 2015 • 6min
"Learning to be Lean"
http://leanblog.org/audio98
There's a really good article that was published by Modern Healthcare as a special report, written by Sabriya Rice. Sabriya spent a week observing a rapid improvement event (RIE) at the Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Illinois. It's an in depth article that, I think, very accurately reflects the reality that Lean is helpful, but the process isn't easy for a number of reasons.
Sep 24, 2015 • 4min
This Hospital CEO Was Never Going to Get Lean
I have many experiences in healthcare that I haven't blogged about. I try not to write posts that say, "Hey, you won't believe what happened yesterday," for a number of reasons. But, sometimes, my memory gets jogged and a story comes back to me. That's what I'm sharing today as a Throwback Thursday.
Sep 23, 2015 • 9min
Better Change Leadership as a Countermeasure
Having a model like this helps prevent errors, such as jumping to implement Lean tools before the organization understands WHY change is necessary. You have to engage and enroll people in change, not just force things on them.I am convinced that the ExperienceChange simulations, either Lakeview or GlobalTech, are a great way to learn and practice.
http://leanblog.org/audio96
Sep 21, 2015 • 7min
5S: The Good, the Bad, and the Extreme in Japanese Hospitals
My two previous trips to Japan have been incredible experiences, both personally and professionally. I'm planning to go back in December with a tour group I'm helping organize with Kaizen Institute. When people go to Japan, I think they are expecting to see perfect Lean practices. But, no...
Sep 17, 2015 • 8min
In Tribute to and in Memory of Dr. Michel Tétreault
I was very saddened earlier to receive an email from an employee of a great leader, Dr. Michel Tétreault, informing me that he had passed away. Michel was, since 2005, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg.
Sep 16, 2015 • 5min
Are Millennials the Only Ones Who Need to Understand Why?
And the idea of knowing why... again that's an old desire. It's not just a recent discovery of Simon Sinek and the outstanding book Start with Why (my friends at Gemba Academy have a podcast interview with him coming soon). Why are we doing something? Why are we starting this company? That's an old tale... are you breaking rocks or building a cathedral?
Sep 9, 2015 • 6min
Stuff I'm Reading Sept 2015: Urgency, Problems, and Lemmings
Visit http://www.leanblog.org/audio92 for more info on this post and http://www.leanblog.org/audio for information about how to subscribe through iTunes and other places.
Sep 3, 2015 • 8min
Football, Holistic Systems, and Challenging the
Today, I discuss two articles: The first article is: "The NFL's Best Practice: No Wasted Time." "If You Can't Hire Urban Meyer, Can You Clone Him?"
http://leanblog.org/audio91
Aug 31, 2015 • 11min
Another Conversation About L.A.M.E. and Lean
http://leanblog.org/audio90
It's far too common to see somebody with just a little bit of understanding about Lean do things that really shouldn't be described as Lean at all... in terms of the decisions they are making or the approaches they are taking.I saw an article about Lean in physician practices: "Lean Practice Management for Physicians." I cringed a bit when the author said:
"In lean management programs, there are levels of belts based upon the colors found in karate: white, yellow, green, black, and levels of black."
No. That's an example of "Lean As Mistakenly Explained."
Aug 27, 2015 • 7min
Inc. Writes About Dr. Deming in 1987
I stumbled across an article from the Inc. magazine archives from 1987, so it's today's "Throwback Thursday."In 1987, I was starting high school and that was probably right about the time when my dad, an engineer for General Motors, was able to attend one of Deming's famed four-day seminars. Hearing about that was my first exposure to Deming or anything vaguely related to Lean thinking.
