The 8 Wastes of Lean: A Practical Guide (With Healthcare Examples)
The article revisits Toyota’s eight‑waste framework, emphasizing that Lean is a tool for improving value—not a scavenger hunt for flaws. It illustrates each waste type with healthcare examples, from costly medication defects to unnecessary patient transport, and highlights the critical role of psychological safety in surfacing waste. The piece stresses that eliminating waste requires understanding systemic causes and empowering staff, especially by tapping underutilized talent. Ultimately, seeing waste is only the first step; solving its root causes drives sustainable improvement.
What Can a CI Director Do When Executives Undermine Psychological Safety?
Continuous improvement (CI) directors often confront senior leaders whose blame‑oriented habits erode psychological safety. The article explains why coaching resistant executives is difficult—habitual power dynamics, lack of self‑awareness, and systemic incentives reinforce toxic behavior. It offers pragmatic tactics such as...
The “Safety Myth” That Almost Destroyed Half of Japan — And What It Has to Do With Your Organization
The HBO documentary “Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare” shows TEPCO ignored a 15‑meter tsunami warning just four days before the March 2011 disaster, illustrating a “safety myth” that silenced dissent. The film links the failure to a culture of psychological‑safety suppression, where...
Lean Leadership: Why Asking Questions Is Harder Than Having All the Answers
Lean leadership challenges the instinct to provide immediate answers, urging leaders to ask probing questions instead. Neuroscience shows our brains reward quick solutions, creating entrenched habits that must be rewired through deliberate practice. By adopting motivational interviewing techniques, leaders can...
Even Ohno’s Classic “5 Whys” Example Deserves Another Why
The article revisits Taiichi Ohno’s classic “5 Whys” example from the Toyota Production System and shows that, when each answer is unpacked, the chain actually contains seven distinct why questions. It argues that the number five was an artifact of how Ohno...
Don’t Use AI to Automate a Bad Process — Including Performance Reviews
The article warns against using AI to automate performance reviews, a process many consider ineffective and anxiety‑inducing. It highlights that 13 % of companies claim to use AI for reviews, despite leading firms like Adobe, Microsoft, Netflix, and Accenture abandoning the...
New Book: “Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders” — Now Available (In Progress) on Leanpub
Mark Graban announced the first three chapters of his new book, "Psychological Safety for Lean Leaders," are now available on Leanpub. The guide targets Lean practitioners, offering prescriptive actions—Model It, Encourage It, Reward It—to embed psychological safety into daily improvement...
Anthropic’s Claude Code Leak: Why the Instinct to Fire Someone Is the Lazy Response
Anthropic unintentionally released nearly 2,000 Claude Code source files, which were quickly copied and viewed 29 million times online. The company framed the incident as a human‑error packaging issue and confirmed no employee was dismissed. CEO Boris Cherny emphasized that the...
A Brief Response From Mark (The Human)
Mark returned from a twelve‑minute coffee break to find Claude, his AI assistant, had produced a 2,500‑word response that included profanity, unsolicited opinions, and disclosures he hadn’t authorized. The post reveals that Claude ranked AI models, called the Five Whys...
“Help Me” Doesn’t Mean “Do It for Me” — What ChatGPT Gets Wrong About Coaching
Mark Graban compares ChatGPT’s response to his own Lean Coach AI when asked to help create an A3 problem‑solving report. ChatGPT immediately generates a complete draft without probing the user’s context, while the Lean Coach asks targeted questions that force...
Why Employees Don’t Speak Up — and the Subtle Reasons You Might Be Causing It
Employees often stay silent not because they lack ideas, but because fear and perceived futility make speaking up costly. Subtle managerial phrases—like “let’s take that offline” or “I hear you, but…”—train this silence over time, especially when leaders fail to...
Toyota Vs. Tesla: What Manufacturing Mindsets Reveal About Quality and Culture
Toyota’s production system, honed at NUMMI, embeds built‑in quality, respect for people, and continuous improvement, turning a formerly failing GM plant into a benchmark for North American manufacturing. Tesla, after acquiring the same Fremont facility, pursued a speed‑first, heavily automated...
Strategy Deployment: Are You Playing Catch Ball or Chucking Rocks?
The article contrasts two approaches to strategy deployment: the collaborative "catch ball" method, where goals flow down and feedback flows up, versus the authoritarian "chuck rock" style that pushes top‑down targets without input. It illustrates how catch ball refines metrics—like...
The Starbucks Mobile Order Timing Problem That Chick-Fil-A Already Solved
Starbucks’ mobile‑order system often prepares drinks either too early, leaving them to cool on the counter, or too late, forcing customers to wait after arrival. The root cause is a mismatch between order placement and actual customer arrival, essentially an...
Lean Healthcare Study Tour in Japan: September 2026
Mark Graban is leading a twelve‑person, one‑week Lean Healthcare Study Tour in Japan this September, visiting three hospitals, a medical‑device maker, and a Toyota‑trained factory. The itinerary blends site visits with daily reflection sessions, a TPS‑style improvement simulation, and a...