Webinars

Why Lean Fails Without Psychological Safety

Why Lean Fails Without Psychological Safety

ByMark Graban Blog,Webinars April 16, 2025
TL;DR: Lean tools don't fail because people resist change–they fail because people don't feel…
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‘Bowling Charts' Are Not State-of-the-Art Management

‘Bowling Charts' Are Not State-of-the-Art Management

ByMark Graban Blog,Webinars September 7, 2023
tl;dr: Bowling charts encourage red-green reactions that hide real trends. Process Behavior Charts…
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Videos

john toussaint collaborative care fox video

ThedaCare's Collaborative Care, Captured on a 2009 Video

June 17, 2026 354
Back in 2009, I pointed an early iPhone at my TV and recorded a Fox News segment about ThedaCare's…
mark graban elisabeth swan linkedin live

Mistakes and Leadership Lessons: Still Learning, Three Years Later

May 8, 2026 743
Three years ago, The Mistakes That Make Us came out. Around the same time, Elisabeth Swan published…
Yellow diamond warning sign on a pole showing a cyclist flying over handlebars after hitting streetcar tracks, along the Ohio River in Cincinnati

Warning: Signs! Mistake-Proofing Is More Effective Than Warnings

April 20, 2026 563
At the 2024 KaiNexicon (the KaiNexus user conference), I gave a talk called “Warning: Signs!…
Illustration of a laptop on a desk showing an AI coaching chat interface with a question from the user and a follow-up coaching response ending with a reflective question, representing the Lean Hospitals Coach tool

Watch the Lean Hospitals Coach in Action — Live, Unscripted, With Your Questions

March 4, 2026 597
Here's something I've learned over many years of consulting: giving people advice they haven't asked…

Mark's YouTube Channel

Publishing strategist Wiebke Tasch reviews manuscripts for a living. She says she can tell within a few pages when a book was written by ChatGPT: paragraphs disappear, replaced by short, choppy sentences formatted like a social media post. It reads fast and looks flat, and readers notice. Her point isn't that AI has no place in writing. It's that overuse flattens voice, and voice is the thing readers are actually there for. Full episode - "Why Amazon Deleted Her Bestselling Book Overnight - with Wiebke Tasch": https://youtu.be/i2_wYH7rbTM #MyFavoriteMistake #AIWriting #ChatGPT #SelfPublishing #AuthorTips
The AI Writing Pattern Editors Spot Immediately
A consultant tells an office to tape outlines around hammers, monitors, and coffee cups because "the best factories do this." No one asks whether any of it fits the work actually being done. This clip is a satire of what happens when 5S gets applied as a checklist instead of a way of thinking. Real 5S starts with understanding the work and removing friction for the people doing it -- not mandating tape and pen limits because a consultant said so. Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/t8IfQp4A4ZI If you've ever sat through a "Lean program" that felt more like theater than improvement, this one's for you. #Lean #5S #ContinuousImprovement #LeanManagement #WorkplaceCulture
This Office 5S Program Is INSANE (Lean Gone Wrong)
Publishing strategist Wiebke Tasch reviews manuscripts for a living, and she says AI-written chapters give themselves away fast. Same sentence structure. Same "it's not this, it's that" construction, over and over. Once you've seen it a few times, you can't unsee it. Her advice for authors: use ChatGPT for proofreading and unsticking, not for writing your book. Readers notice sameness, and it costs you the one thing AI can't replace, your own voice. Watch the full episode - "Why Amazon Deleted Her Bestselling Book Overnight - with Wiebke Tasch": https://youtu.be/i2_wYH7rbTM #MyFavoriteMistake #AIWriting #ChatGPT #SelfPublishing #AuthorTips #BookWriting
ChatGPT's Writing Style Problem: Why Editors Can Spot It Instantly
The biggest mistake authors make isn't in the writing. It's finishing the book, publishing it, and telling no one. Publishing strategist Wiebke Tasch explains why the first five days after launch function as a blueprint for a book's entire future on Amazon. The algorithm tracks how much traffic you drive in that window, then uses it to decide whether your book gets suggested to readers in your niche going forward, or quietly disappears. Watch the full episode - "Why Amazon Deleted Her Bestselling Book Overnight - with Wiebke Tasch": https://youtu.be/i2_wYH7rbTM#MyFavoriteMistake #BookMarketing #AmazonKDP #SelfPublishing #AuthorTips #BookLaunch
The Biggest Book Marketing Mistake: Publishing, Then Going Silent
Publishing strategist Wiebke Tasch had built a bestselling book and a comfortable full-time income on Amazon -- enough to quit her PR job. Then one morning an automated email told her she had violated Amazon's terms, and both of her accounts and all of her books were deleted. No warning, no explanation, no human to appeal to. Her mistake: she had opened two accounts, one for a pen name and one under her real name, not knowing Amazon allows only one per person. This is Wiebke's favorite mistake, and losing everything became the start of her company, Digital Authors. Episode page with links and more: http://markgraban.com/mistake356 What you'll learn: 🔵 How an innocent rule violation can erase a book and an income overnight 🔵 Why you should never build your livelihood on a platform you don't control 🔵 How to bring readers into your own community instead of renting an audience 🔵 Why book structure should start with market demand, not your own wish list 🔵 Why the first five days after launch shape an Amazon book's entire future 🔵 Where AI genuinely helps an author, and where over-reliance produces forgettable books About the guest: Wiebke Tasch is a publishing strategist and the founder of Digital Authors, a US-based firm that helps nonfiction authors across the US and Europe publish professional, market-ready books. Her work spans market analysis, positioning, structure, editing, cover design, and launch marketing, with an emphasis on building a direct relationship between authors and their readers. She holds a master's degree from the Bauhaus University in Germany. Digital Authors: https://digital-authors.com Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Wiebke Tasch and Digital Authors 01:06 Wiebke's favorite mistake: two Amazon accounts 04:12 The email from Amazon 09:35 Why you can't build a business on a platform you don't control 20:50 Has Amazon's customer service improved? 26:09 Where AI helps authors and where it hurts 32:30 Book structure as a strategic decision 34:44 Marketing a book: start before you publish 38:45 The book description and keywords Subscribe for more honest conversations about leadership, mistakes, and what it really takes to learn from them. New episodes of My Favorite Mistake every week. #SelfPublishing #BookMarketing #WritingCommunity #Authors #AmazonKDP #NonfictionBooks
Amazon Deleted Her Bestseller Overnight | Wiebke Tasch
Andre DeMerchant showed up to one of his first Toyota manufacturing meetings without a problem to report -- and quickly learned that was the problem. In this clip from Episode 547 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast, Andre contrasts two kinds of meetings. In his previous industry, everyone reported green while the operation ran in chaos. At Toyota, every leader brought a problem, because "no problems is a problem." Showing up without one meant you didn't understand your own operation. What makes the story work is what happened next. Andre wasn't blamed or shamed. The miss was treated as a development opportunity, a chance to learn from his peers what to bring next time. That reaction is the precondition that makes a problem-surfacing culture function. Watch or listen to the full episode: https://youtu.be/MbA96zgnZFs Thomas Cox and Andre's A3 on why Lean implementations struggle is a free download at https://txl-lab.com/lean. Subscribe for more on Lean leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement. Host: Mark Graban, author of The Mistakes That Make Us, Measures of Success, and Lean Hospitals.
Showing Up to a Toyota Meeting Without a Problem | Andre DeMerchant
At Toyota, every manager was expected to bring a problem to the meeting. Andre DeMerchant learned that the hard way when he showed up without one and found out that "no problems" was the actual problem. In this clip from Episode 547 of Lean Blog Interviews, former Toyota manufacturing manager Andre DeMerchant describes what happened next. He wasn't blamed, shamed, or criticized. He was coached. The miss was treated as a development opportunity, with an open invitation to ask questions of anyone in the room, including the executive vice president. That response is the heart of "no problems is a problem," and a living example of the psychological safety that real continuous improvement depends on. Host Mark Graban talks with Andre DeMerchant and Thomas Cox about why Lean implementations so often fail to stick, and why psychological safety has to exist before any Lean rollout begins. Watch or listen to the full episode: https://leanblog.org/547 #Toyota #Lean #PsychologicalSafety #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #Kaizen #LeanManufacturing #Shorts
At Toyota, Having No Problems Was the Problem
Here's the YouTube description. The first two sentences carry the keyword and hook before the "Show more" cutoff. Why do so many Lean implementations struggle or fail to stick? Thomas Cox and Andre DeMerchant join Mark Graban to argue that psychological safety is a precondition Lean can't create on its own, using Chris Argyris's Model 1 vs Model 2 framework. Lean asks people to surface problems, admit mistakes, and stop the line without fear. That only works if psychological safety already exists before the rollout begins. Under pressure, most leaders default to Model 1 behavior (controlling, self-protective, blame-oriented, closed off), which is the opposite of what Lean needs. Thomas Cox is a management bench builder, co-founder of the Transformative Leadership Lab, and a certified Harada Method coach trainer. Andre DeMerchant is president of DeMerchant Healthcare Solutions and a former Toyota team member who started as a forklift driver and rose to manufacturing manager. 🔵 Andre's contrast: meat-packing meetings where no problems was the goal vs. Toyota meetings where showing up without a problem marked you as not understanding the work 🔵 Alan Mulally banning sarcasm at Ford, and Mark Fields reporting red and getting applause instead of fired 🔵 The carrot-and-stick fallacy and McGregor's Theory X vs Theory Y 🔵 Whether consultants succeed because of method or because they cherry-pick Model 2 clients 🔵 The published A3 as a living document and a C-suite assessment tool Episode page with links and more https://www.leanblog.org/547 00:00 Introduction and the problem: why Lean doesn't stick 02:25 Andre's origin story: from meat-packing chaos to Toyota 05:08 The moment Lean got real (showing up to a meeting without a problem) 10:42 Thomas's origin story and the ethical PIP 14:43 If we can't blame the frontline worker, why blame management? 17:48 Framing the A3 and the problem statement 19:30 Argyris Model 1 vs Model 2 24:28 Mulally at Ford: banning sarcasm and applauding "red" 27:44 Carrots, sticks, and why behavior actually changes 31:36 Root cause analysis: why Lean fails 36:29 Countermeasures: getting executives into Model 2 42:24 Consultants, cherry-picking, and converting Model 1 organizations 49:33 Get the A3 and the C-suite assessment 51:58 Closing reflections Subscribe for more conversations on Lean, leadership, psychological safety, and continuous improvement, in healthcare and beyond. #Lean #PsychologicalSafety #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #LeanThinking #Kaizen #RespectForPeople #LeanManagement
The Missing Precondition for Lean: Psychological Safety at the Top | Lean Blog Interviews
Gary Peterson on why people at O.C. Tanner stayed quiet. Every time they offered an opinion, they got their head handed to them, so silence was the safer bet. Getting managers to coach instead of punish took a lot of work. Full conversation: https://youtu.be/zLAS3MTtYFk
When speaking up gets your head handed to you
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