Lean Blog Audio Mark Graban Podcasts

Blog post link

I'm excited that the Shingo Institute asked me to present a webinar on June 18th.

Click here to register for the webinar

They've also published an article that I wrote:

Psychological Safety: The Key to Effective Andon Cord Pulls and Continuous Improvement

The webinar description:

Join us for an engaging webinar as we explore the transformative power of cultivating a culture that learns from mistakes, ultimately driving continuous improvement and innovation, leading to greater success! Renowned author Mark Graban will draw upon examples from a diverse array of companies, including industry titans like Toyota and agile software startups such as KaiNexus.

During this session, participants will gain valuable insights into the experiences of CEOs and other leaders, regardless of company size, who have adeptly turned mistakes into opportunities for growth and advancement. While these leaders remain vigilant in error prevention, they recognize the profound value of embracing mistakes as pivotal learning moments, particularly within environments fostering psychological safety and robust problem-solving capabilities.

Through compelling narratives, attendees will discover lessons that both educate and inspire, recognizing that in the dynamic landscape of business, mistakes are inevitable — yet it is the process of learning from them that propels us forward!


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The Big Picture: In the Lean community and beyond, some people mistakenly equate “psychological safety” with being comfortable all the time. This misconception can undermine the true essence of psychological safety in the workplace.

Psychological safety is not about constant comfort or shielding managers from discomfort. Synthesizing a few definitions of psychological safety, I say it's a person's belief, feeling, or perception that it's safe enough to speak candidly about things including:


Mistakes
Problems
Ideas
Differing views

without fearing marginalization or punishment.

What Psychological Safety Really Means


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Blog post

I was talking recently with a trusted friend in the Lean community. He told me a story. It's certainly believable, even if it's second or third-hand to me.

He had no reason to make up a story like this.

A relative of his works in a U.S. factory. Yes, we still have factories here.

I'll call this relative of my friend “Guy,” which is pronounced the American way, not the French way.

Guy's factory would claim to use Lean methods and might even claim a “Toyota Production System” label as its inspiration.






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The blog post

IMAGE: A sign that reads "CAUTION: DON'T OPERATE ON THE WRONG SIDE"

It's silly, right? I've never seen a sign like this in an operating room. And I'm not advocating for them. It's not the right approach for quality and patient safety.

If warning signs actually prevented mistakes, and given that a vast majority of mistakes are caused by human factors (like fatigue) and systemic factors (like being behind schedule because instruments were delivered late to the O.R.)…1) A sign like this would be posted in every operating room

and2) Wrong-site, wrong-side, and wrong-patient surgeries would never occurBut, of course, it's not that simple.What works?Mistake-proofing works.






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The blog post

TODAY marks the centennial of one of the most significant innovations in quality management: the control chart. 🎂 🎉 🎆

In the early 1920s, Walter A. Shewhart, working at Bell Labs, recognized the need for a statistical method to monitor and control manufacturing processes.

On May 16, 1924, Shewhart created the first “control chart,” a tool that distinguished between common cause variation (inherent in the process) and special cause variation (due to specific, identifiable factors). This simple yet powerful distinction laid the foundation for modern statistical process control (SPC). Control charts were dubbed “Process Behavior Charts” by Donald J. Wheeler Ph.D.)

The latest and greatest of the control charts is the “XmR Chart” — as Wheeler wrote about in Understanding Variation and I wrote about in Measures of Success (a book that has a foreword written by Wheeler).




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The blog post

Research by Ethan Burris shows that the top two reasons employees choose to keep quiet in the workplace are:1️⃣ Futility2️⃣ FearFear of getting in trouble is a big problem. But there are also many workplaces where people say, quite literally, “I'm not afraid to speak up, it just isn't worth the effort.”That's the Futility Factor.Please answer this poll question via LinkedIn. And I'd love to hear your thoughts in a comment here on the blog post or LinkedIn. Please check out people's comments and stories that they shared on Linkedin.


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