Lean Blog Interviews - Healthcare, Manufacturing, Business, and Leadership
Mark Graban
Since 2006, the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast has featured thoughtful, in-depth conversations with leaders, authors, executives, and practitioners who are applying Lean thinking and continuous improvement in the real world.
Hosted by Mark Graban—author of Lean Hospitals, Measures of Success, and The Mistakes That Make Us—the podcast explores Lean as a management system, a leadership philosophy, and a people-centered approach to improvement. Episodes span industries including healthcare, manufacturing, startups, technology, and professional services.
This isn’t a podcast about chasing tools, jargon, or “Lean theater.” Instead, guests share candid stories about what actually works—and what doesn’t—when organizations try to improve. You’ll hear honest reflections on leadership, culture, learning from mistakes, and building systems that help people do their best work.
Whether you’re a Lean practitioner, healthcare leader, executive, coach, or someone new to continuous improvement, each episode offers practical insights you can apply immediately.
Common topics include:
Lean as a management system and cultural transformation—not just a toolbox
Continuous improvement, Kaizen, and problem-solving at every level
Leadership behaviors that enable trust, learning, and sustained change
Psychological safety as a foundation for improvement and innovation
Lessons from the Toyota Production System, Lean Startup, and Deming’s thinking
Real-world stories about mistakes, learning, and resilience
You won’t hear much about “Lean Six Sigma” here. But if you believe improvement starts with respect for people—and that better systems beat blaming individuals—this podcast is for you.
Many episodes feature a special focus on Lean in healthcare, reflecting Mark’s long-standing work with hospitals and health systems to improve patient safety, quality, flow, and staff engagement.
Find all episodes and show notes at www.LeanCast.org.Learn more about Mark and his work at www.LeanBlog.org.Questions or feedback? Email mark@leanblog.org
Hosted by Mark Graban—author of Lean Hospitals, Measures of Success, and The Mistakes That Make Us—the podcast explores Lean as a management system, a leadership philosophy, and a people-centered approach to improvement. Episodes span industries including healthcare, manufacturing, startups, technology, and professional services.
This isn’t a podcast about chasing tools, jargon, or “Lean theater.” Instead, guests share candid stories about what actually works—and what doesn’t—when organizations try to improve. You’ll hear honest reflections on leadership, culture, learning from mistakes, and building systems that help people do their best work.
Whether you’re a Lean practitioner, healthcare leader, executive, coach, or someone new to continuous improvement, each episode offers practical insights you can apply immediately.
Common topics include:
Lean as a management system and cultural transformation—not just a toolbox
Continuous improvement, Kaizen, and problem-solving at every level
Leadership behaviors that enable trust, learning, and sustained change
Psychological safety as a foundation for improvement and innovation
Lessons from the Toyota Production System, Lean Startup, and Deming’s thinking
Real-world stories about mistakes, learning, and resilience
You won’t hear much about “Lean Six Sigma” here. But if you believe improvement starts with respect for people—and that better systems beat blaming individuals—this podcast is for you.
Many episodes feature a special focus on Lean in healthcare, reflecting Mark’s long-standing work with hospitals and health systems to improve patient safety, quality, flow, and staff engagement.
Find all episodes and show notes at www.LeanCast.org.Learn more about Mark and his work at www.LeanBlog.org.Questions or feedback? Email mark@leanblog.org
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jan 3, 2018 • 46min
Ted Toussaint & Sarah Steinberg, #Lean & Innovation in Healthcare
My guests for Episode #295 are Sarah Steinberg of Atrius Health and Ted Toussaint, a healthcare innovation strategist, formerly of Atrius Health. Ted is also a faculty member for Catalysis. Today, we're talking about some innovative work that they led at Atrius, using a variety of modern product development and innovation methods, including Lean, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and more to create a new "Care in Place" model for home-based patient care that helps reduce trips to a clinic or hospital. Their work was featured in this HBR article: "How Atrius Health Is Making the Shift from Volume to Value."
Dec 13, 2017 • 49min
Clay Linkous, Studer Group Principles & #Lean
Joining me for episode #294 is Clay Linkous, an account leader and speaker with Studer Group. He is an accomplished cultural transformation and leadership expert who has synthesized Lean and other improvement methods with Studer Group principles and practices. Today, we'll talk about Clay's career and his purpose and motivations - both for working in healthcare and improving healthcare. We're both firm believers in the combination of Studer and Lean practices, so we're also discussing that as our main topic. I hope you enjoy the discussion!
Nov 29, 2017 • 34min
Billy Taylor, Lean Manufacturing Leadership, Part 1
My guest for Episode #293 of the podcast is a dynamic speaker and manufacturing leader, Billy R. Taylor. I saw him speak a few years ago at a Shingo Prize Conference and I've wanted to get him on the podcast ever since. He's currently the Director of Commercial, Off Highway, and Support Manufacturing North America for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Over the past 20 years, he has risen from "the lowest level of the organization," up through the manufacturing leadership ranks at Goodyear, including time as a Plant Director at facilities in Oklahoma and North Carolina. He's been "engaged in Lean" for over 15 years and he is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Billy has a BS in in Electrical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and an MBA from Baker University. Billy was very giving of his time and we talked for over 75 minutes, so I'm breaking this up into two parts, with Part 2 coming soon. Today, we talk about how he got started with Lean, the shift from tools- and event-based Lean to a culture focus, how to build a sense of ownership, servant leadership, strategy deployment, employee recognition and more.
Nov 9, 2017 • 58min
"Motivational Interviewing for Leadership"
Today, our topic is something that I've really taken an interest in the past two years: "Motivational Interviewing." See my past blog posts on this subject. I think it's a powerful methodology that will help anybody in their Lean transformation efforts... as well as our work engaging anybody in a small improvement. "Motivational Interviewing" or M.I. is defined by Miller and Rollnick (in their seminal book) as a "collaborative conversation for strengthening a person's own motivation and commitment to change." My guests for Episode 292 are the three co-authors of an excellent book, Motivational Interviewing for Leadership: MI-LEAD. They are (pictured from left to right in this order): Jason Wilcox, Director of Education and Connected Care at VA Roseburg Dr. Brian Kersh, Clinical Psychologist at New Mexico VA Health System Dr. Elizabeth Jenkins, Clinical Psychologist/Courtesy Assistant Professor at University of South Florida
Oct 24, 2017 • 44min
Jeff Roussel on the Current #Lean (and P.I.) Landscape
My guest for Episode 291 is my friend and colleague, Jeff Roussel (@jeff_roussel on Twitter). Jeff is the VP of Sales at KaiNexus, a technology company that I have been involved with for over six years. As Jeff will humbly explain in the podcast, he joined our team almost four years ago as an experienced sales leader, not as an expert in Lean or process improvement. But, he's a voracious learner and he probably talks to more organizations about their process improvement efforts - what their aims are and what they're struggling with - than anybody I know. Our main theme for the podcast today is not technology. Our topics include what Jeff is hearing from organizations and trends he hears about. I hope you'll enjoy our conversation, as I did. I hope you'll also join us on Thursday as Jeff presents a free webinar hosted by me and KaiNexus: The Why, How and What of Continuous Improvement
Oct 16, 2017 • 1h 5min
Eric Ries on "The Startup Way"
@EricRies: From #LeanStartup to "The Startup Way" Joining me again for episode 290 is a three-time guest, Eric Ries. When we first talked, in episode 115 six years ago, his New York Times bestselling book The Lean Startup was being published. In 2012, we discussed the impact of Toyota's Taiichi Ohno on his work, in episode 142. This time, we're talking about his new book, The Startup Way. In this episode, Eric talks about how "Lean Startup" concepts came from "Lean" and the Toyota Production System and how Toyota then approached him about applying Lean Startup concepts in the development of a new in-dash electronics system. In recent years, GE and other large companies, in their efforts to be more innovative and entrepreneurial, have adapted these approaches into what Eric calls "The Startup Way." Will modern companies embrace a formal "entrepreneurship" function as they earlier embraced finance and marketing? We'll discuss that and more. Below, you'll find the full audio podcast, a 7-page PDF summary, and a complete transcript. The Startup Way is set for release tomorrow, October 17. Learn more at www.TheStartupWay.co. I had a chance to read the book in advance and enjoyed it very much. I hope you'll also join me at Lean Startup Week, where I'll be a speaker and session facilitator.
Oct 11, 2017 • 1h 7min
#Lean & A Mobile Paramedic Pilot at Geisinger Health *
Episode page
Audio remastered January 2023
My guests for Episode #289 are Kathleen Sharp, MBOE, LSS MBB, now the Director of Optimization at McLeod Health, and David Schoenwetter, D.O., FACEP, a Medical Director at Geisinger Medical Center. They are joining me to talk about the innovative Geisinger Mobile Health Paramedic program that they developed and piloted with Lean thinking throughout. Kathleen and David will discuss why it was important to engage stakeholders in innovation, how they viewed and addressed resistance to change, why it was important to test the idea in practice, and why it was important to measure results. They also discuss their lessons learned and their challenges along the way. This WSJ article has a nice summary of the program: "Paramedics Aren't Just for Emergencies." "In the Geisinger pilot program, mobile health visits can be requested by a patient's primary-care doctor, a cardiology clinic, or after an emergency room or hospital discharge. Patients who frequently visit the ER are offered the option of being seen at home by a paramedic as an alternative to an ER visit and potential hospital admission, especially for conditions that can be treated at home if caught early." I hope you enjoy the episode.
Sep 13, 2017 • 17min
Dean Gruner, MD on ACOs and Healthcare Reform
Joining me again for Episode #288 is Dean Gruner, MD, the recently retired CEO of ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that has long been considered a worldwide leader in the practice of Lean in healthcare. Recently, in Episode #286, Dean shared his reflections on his work and ThedaCare's "Lean journey." Today, the topic is Accountable Care Organizations and other bigger-picture healthcare reform topics. Dean was also previously my guest in Episodes 119 and 144. I'm including a full transcript along with a three-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.
Sep 6, 2017 • 48min
Harry Kenworthy, "Lean Government NOW!"
Joining me today for Episode #287 is another returning guest (see Episode #198), Harry Kenworthy. We're talking about his book, which will be released on Friday, Lean Government NOW! : Increase Service, Capacity and Employee Engagement While Reducing Costs and Wastes. The book is now available for pre-sale on Amazon at $19.95 (until September 7, 2017, at a $5.00 discount from list price). Harry was also a contributor to the book Practicing Lean, which is now available in audiobook format. I've been involved with some "government healthcare" organizations in different countries, but have never delved into other parts of government. I'm glad Harry is doing so! This seems like a big challenge, but an important and necessary one. We're seeing some examples of success with Lean at the local and state levels around the U.S., it seems. I hope we see more. I hope you enjoy our discussion whether you work in government or vote, pay taxes, or use government services (or all of the above!!). I'm including a four-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.
Aug 30, 2017 • 51min
Dean Gruner, MD on ThedaCare's #Lean Journey
My guest for Episode #286 is Dean Gruner, MD, the recently retired CEO of ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that has long been considered a worldwide leader in the practice of Lean in healthcare. See this article about his retirement, where he says "I've gotten more than I've given." Dean was previously my guest in Episodes 119 and 144 and I'm thrilled that he took time out of his retirement to talk with me about his lessons learned as he looks back on how ThedaCare's Lean journey has evolved, including some things he would consider to be missteps and challenges that they used as a springboard to get even better. I will also be releasing a separate episode where Dean talks about their experiences with Accountable Care Organizations (our topic from #144) and other "big picture" healthcare issues of the day. I'm including a full transcript along with a three-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.
