
Lean Blog Audio
Lean Blog Audio features Mark Graban reading and expanding on LeanBlog.org posts. Explore real-world lessons on Lean thinking, psychological safety, continuous improvement, and performance metrics like Process Behavior Charts. Learn how leaders in healthcare, manufacturing, and beyond create cultures of learning, reduce fear, and drive better results.
Listen and learn: leanblog.org/audio
Latest episodes

Feb 13, 2017 • 4min
Registration is Open! "Kaizen Live!" at Franciscan
Registration is now open for our "Kaizen Live!" event, where you can visit Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis to see what a "culture of continuous improvement" is like in a way that will help you in creating the same for your organization.

Feb 12, 2017 • 10min
Lessons Ford & the UAW Learned in Japan in 1981 Still Apply
Today's Post in&t;50 Words: I continue sharing documents from the Don Ephlin library archive. What did Ford and the UAW learn when they visited Japan in 1981? Many of the things that made Japanese industry successful are the same things that make organizations successful with Lean today, including in healthcare.
http://www.leanblog.org/audio180

Feb 2, 2017 • 10min
#TBT: My Reflections on Dr. Deming's Notes...
Today's post points to my guest blog post for the W. Edwards Deming Institute: Reflections on Dr. Deming's Hospital Notes - What Has Changed Since 1990? Why do the same problems that Dr. Deming experienced as a patient 30 years ago still happen so often today?
http://www.leanblog.org/audio179

Jan 30, 2017 • 10min
The Heroism of Incremental CarIe & Incremental Improvement
This post in&t;50 words: Are there parallels between medicine and organizations when we look at the tension between heroism and the sometimes boring work of preventing problems and improving things? I comment on an article...
http://www.leanblog.org/audio178

Jan 29, 2017 • 8min
Lean as Redesign and Continuous Improvement,
Lean sometimes gets, I think, an unfair rap that it's only a method for incremental improvement. See this article, from the NEJM website, for example: "Limits of Lean -- Transformative Care Redesign Must Go Beyond Typical Lean-Based Improvements."
http://www.leanblog.org/audio177

Jan 25, 2017 • 8min
Improving Safety & Quality Matters, but...
http://www.leanblog.org/audio176
I saw this article a few days ago in one of the larger healthcare industry trade publications:How One Woman Saved IU Health $54 Million
The headline is misleading, as addressed in the opening sentence / sub-headline of the story (via HealthLeaders):
"With a little help from about 10,000 of her friends and colleagues, the head of Indiana University Health's office of transformation leanedin to cut waste and encourage value, one project at a time."
That's more like it and more likely... Lean is a team effort that, ideally, engages everybody... so it's not surprising to hear about 10,000 participants and the need to share that credit.
Like almost every health system, IU Health faced financial pressures. I'll give their board credit for pushing for a method other than traditional layoff-based "cost cutting."
"IU Health had already tried some performance improvement projects, but they were scattershot and not based on a unified philosophy. In order to improve results and scalethe improvement process, the board challenged then-CEO Dan Evans to deploy a system-wide value-improvement tool that could enlist all employees."

Jan 19, 2017 • 5min
You Don't Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement by...
When I talk to organizations about Kaizen, or continuous improvement, there's far too much self-defeating talk, where people say things like:"We're not going to try this Kaizen process because our culture isn't ready yet."
That's not only self-defeating, it's self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't work on continuous improvement, you'll never have a culture of continuous improvement.
http://www.leanblog.org/audio175

Jan 17, 2017 • 7min
2nd Post for the Deming Institute Blog
Yesterday, the W. Edwards Deming Institute published the second in my series of three posts for them: "The Failure of "The Livonia Philosophy" at my GM Plant." Read more...
http://www.leanblog.org/audio174

Jan 16, 2017 • 5min
Lean is Not Just Process Improvement
In my travels, I often meet people or visit organizations that say something like:"We're doing Lean... we just call it Process Improvement."
They have a "Process Improvement" (PI) department, or they call it "Continuous Process Improvement" (CPI). They have people in roles like "Process Improvement Facilitators."
While process improvement is great, in using a term like that,there's perhaps a risk that they miss the full and complete essence of Lean and, therefore, don't get the results that they might hope for.

Jan 15, 2017 • 3min
Contest: Win a Set of #Lean & Patient Safety Books
http://www.leanblog.org/audio172
StoreSMART is partnering with me on this contest where you can win one of four sets of books, along with a selection of sample supplies that can help you with 5S, visual management, and other Lean methods.By January 31, 2017, we'll select four winners who will each get a set that includes:
Lean Hospitals, 3rd Edition (signed by Mark Graban)
Work That Makes Sense (signed by Gwendolyn Galsworth)
The Batz Guide for Bedside Advocacy (a great patient safety guidebook)
One winner's package will includethe book Visual Workplace Visual Thinking instead of Work That Makes Sense.