Lean Blog by Mark Graban

What I Tell People Who Want to Write a Book About Lean

Mark Graban — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:29:02 +0000

Twice in the past two weeks, I have talked with people who want to write a book about Lean. Both were early in the process and trying to figure out what they were signing up for. I've had a lot of these conversations over the years. I enjoy doing them and this blog post is not meant to replace future chats. Those conversations tend to cover the same ground: whether the idea is worth a […]

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Larry Culp on Resistance to Lean: Compliance Isn’t Belief

Mark Graban — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 08:14:00 +0000

In early 2025, Eric Veiel asked Larry Culp a question that most Lean deployment articles skip: when you're getting ready to implement one of these programs, is there some hesitation from the workforce? Culp didn't argue with the premise. “Well, I think everybody, once you get to a certain age, right, is not necessarily waking up in the morning looking to change or transform the way they go about work.” That's a CEO conceding that […]

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You Came Back From the Training Ready. Nobody Around You Could Change a Thing.

Mark Graban — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 08:26:00 +0000

You came back with real energy. You'd seen how the work could be. You had notes, a few ideas, maybe a plan you'd already started sketching on the drive home. Then you walked back into the same building, run by the same people who weren't in the room with you, and within a couple of months the energy was gone. You could see the problem perfectly and still couldn't touch it. It may be tempting […]

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When “Human Error” Is the Root Cause, the Investigation Stopped Early

Mark Graban — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 18:42:21 +0000

Tennessee regulators released an eighty-page report this week on the medication error at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville, where four patients scheduled for routine joint replacement were injected in the spine with potassium phosphate instead of an anesthetic. Two are paralyzed. One remains on ECMO. I wrote about the case when it broke and updated that post with what the report found. The report is said to name human error as the primary cause. […]

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The Independent Double Check and the Risk of Human Error

Mark Graban — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:47:01 +0000

A nurse on a telemetry floor had two orders to carry out. Forty milligrams of Lasix, to be given via IV. Two units of insulin lispro, given subcutaneously. At that hospital, every dose of insulin required a second nurse to co-sign, even subcutaneous doses. She scanned the patient. She scanned both vials. She drew up both medications. Then she tapped a colleague on the shoulder. The second nurse checked the patient. She checked the label […]

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Somebody Pulled the Cord and the Chairman of Radiology Showed Up

Mark Graban — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:14:00 +0000

At Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, a nurse named Candice Bena decided a 76-year-old patient needed a new intravenous line. Radiology couldn't install it right away. She was worried about infection, so she called Richard Shannon, who was chairman of medicine. Shannon called the chairman of radiology. Within two hours, the chairman of radiology came down and installed the line himself. The Wall Street Journal reported it at the time. Shannon described the nurse's call […]

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Making It Safe to Admit Mistakes at Work Might Start With Thank You

Mark Graban — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:50:00 +0000

I've been rereading Takehiko Harada's book Management Lessons from Taiichi Ohno. Harada joined Toyota Motor Corporation in 1968 and spent about four decades there, including time as project general manager of the Operations Management Consulting Division, the group Toyota used to spread TPS inside and outside the company. There's a short section near the end about how to make it safe to admit mistakes at work. The advice is more practical than most of what […]

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29 Warning Signs and a Can Opener Bridge

Mark Graban — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:57:00 +0000

I've been photographing warning signs for years. It started as a running joke and turned into a whole category on my site. Signs that say “Be Careful.” Signs that say “Do Not Spill.” Signs that exist because something went wrong and nobody wanted to change anything else. So when I read that Kentucky had 29 warning signs posted around one intersection in Louisville, my first thought was that I need to drive down there and […]

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