Calling Someone a "Process Coach" Doesn't Make Them One
A title change is not a culture change. In this episode, Mark Graban draws on his early experience at GM in the mid-1990s — where "foreman" became "team coordinator" overnight without anything else ch...
19 Touko 13min
Still Learning: A Live Event with Elisabeth Swan on May 7
Blog post with linksThree years ago, The Mistakes That Make Us came out. Around the same time, Elisabeth Swan published Picture Yourself a Leader. Both books' third birthdays felt like a decent reason...
4 Touko 2min
Watch the Lean Hospitals Coach in Action -- Live, Unscripted, With Your Questions
Most AI tools answer your question with a 500-word essay full of numbered steps. You nod, close the tab, and carry on doing what you were already doing. The Lean Hospitals Coach is built around the op...
8 Maalis 8min
What a Brandi Carlile Concert Teaches About Practicing Continuous Improvement
Read the blog postTL;DR: A sound check, live song requests, and a naming regret — what watching Brandi Carlile perform taught me about specific problem-solving, vulnerability, and continuous improveme...
27 Helmi 15min
What Deming and Fujio Cho Agreed On: Stop Demotivating People
The blog postTL;DR: Deming and Toyota's Fujio Cho asked the same uncomfortable question: why do management systems destroy motivation in people who started out wanting to do good work? The answer poin...
26 Helmi 15min
Create Your Own Lean System — But Don’t Lose Sight of These Three Things
Read the blog postTL;DR: In a 1993 speech, Toyota leader Fujio Cho said organizations can create their own Lean systems, but success depends on three principles: leaders going to the gemba, asking “wh...
24 Helmi 15min
Building an AI Chat Assistant From My Lean Hospitals Book
The blog postWhat if a book could become an interactive coach instead of a static reference?In this episode, Mark Graban shares a behind-the-scenes look at his experiment turning the award-winning boo...
19 Helmi 15min
Inside the 1987 NUMMI Management Practices Executive Summary: Why Leadership Mattered More Than Lean Tools
The blog postIn this episode, I explore the 1987 NUMMI Management Practices Executive Summary — a confidential General Motors report that documented why the joint venture between GM and Toyota was suc...
13 Helmi 13min
