Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

The episode's blog post

Leaders and organizations have a choice:

1) cultivate a culture of fear and punishment or

2) a culture of learning and innovation.

That choice significantly affects happiness and performance at all levels within the organization.

A culture of fear and punishment drives mistakes underground. An organization with a culture of fear cannot learn from mistakes because people don't feel safe admitting them.

People who do admit mistakes to their manager aren't more virtuous or courageous; they likely are in circumstances where they are able to feel safe doing so. Instead of telling people to be brave, leaders must help people feel safer.

Those who fail to learn from mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

Read the blog post

In this episode, Mark recounts an unexpected ordeal in an Italian hospital after his mother-in-law broke her arm while on vacation. Faced with difficult choices about surgery and travel, the family navigates a foreign healthcare system. Amid the stress, a seemingly small act of kindness by a hospital staff member leaves a lasting impression, exemplifying universal compassion.

Direct blog post link

It’s not unusual to see individuals get blamed for systemic errors and problems.

Case in point, this article:

Delta Air Flight Attendant Makes Expensive Mistake After Emergency Slide is Accidentally Deployed Shortly After Landing in Dublin

It seems like a fact that the flight attendant deployed the slide. But is the mistake their fault?

To read the article and comment, click here or leanblog.org/audio340.

This is an article that I wrote, published on the Quality Digest website.

It begins: "I can’t count how many times during the past 20 years I’ve heard executives complain that their people aren’t enthusiastically participating in their lean program. Leaders lament that while the company has spent a small fortune to put everybody through continuous improvement training, hardly anybody submits ideas. The problem isn’t their employees; it’s a cultural problem and, therefore, a leadership problem."

Blog Post

I was very excited to learn about an event that is being produced by GE, next Wednesday, September 6th, in New York City. I'm thrilled to have been invited to attend in person, along with other "Lean Influencers," including my friends Katie Anderson and Jamie V. Parker. We will be fortunate to be there in person to share highlights from the event via social media, blog posts, podcasts, and more -- on Wednesday and beyond.

See the LinkedIn Event page:

The Lean Mindset: The Pursuit of Progress

Blog post

From the post:

This is really hard to write, as I was stunned and saddened by the recent passing of a good friend and colleague, Chris Burnham. Word had started to spread on LinkedIn and I feel bad about having to share this news here.

You can read his obituary here:

There will be a celebration of life event on Sunday that I will be fortunate to attend. Chris was, most recently, the Senior Director of Lean Strategy at KaiNexus, a company I have been involved with since 2011. Many of his colleagues will also be there to pay our respects, to honor him, and to support his loved ones.

I say this with all sincerity that Chris was one of my favorite people in the Lean community. I appreciated his positive and thoughtful approach to Lean and to our work. We shared a love of discovering new Bourbons to share and discuss, which then lubricated the social fun and work discussions.

Christopher Burnham Obituary

Blog post

When you do work related to processes, quality, improvement, and learning from mistakes… the universe has ways of testing you (or playing a prank on me). As I share at the end of the post, I failed that test in one way. A big way.

My wife and I had a 3-piece sectional couch that we've recently replaced, so we were looking to donate the old one to a good cause.

Blog post

This is something from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, that I shared on LinkedIn recently.

Here's something I figured out thanks to education in a combination of fields, including Lean management and psychological safety. I wish I had understood this much sooner:

“Speaking up isn't a matter of character or courage–it's driven by culture. People feel safe to share when their leaders and colleagues treat them with respect. Instead of asking people to be brave, leaders must create conditions where people can feel safe.”

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Blog post

This post shares a story I heard at the Michigan Lean Consortium annual conference earlier this week. They've been kind about sharing ideas and doing a book club discussion around my new book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.

During a book signing session at the conference, an attendee, Cori, told me a story that's too good to not pass along. I'll do my best to be true to the details of the story.